After Brooklyn Nets suffered their fifth loss of the season against the Indiana Pacers, Kyrie Irving, for almost nine minutes, was asked about the controversy after he promoted an anti-Semitic film on Thursday afternoon.
The former NBA Champion shared about the film on his Twitter and Instagram accounts on Thursday, which promoted the Nets team owner Joe Tsai and the NBA issued statements saying that they are opposed to hate speech.
During his post-game press conference, Irving addressed that he will continue to stand behind his thoughts and opinions despite issued raised by anyone else. "I'm not going to stand down on anything that I believe in," Irving said after the Nets' lost 125-116 loss to the Pacers. "I'm only going to get stronger because I'm not alone. I have a whole army around me."
When asked about the film, "Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America," Irving said: "We're in 2022. It's on Amazon, 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. You come in here and make up this powerful influence that I have over the top [and say], 'You cannot post that.' Why not? Why not? Everybody posts everything else."
In the postgame press conference, Irving was asked about his six-week-old post, where the player posted a 20-year-old clip of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones about the "New World Order." In the clip, Irving expressed that the video was "about secret societies in America, of occults. And it's true." Irving also said that he "does not stand with Alex Jones' position" on the Sandy Hook tragedy.
On 12 October, a Connecticut jury ordered Alex Jones to pay $965 million in damages for his repeated claims that the 20 first graders and six educators who were gunned down in 2012 was a "giant hoax" created by anti-gun groups.
