I dunno I dislike Kyrie for how things went down here and some of the dumb stuff he says but the guy has literally put his money where his mouth is when it comes to charity and helping people. He may be narcissistic and a horses ass when he speaks sometimes but in no way is he a shitty human being.
That's a fair statement, but remember that everything is degrees. For some people, simply lying to/misleading others makes you a shitty person. He knows he is despised for the way he left Boston, the way he quit on the team on court, he ducked the booing by not playing when the Nets showed up in Boston. To then use (as Jaylen hinted at) the national conflict of racism to shield oneself from the booing is despicable. He isn't much different from the schmuck in the 80's who tried to blame his own murder of his wife on the black community. They both tried to leverage race relations in the city for their own gain. It's not unreasonable to hold the view IMO, that act makes him a shitty person - YMMV of course.
Um . . . wut? This is a completely insane comparison. Kyrie Irving is not in any sane universe "not much different" than Charles Stewart.
I am reminded of the line spoken by Horlick Minton in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle:
They both manipulated race relations for their own agenda. Sometimes it can be that simple. Sorry if you are offended by that. I'd feel differently if Irving said "this specific racial thing happened to me there, so I hope the crowd keeps it to basketball", but he didn't. He just stoked the racial tension in/on Boston to shield himself from being booed. Anyone who manipulates racial conflict while laughing as he does it, is a schmuck. I'd give you more examples, but it might offend you further.
You made a bad comparison between a self-invovled basketball player who hasn't hurt anyone and a murderer. It's a terrible comparison.
This is deranged fandom at its worst.
I don’t want to spin this off in a completely different direction and this seems like a random comparison but...
Your opinion. Shared by others obviously. I'm ok with that.
You said a guy who’s greatest crime is being a self centered professional athlete is “not much different” than a guy who murdered his pregnant wife and then tried to manipulate the police into blaming that on an innocent black man. They are not remotely the same.
This "gotcha" stuff is so tiresome. Arguing over the semantics of his phrasing is fucking dumb. I'm not trying to speak for retractableroof, but I think he is well aware Kyrie is not as bad as a dude that murdered his wife.
yes, I meant that - professionally his biggest crime is the way the poster I replied to described it - narcistic/horses ass. No axe to grind there, think he's a self-centered schmuck. On the topic of manipulating race, sorry - that's a binary issue to me. Either you are manipulating race or you are not. He is, the murderer in the 80s did... others do to make a buck. They are all the same - they harm the people involved that are dealing with real issues of race on an every day basis. I'm not backing down. I'm not comparing him to a murderer (because otherwise I wouldn't stop at 'schmuck') as a person or in character, but in as much as they both manipulated race - yep, same category.
Well, then maybe he shouldn’t have made that exact comparison.
Charles Stewart knew that racial tension being what it was in Boston, that as a white guy with a white wife, that if he drove to a black neighborhood and shot and killed his wife and blamed it on a black guy, that the Boston police would go nuts trying to find the alleged assailant. And in fact that is exactly what happened. The police used "stop and frisk" tactics to harass black men in the neighborhood, and ultimately arrested a guy and were ready to prosecute him for the crime before Stewart's brother caved and the whole thing fell apart. Stewart's entire "tactic", to the extent that you can call it this, was a lie, and relied on Boston cops falling for false racist tropes related to black men murdering innocent white women.
That's great, but Kyrie never said the latter - you're making that up. He said, in essence - if they boo me it's because they are racist, we all know Boston has a race problem.
I mean you totally ignore the rest of my post, but whatever. Kyrie Irving is totally just like a guy who killed pregnant his wife and blamed it on a black guy.
Yeah, they are both manipulating racial tensions to suit a personal agenda. In that limited context, they are indeed alike.
To be fair, that was going to be my response as well. Kyrie was specifically asked a handful of monthes ago if he had experienced racism in Boston, and he said no. Then a few days ago when asked he said, "hes not the only one that can attest to it", but gave no example, and simply fell back onto, "it is what it is" and, "everyone knows it". Imagine if people tried to defend their stance here with, "meh, everyone knows it"?
I agree with this, I don’t think this was some thought out maneuver on his part. Fortunately last night was a nothingburger in terms of the fan response to Kyrie, and I suspect tomorrow will be the same.
I'd almost buy in, except the laughing, grinning as he said it. IMO, he knew what he was saying, he knew the significance of it.
What do you mean by not thought out? Like he wasn’t thinking about it the night before? Or do you mean he was just speaking in stream of consciousness as he got asked the question?
I guess it's good in a way that this has happened in two other arenas in the past week -- there's a few knuckleheads in every crowd.
Yup, it’s all over Twitter and now about to be featured on the TNT halftime report of the Mavs/Clips game. Another hit for the city of Boston’s rep.
So why does Philly get a pass? Or does deliberately dumping food on Westbrook not count for some reason?
Hopefully that guy got it from the crowd. What a fucking dumb move after everything.
Where did I ever say Philly gets a pass? Over the past month we’ve had Kyrie and Tristan go public about being subject to racial taunts in Boston......and now a white fan throws a bottle of water at Kyrie. I wasn’t even discussing Philly.....why would I when the topic was in Boston?
Because the same stuff is happening in other arenas. It's not at all unique to Boston. It was a white fan that assaulted Westbrook. If anything, it's getting worse in other cities.
This isn’t a relative game. There is just good and bad, who cares if other fans are also awful.
I was responding to a post that implied Boston's rep was getting a far bigger hit than Philly's. I wasn't the one playing the relative game.
Right but it wasn’t coming on top of two NBA players saying their have been racially tainted in those arenas. This is very unique to Boston.
LOL ok. So which NBA players stated they were racially taunted this week in Philly and Utah just prior to these attacks? I’ll wait.
You are avoiding my question. Which NBA players claimed they were racially taunted in Philly and Utah days before the attack? You are claiming these incidents are the same.
There have been documented cases of NBA players being subject to racial epithets in other cities; google is your friend. Kyrie is the one that decided to single out Boston for his own purposes.
Philly had to deal with the usual gamut of "Throwing Snowballs at Santa" and other predictable, lazy and eye-rolling takes. But really nothing more and certainly nothing damaging long-term.
