Minnesota Timberwolves rising star Anthony Edwards took to Twitter on Sunday to apologize for a video on his Instagram account where he made homophobic remarks about a group of men.
“What I said was immature, hurtful, and disrespectful, and I’m incredibly sorry,” Edwards said in a tweet. “It’s unacceptable for me or anyone to use that language in such a hurtful way, there’s no excuse for it, at all. I was raised better than that!”
What I said was immature, hurtful, and disrespectful, and I’m incredibly sorry. It’s unacceptable for me or anyone to use that language in such a hurtful way, there’s no excuse for it, at all. I was raised better than that!
— Anthony Edwards (@theantedwards_) September 11, 2022
In a now deleted video from his Instagram account, Edwards is in his car looking at a group of shirtless men on the sidewalk across the way. In the video some of the men are hugging and embracing each other, Edwards assumes their sexual orientation based on these observations.
“Look at these queer ass n****s, man,” Edwards said in the video. “Look at the world I came to.”
There was a woman in the car with him laughing in the passenger seat. The video was captioned “Dese n****s different.”
It’s 2022. Are we really still making jokes about sexual preferences? This type of behavior is beyond being indecent and hateful and is also extremely immature.
The Timberwolves and Edwards more than likely have many fans from the LGBTQ+ community, and this doesn’t send a warm or welcoming message.
Edwards comments are rooted in homophobia, an attitude very prevalent in the Black community as well as within professional sports. The idea that a homosexual man is somehow less tough than a heterosexual man is absurd and laughable. As is the need to point out a homosexual for the purpose of othering them.
Truth be told, professional athletes have likely had at least one homosexual teammate in their career. They just don’t or didn’t know.
According to Gallup, 7.1 perhaps of the U.S. population identifies as LGBT. Those are only people who choose to self-identify. Forget about those afraid to come out or any other factors which would likely make that percentage higher.
If we transfer that percentage to the NBA where we have roughly 450 players, 30 teams and 15 players per team, 7.1% gives us 31.5 individuals. One per team. That’s just back-of-a-napkin math and applying percentages to another sample size. Even if you control for gender, odds are more than likely there are homosexual players in the NBA.
But who cares!
The fascination people have with what others do sexually is strange. Why the interest? How does it impact your life in any meaningful or significant way?
This was stupid, hateful, wrong, and Edwards knows better.
Edwards might be subject to league discipline in the form of a fine or suspension. Past punishments for such remarks have usually been fines.
The league fined Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic $25,000 for a homophobic remark he made in 2018. It fined the Brooklyn Nets Kevin Durant $50,000 in 2021 for homophobic comments he made. Guard Rajon Rondo was suspended a game in 2015 for directing homophobic comments toward an official.
The difference is those incidents happened around the context of an actual NBA game, and Jokic made his comment postgame. But it’s something that bears watching.
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