Joe Kinsey
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- On Wednesday, Jewish NFL wide receiver Julian Edelman posted a letter to Meyers Leonard after Leonard made a Jewish slur while playing a video game. The incident became a huge story and resulted in the Heat announcing Leonard would be away from the team indefinitely.
“An open letter to Meyers Leonard,” Edelman stated on Instagram.
“So we’ve never met, I hope we can one day soon. I’m sure you’ve been getting lots of criticism for what you said. Not trying to add to that, I just want to offer some perspective.
“I get the sense that you didn’t use that word out of hate, more out of ignorance. Most likely, you weren’t trying to hurt anyone or even profile Jews in your comment. That’s what makes it so destructive. When someone intends to be hateful, it’s usually met with great resistance. Casual ignorance is harder to combat and has greater reach, especially when you command great influence. Hate is like a virus. Even accidentally, it can rapidly spread. I’m down in Miami fairly often. Let’s do a Shabbat dinner with some friends I’ll show you a fun time.
“JE.”
Leonard, who is away from the team anyway while recovering from shoulder surgery, found out from his employer that he’ll be out indefinitely over this incident.
“The Miami Heat vehemently condemns the use of any form of hate speech,” the team said in a statement.
“The words used by Meyers Leonard were wrong and we will not tolerate hateful language from anyone associated with our franchise. To hear it from a Miami Heat player is especially disappointing and hurtful to all those who work here, as well as the larger South Florida, Miami Heat and NBA communities. Meyers Leonard will be away from the team indefinitely. The Miami Heat will cooperate with the NBA while it conducts its investigation.”
And there you have it. Julian Edelman creates a possible solution to a problem. Now it’s up to Leonard whether he wants to sit down on a Friday night to have a meal.
Meyers Leonard says racial slurs while playing CoD pic.twitter.com/WHwUnbV0pR
— Main Team (@MainTeamSports) March 9, 2021
“Most likely, you weren’t trying to hurt anyone or even profile Jews in your comment. That’s what makes it so destructive. When someone intends to be hateful, it’s usually met with great resistance. Casual ignorance is harder to combat and has greater reach, especially when you command great influence.”
This is the sh!t that really bothers me. This is the same nonsense as ‘silence is violence’. Intent absolutely DOES matter, and the idea that he’s not being ‘met with great resistance’ is demonstrably wrong, as he’s currently suspended indefinitely and the story has dominated the various crawls on every sports channel. I think Julian Edelman’s heart is in the right place, but I really don’t like his wording; it has strong shades of Woke-Aid.
I can’t disagree. I hate this stuff. It’s so insincere, self-righteous, and condescending. If Edleman REALLY cared about this guy he would get his number and call him personally. This is for self-promotion obviously. Let’s improve our intersectionality victimhood score with the woke machine so we’re more relevant. Yay! This practice is so unbelievably juvenile and flat out silly. It minimizes the actual issue by elevating the people involved as the main focus instead.
Exactly. Edelman could have reached out to this guy directly. Instead he wants to put on social media to earn woke accolades. Incredibly insincere.
It’s called free speech something we used to have
Just remember…while the economy tanks, kids are committing suicide, divorce, out of wedlock kids and broken families are still at a 50% clip, human trafficking and pedophilia are still a large problem….the minute you say a slur the hammer comes down because racism is the worst crime anyone can committ.
I realize I’m old, but we grew up in an age where names of all kinds, including but not limited to, racial slurs and insults flew around the playground like hornets and nobody was offended. It was part of the gamesmanship. We were literally taught the old “Sticks and Stones” yarn and the direct purpose was to train us to not be offended by being called names. Now, people are brainwashed to feel if someone uses a “slur” or calls someone a name, they need to cuddle a comfort dog and suck on their binky until Dr. Drew can arrive and talk you off the ledge.
In Texas, we played a game called “Smear the Queer”, where a football was thrown up in a crowd of kids and once the ball was fought for and either caught or picked up, you got about a 3 step head start and every other kid involved would gang up and chase tackle the kid with the ball. Then, once the dust settled, the tackled kid would be called a queer by someone in the pile, get up, throw the ball back up high into the air and it would start all over again. It was sort of a Red Dye #5 fueled rugby-style free for all and it was a blast to play.
The only times I remember anyone being offended were when names were thrown out in anger or to be hurtful. You didn’t call someone a “cracker” in an argument and you never called a girl fat or ugly. If we were playing, nothing was off limits and we all understood the difference. Myers Leonard was calling a fictional character in a video game a name and now he wears the scarlet letter of “racist”. Calling a fictional character a name when gaming with a friend and he’s branded for life. Wokeness is jokeness.
This is right on. I have an Eastern European name which to the casual ear may sound Polish, though it is not. I was called “Pollack” for years, insinuating that I was not only Polish, but dumb too (which may be true, actually). But you suck it up and move on. No one can force you to believe anything about yourself, that you yourself choose not to believe. Victimhood is a choice.
And I remember the game to which you refer, it was pretty much universal. Although the nagging question I have to this day is not about the oppression inherent in the name of that game, but why in the hell any of us ever picked up that football, knowing what was coming!
I played that game a lot as a kid many years ago. We simply called it “Tackle the man with the ball”. I always felt that if I could stave off my friends trying to tackle me down as long as possible then it made me tougher than they were. Macho game but fun as hell.
Also, I had a long time baseball coach and PE teacher who used to call all the kids (boys) slurs depending on their ethnicity. I was a dumb Irishman, Italians were Spaghetti Benders, Poles were Pollacks, etc. We just laughed it off, thinking he was funny as hell. Lot different today.
It WAS funny. The modern-day diversity mantra is “our differences are our strength!” which, as they mean it, is bullshit. But also, god help you if you point out any actual differences.
Seems like he struggled for the word and probably meant to say “kraut”, but couldn’t access the word, Either way, I wonder the level of outrage if he had said Kraut? Still racist, but different scenario, hmmmm…
Yawwwwnnnnnn.