NBA star Kyrie Irving tweeted a link to an anti-Semitic “documentary” Friday night, drawing condemnation from both his team and its owner.
Just prior to the Brooklyn Nets’ loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday, Irving shared on Twitter a link to the film, which is streaming on Amazon Prime.
— Hélà (@KyrieIrving) October 27, 2022
Joe Tsai, the owner of the Nets, condemned his star shooting guard’s tweet promoting the film Hebrew to Negroes: Wake Up Black America. “I’m disappointed that Kyrie appears to support a film based on a book full of anti-semitic disinformation. I want to sit down and make sure he understands this is hurtful to all of us, and as a man of faith, it is wrong to promote hate based on race, ethnicity or religion.”
Tsai’s comments came after the team issued a collective statement strongly condemning Irving for the tweet. “We believe that in these situations, our first action must be open, honest dialogue. We thank those, including the ADL (Anti-Defamation League), who have been supportive during this time,” the Nets said Friday.
The documentary is based on a 2015 book of the same name. It advocates many of the central conspiratorial and anti-Semitic tenets of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, which believes black people are the true descendants of the biblical Israelites. The sourcebook also heavily quotes the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a hoax text originating in Tsarist Russia which claimed a Jewish conspiracy controls world markets and media.
Irving’s tweet comes on the heels of artist Kanye West’s making similarly anti-Semitic remarks on social media in recent weeks. The rapper-turned-fashion-mogul has had numerous massive sponsors including Adidas and The Gap, pull lucrative partnership deals as a result.
Irving has yet to address his post, with the Nets set to play the Pacers Saturday night tonight in Brooklyn.