Why Does Kevin Durant Get a Pass for Racist, Homophobic Comments?

updated 53 Comments

Videos by OutKick

 

UPDATE: Brooklyn Nets’ star Kevin Durant has been fined $50,000 by the NBA for his exchange on Instagram with actor Michael Rapaport. 

In March, Meyers Leonard, an average player for the Miami Heat, was fined $50,000 and suspended from all basketball activities for one week because he had uttered an anti-Semitic slur while playing a video game. It appears Kevin Durant, one of the most well-known athletes in the country, will face no discipline after aggressively sending racist and homophobic Twitter messages to Michael Rapaport.

Leonard issued an apology that was either rejected or ignored, but Durant’s insincere apology is good enough for the NBA and the media. Why is that? What’s the difference? What Leonard said was wrong, but so were these threats from Durant:

“Pale pasty cum guzzling bitch.” Oh.

Anyone who has read my work knows I abhor cancel culture. However, I view hypocrisy and double standards as equally threatening to our society. The sports world has embraced cancel culture as aggressively and arbitrarily as Hollywood.

Sports leagues and reporters claim they have implemented a zero-tolerance policy on racial slurs. If so, then the NBA and its media either missed Durant mocking Rapaport because of his skin color or this policy must only apply to white athletes.

NASCAR star Kyle Larson, who is half Asian, was fired by Chip Ganassi Racing last summer for using a racial slur during a live-streamed virtual race. Seven months later, Hendrick Motorsports hired him to return to the NASCAR circuit. However, immediately following the slur incident, Larson lost nearly every one of his sponsors. I guess he should have said “pale pasty cum guzzling bitch” instead.

Just two months ago, Justin Thomas, a white golfer, lost life-changing money after he was caught using a homophobic slur on the course. A list of business partners disassociated with Thomas, including his main partner, Ralph Lauren.

Thomas was viewed as a “disgraced” homophobe. Hmm, it appears, however, that saying “all you do is cock suck other men” doesn’t make someone a “disgraced” homophobe, at least when Kevin Durant says it to a white guy.

Many athletes have been routinely ridiculed and forced to repeat apologies when Twitter users grossly dig up their old tweets to try and ruin them in the present day. See the miserable accounts who dug up some offensive tweets Josh Allen sent as a teenager during the NFL Draft. Allen was crushed for racial tweets he sent almost ten years ago, yet Durant’s recent tweets receive only mild coverage. Allen was forced to take more responsibility for his actions as a kid than Durant has had to take as a grown man.

There are countless other examples of professional sports displaying the worst type of double standards. Drew Brees is still apologizing for supporting the flag. Some even told him to retire for doing so. In the world of sports, a white player respecting the flag is viewed as more problematic than a black player calling a white actor a “pale pasty cum guzzling bitch.”

Oh, and here, anyone see a difference?

If Luka Doncic had sent Michael B. Jordan racial and homophobic DMs, would a fake, weak apology suffice? A black player called this same Luka Doncic a “bitch ass white boy” on the court, and the media just laughed.

Punishments are arbitrary. They are almost never about what has been said or done. They’re about who said what to whom, with skin color as the ultimate factor in determining guilt. This trend has been accepted in nearly every industry.

I’m not rooting for Kevin Durant to be suspended, scolded by the media, forced to apologize until he retires, or lose out on business relationships — but similar slurs uttered by white players have resulted in these kinds of consequences. Why is that? Are we supposed to just ignore it this time? I guess so. The NBA is.

Follow Bobby Burack on Twittter.

Kevin DurantMichael Rapaport

Written by Bobby Burack

Bobby Burack is a writer for OutKick where he reports and analyzes the latest topics in media, culture, sports, and politics..

Burack has become a prominent voice in media and has been featured on several shows across OutKick and industry related podcasts and radio stations.

53 Comments

Leave a Reply

  4. how in the world is any of what Durant said racist or homophobic?

    Every time you write 1 of these articles, you just show that you are the exact thing you complain the left is, you unaware dumbfuck (lol). It is hilarious.

    Durant is an idiot, said stupid shit to another idiot in a private setting, and then the other idiot aired the trash talk. Who gives a shit. It is not racist. It is not homophobic. It is just the internet.

    Jesus Christ this shit is out of hand. You “woke” righties embarrass me every bit as much as the “woke” lefties.

  6. Part of modern day reparations stipulate that the 13% are not held accountable for their actions in the same manner that the other 87% are. It is what it is.

