NEW YORK — After the backlash he faced for posting a documentary laced with heavily antisemitic rhetoric on his social media channels, Nets’ star Kyrie Irving said he’s not standing down from his beliefs — and that those beliefs are not intended to demean the Jewish community but are part of a quest to further understand his own heritage.
“I cannot be antisemitic,” Irving said after Nets Practice at the HSS Training Facility in Industry City on Thursday, “if I know where I come from.”
NBA commissioner Adam Silver issued a statement Thursday morning displaying dissatisfaction with Irving, who also released a statement taking responsibility for his actions but failed to use the words “sorry” or “apologize.”
Irving did not use those words when addressing reporters, either. Instead, he reiterated that he “takes full responsibility,” that he “didn’t mean any harm,” and said he’s “not the one who made the documentary.”
“Just because I post a documentary doesn’t mean I’m antisemitic, and it doesn’t mean I’m automatically standing with everyone that’s believing it,” he said. “I’m glad that I can stand on the truth because I’m not afraid of these mics, these cameras. I used to be. [But I’m] looking everyone in the eye and telling you the truth: That I’m proud of who I am and any label that you put on me I’m able to dismiss because I study.”
A reporter asked Irving if he was surprised that posting the link to ‘Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America’ on his social channels hurt the Jewish community.
His response took three minutes.
“I think I can ask a better question, which is: Where were you when I was a kid figuring out that 300 million of my ancestors are buried in America?” Irving asked. “Where were you guys asking those same questions when I was a kid learning about the traumatic events of my familial history and what I’m proud to come from, and why I’m proud to stand here?
“And why — when I repeat myself that I’m not going to stand down — it has nothing to do with dismissing any other race or group of people. I’m just proud of my heritage and what we’ve been through. And the fact that this has pinned me against the Jewish community and I’m here answering questions on whether or not I’m sorry or not for something I didn’t create and it’s something I shared and I’m telling everybody I’m taking responsibility, then that’s where I sit.”
“These same questions that you guys ask, me dealing with it as being a melanated pigmented person, all around the world and dealing with racial biases against my skin color, [people] demeaning me because of my religious beliefs. And I’m still sitting in this seat standing. So I take my full responsibility again, I repeat it, for posting something on my Instagram or Twitter that may have had some unfortunate falsehoods in it.
“But I also am a human being that’s 30 years old and I’ve been growing up in a country that’s told me that I wasn’t worth anything, and [that] I come from a slave class, and [that] I come from a people that are meant to be treated the way we’ve been treated every day. So I’m not here to compare anyone’s atrocities or tragic events that their families have dealt with [over] generations of time. I’m just here to continue to expose things that our world continues to put in darkness.
“I’m a light, I’m a beacon of light. It’s what I’m here to do.”
Irving dispelled the idea that he doesn’t believe the Holocaust happened.
“Those falsehoods are unfortunate, and it’s not that I don’t believe in the Holocaust. I never said that. Never ever have said it. It has not come out of my mouth. I never tweeted it. I never liked anything like it,” he said. “So the Holocaust in itself is an event that means something to a large group of people that suffered something that could have been avoided. No one said we had to practice racism. No one said we had to treat each other like garbage.”
What has become the norm in his conversations following the fallout from his social media post, Irving then shifted the narrative back to his African heritage.
“No one said that I had to stand here today and understand that many people that come from generations 60 years ago, four years ago, enslaved some of my ancestors,” he said. “Still, spiritually, mentally and emotionally and it’s still going on. And you guys are asking me, respectfully, to speak on something that was a documentary that I had nothing to do with. I didn’t make it. So just please keep that same energy when you guys are addressing me.”
Irving also doubled down that he is not antisemitic.
“Again, I’m going to repeat. I don’t know how the label becomes justified because you guys ask me the same questions over and over again,” he said. “But this is not going to turn into a spin-around cycle, questions upon questions. I told you guys how I felt. I respect all walks of life and embrace all walks of life. That’s where I sit.”
