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ADL Says It Can't Accept Kyrie Irving's $500K Donation 'in Good Conscience'
November 4, 2022
The Anti-Defamation League won't be accepting the $500,000 donation Kyrie Irving planned to make in the wake of his decision to promote an antisemitic piece of media.
The ADL's CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, released the following statement:
His statement came on the same day the Nets suspended Irving for a minimum of five games without pay for his refusal to apologize or outright denounce antisemitism in the past few days.
The Nets, Irving and ADL had previously released a joint statement in which both Irving and the organization committed to donating $500,000 each to "causes and organizations that work to eradicate hate and intolerance in our communities."
Irving shared a link last week to the 2018 film Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America. According to Rolling Stone's Jon Blistein, it is a "purported documentary" that is "stuffed with antisemitic tropes" and "ideas in line with more extreme factions of the Black Hebrew Israelites, which have a long history of misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and especially antisemitism."
Pablo Torre @PabloTorreSo, to be extraordinarily clear here: the quote is (obviously!) fake. Hitler did NOT believe Black people are “The Jewels of God.” They spelled “Adolf” wrong. The citation itself is overflowing with brain-worms.<br><br>But this screenshot is *actually from the movie*. Which says a lot!
Pablo Torre @PabloTorreP.S. This is from the book that the movie is based on. It's written by the same director, and it has the exact same title. He calls the fact that 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust one of "five major falsehoods" (and blames "the Jewish controlled media"). Not subtle! <a href="https://t.co/1rorzaIaDl">pic.twitter.com/1rorzaIaDl</a>
Rather than apologize for sharing the link, however, Irving pushed back against the backlash he's received.
"Did I do anything illegal? Did I hurt anybody, did I harm anybody? Am I going out and saying that I hate one specific group of people?" he said to reporters Saturday. "It's on Amazon, a public platform, whether you want to go watch it or not, is up to you. There's things being posted every day. I'm no different than the next human being, so don't treat me any different."
He doubled down on that stance Thursday:
Nets Videos @SNYNets"I'm a beacon of light. I'm not afraid of these mics, these cameras. Any label you put on me I'm able to dismiss because I study. I know the Oxford dictionary."<br><br>Kyrie Irving with a lengthy answer on the public reaction to his sharing of an anti-Semitic film on social media: <a href="https://t.co/JgG9hOFQiU">pic.twitter.com/JgG9hOFQiU</a>
"I am disappointed that he has not offered an unqualified apology and more specifically denounced the vile and harmful content contained in the film he chose to publicize," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement Thursday. "I will be meeting with Kyrie in person in the next week to discuss this situation."
Irving later apologized in an Instagram statement on Thursday night.