Amazon Gets A Pass While Kyrie Irving Gets Buried For 'Hebrews to Negroes'

The Brooklyn Nets suspended guard Kyrie Irving without pay and for at least five games for tweeting out an Amazon link last week to the film, "Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America." The film is based on the 2015 book of the same name that shares ideas aligned with Black Hebrew Israelites.

The Nets waited six days to punish Irving for posting a sentence-less tweet. Pressure from both the sports and news media forced the team's hand. The media demanded Irving's suspension and apology.

But notice where the press has applied no such pressure -- toward the company behind the link Irving shared. Amazon continues to profit from the film and book as outrage over Irving ensues.

The ESPN reporter, named Nick Friedell, who chastised Irving in a press conference on Saturday accused Irving of giving light to a film that stokes hate toward Jewish people.“First Take” host Molly Qerim subsequently said it’s “never okay” to share a film complimentary to Adolf Hitler.

Yet here's Amazon enabling users to share, consume, and revere the beliefs in which Irving's critics call dangerously anti-Semitic.

One can purchase the "Hebrews to Negroes" series today, including two titles that rank among Amazon's best sellers.

Amazon selling Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America."

Former NBA player Jay Williams is the only notable media member to thus far question the disparate coverage between Irving's tweet and Amazon's sales of the film.

“Where is that same attention and energy for the platform that is promoting it and profiting off of it,” Williams asked Wednesday on ESPN. “I don’t hear any of that talk around Jeff Bezos and Amazon. I hear everybody skewing their anger towards Kyrie for taking a picture of it and tweeting about it.”

“Why is it on a major platform? Why is a major platform amplifying it?” Williams continued. “Kyrie amplified it to 14.7 million people, but the platform is profiting and promoting it to billions of people -- Kyrie Irving deserves a lot of heat, then put heat towards something where it deserves it too, and that’s on the platform. And I feel like that whole thing is being missed here."

Irving's interest in the film cost him his paycheck, part of his season, and perhaps future employment. Meanwhile, the outrage crowd has dismissed Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos for capitalizing on and proliferating what the critics of Irving deem a threatening piece of anti-Semitic literature.

And still, some would declare Irving's punishments as inefficient. On Friday, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough demanded Irving's business partners sever ties with the basketball player immediately.

“Nike is another example, like the NBA before yesterday, they believe in social justice, just not for Jews,” Scarborough said.

There you have an influential television pundit daring a major corporation to blacklist an individual to prove it does not condone anti-Semitism.

Last week, OutKick warned of increased pressure on Big Business to ostracize those the media found guilty of thought crimes.

We likened the throttling of Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, for his wrongthink to the advent of internet censorship. We warned that a movement so effective -- Ye can no longer sell his clothing line in conjunction with corporate retailers -- would continue to escalate from there. Particularly, we explained how politically motivated outrage facilitators control corporate response:

"Corporate leaders are inherently cowardly and reactionary. They answer to outrage. And because one side of the political aisle controls public outrage, they answer to one ideology.
Big Business torpedoed Ye amid an outcry from influential figures in media and entertainment. Yet this same group showed no such intolerance to anti-Semitism when Squad members and Democratic congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib spewed derogatory remarks about Israel and Jews. Or when MSNBC host Joy Reid posted blatantly anti-semitic statements to her blog.

Lo and behold we have MSNBC and ESPN demanding the dissociation of Kyrie Irving, while they don't utter a word about Bezos. See, politically motivated and disparate outrage

Does Joe Scarborough think Nike should unlist its products from Amazon to prove its stance against anti-Semitism?

Does ESPN think the NBA should pull out of broadcast negotiations with Amazon for not apologizing for its association with the title?

Or do those rules just apply to Kyrie Irving, an outspoken critic of the government vaccine mandate?

Kyrie Irving suspended.

The response to Kyrie Irving's tweet exposed those in power as much as it did Irving.

Nets owner Joe Tsai used the tweet to praise himself as a "man of faith" who detests "all hate based on race, ethnicity, and religion." Yet Tsai continues to increase his wealth by disputing technologies in the western region of China, Xinjiang, where the communist government commits genocide against Uyghur Muslims. How is that for hypocrisy?

The Nets decided not to suspend Irving until management could no longer withstand the pressure. The team deemed Irving "unfit" to save its own image a full week later.

The media proved itself again to be stooges for a ruling class. They advocate for the dismantling of Kyrie Irving's career while they deflect blame away from Amazon.

Bezos now plans to bid for ownership of the Washington Commanders with the money he amassed from selling books like "Hebrews to Negroes." But as the press would say, that is okay.

As Fox News host Tucker Carlson told OutKick in 2021, the media protects no one as perpetually as Jeff Bezos. 

"He is China’s biggest retailer. I mean, he’s really changed our country. And yet, there’s no scrutiny on Jeff Bezos. It’s all, you know, “What a great guy,” and “Jeff Bezos is a genius.” We suck up to power, and we hurt those below us. I can’t think of anything more dishonorable than that.

"I just can’t overstate how disgusted I am, not simply by the details of the lying of the medium, but disgusted by the emphasis. The media is basically Praetorian Guard for the ruling class, the bodyguards for Jeff Bezos. That’s the opposite of what we should have."

The leading retail corporation in the world selling titles that spread the beliefs of Black Hebrew Israelite extremists ought to be more worrisome to supposed fighters of hate speech than a basketball player finding a film's context indulging.

But, of course, it's not