    You can look to Joy Reid and her remarks on MSNBC or even Nick Cannon to see this double standard being applied as well.

  8. it took Magic and Bird, then Jordan, to build up the NBA from the depths at the end of the 70’s and into the early 80’s.

    its only taken Lebron and Durant a few years to crash the league. and it is crashing.

    fuck Durant. i won’t be watching this NBA until they get a new leader that actually likes fans.

    • Don’t waste too much time waiting for that to happen Chris…..

      The game has been ruined and is horrible to watch,
      The players are nothing but spoiled juveniles.
      The league has sold its soul to the devil in China.

      Unfortunately the other major sports leagues and the Olympics are following suit.

      • Agreed 100%. The NBA is going the way of MTV. The league is dead to anyone with half a brain cell. As for Durant’s comments, Rappaport should be able to call him “a sensitive dumb ass black bitch”. They’re just words. The problem is that Durant can get away with those words cause he’s black and in a protected class.

        A governor in Vermont is prioritizing black people over anyone else to get the vaccine. Now that is racist and scary. Let two “grownups” call themselves whatever names they want.

  9. Bobby still has not learned what the definition of a phobia is I have directed him to a dictionary but I guess he is too lazy to educate himself just because you disagree with a certain lifestyle does not mean you have a phobia. You would think someone writing a column would want to be accurate and not just PC guess not.

  11. @dragon – Tim Cook is Gay. He is pale too. Oh he runs the largest corporation in the world, that doesn’t make electric cars.

    if Durant had a private back and forth calling Tim Cook the names he called Rapaport, would Tim Cook just let it go?

    btw Durant’s comments are broadcast around the world now. what does durant think about tiny chinese people? pasty white? or a different color?

    https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2021/04/02/apple-ceo-tim-cook-joins-corporate-chorus-attacking-georgia-voting-law/

    • lmao

      this is right out of the lefty playbook

      fake outrage at shit people say on the internet

      you’ll complain about Greta Thunberg and AOC but then point and say, “omg Kevin Durant told a white guy to suck a penis!”

      lololololol

      Jesus Fuck this country is FUCKEEEEDDDDDDD

      everyone is retarded

    • omg who cares

      they didn’t punish Durant for telling some dipshit to suck a dick

      lets compare it to everyone else and be outraged !

      2021 right wing ! So DIFFERENT than the woke lefties ! ahahha ok, not

  14. Dragon is just a Liberal troll who is a wannabe keyboard tough guy. Just ignore his ignorance and uneducated, uniformed sheeple speak. I’d be willing to bet he goes on FoxNews sites also and trolls there as well. Outkick does thank you though for subscribing!!

      • Dragon you’re right in that what he said was nothing more than locker room trash talk. But the article is more about the double standard when other athletes lose $ for doing the same, and I for one appreciate him pointing it out. Those on the right just want fairness all around, regardless of skin color

  17. This is the first thread of Comments on an Outkick story that has me questioning the intelligence of multiple readers rather than the occasional troll. Some of you folks never have heard of nuance? Pointing out hypocrisy and double standards? That’s what this is about. The complaints about Durant are not so much about what he said, they’re about … oh fuck, if we need to explain it to you, you’re incapable of processing that anyway.

  18. Double standards should be highlighted even if it is dumb locker room trash talk. The truth is, a good portion of the black athletes in the NBA hate whites, Jews, and gays. Why any white persona with half a brain cell supports this league is beyond me. Not to mention the product is just crap to watch.

    I’d rather the media focuses on the double standards with blacks committing awful crimes that barely make the news. Too bad there are very few journalists left. Instead we are left with paid off cowards who are afraid to lose their jobs.

  19. Sorry to OK, with 24hr news/sports cycles there isn’t enough actual news or sports to talk about. This is what was gonna happen eventually. The non-stop breaking down of what people say in private (there is no privacy) and public. Waiting for the day when someone admits how people really talk versus politically correct crap they want you to hear. Locker room settings, bars, frat houses, sidelines- no one is talking about the need for gender-less bathrooms.

  20. Many of you criticizing Bobby for the article I believe are missing the point. It isn’t that Durant should be cancelled. The point is that the act of canceling (idiotic and un American as it is) isn’t applied evenly across political lines.

  23. # 1 No answer is needed for a rhetorical question!!

    # 2 For the record, I have read Jason Whitlock’s comments regarding his divestiture from Outkick. Maybe I have missed OK’s response. If so, please direct me to it. If not, please enlighten me!

Leave a Reply