This article was published nearly two hours before Jaylen Brown announced he was leaving Kanye West’s marketing firm Donda Sports. It has been updated with the latest news.
Being the Boston Celtic player to talk about Bill Russell on opening night, in front of the world, while in Boston at the start of the first-ever NBA season just months after the MVP trophy namesake passed of the final is both a huge honor and a responsibility. Fortunately, the Celtics had the perfect person in their own locker room to address the world —Jaylen Brown.
During the 2020 NBA bubble, the NBA relaxed its rules requiring players to show up for the national anthem. The Celtics participated, and before Brown answered questions from the media after scoring 30 points in a win over the Portland Trail Blazers, he had something he wanted out of his chest.
“Angela Davis once said that racism is so dangerous, not because of individual actors, but because it’s deeply embedded in the device,” Brown told the media. “I think of that quote a lot when I think of the national anthem that was written by Francis Scott Key, who was a slave owner.”
This is why proactive measures must always be taken to try to eradicate racism. The very song written during a war in which America fought intruders to retain its status as a sovereign nation, was written by a person who held human beings in bondage at that time. This song is still the anthem that plays to display ultimate American pride, over 200 years later.
A shrewd observation from Brown should come as no surprise. At the start of his freshman year in California, he wasn’t just working on his game. This top-five rookie was taking steps to be able to enroll in a higher level course — Theoretical foundations for the cultural studies of sport and education — once the school year has begun. With Brown being so caring and doing so much frontline work for justice, the fact that he’s in business with Ye — formerly known as Kanye West — is so disappointing.
Updated October 25, 2022 at 6:50 PM EST: But that’s no longer the case, as Brown has announced he’s no longer working with marketing firm Ye’s Donda Sports.
“I have always and will always continue to stand firmly against all anti-Semitism, hate speech, abuse and oppressive rhetoric of any kind,” read a statement from Brown.
Rams defensive lineman and future Hall of Famer Aaron Donald has announced that he too will be leaving Donda.
Brown signed with marketing firm Ye’s Donda Sports last summer. Recently, Ye has made headlines for making anti-Semitic comments at every opportunity. It got so bad that all of his mainstream social media accounts are locked and he was dumped by CAA on Monday and adidas tuesday. Monday, Brown said several times at The Boston Globe that he is against everything Ye has said lately, but he also won’t leave Donda Sports for now. Brown shifted gears, and rightly so, although this repudiation should have happened much sooner.
Even before Ye started spitting anti-Semitic bile and wear a “White Lives Matter” shirt next to Candace Owens, there was no reason for Brown to sign with her sports marketing company. Donda Sports started long after Ye said “slavery for 400 years, it looks like a choice. That same day in the TMZ Ye studio”What about ChicagoVan Lathan, who had scolded him for making stupid, incoherent and dangerous statements during an interview. Still, Brown said The globe that he signed with Donda Sports because “it stood for education, it stood for activism, disruption, it stood for single-parent households, and a lot more people are involved in something like that.”
Nothing Ye has said in recent years has hinted that he has any of these feelings in his heart. What he has publicly brought forth since first wearing that Make America Great Again hat is white supremacy rhetoric. Over the years it gets worse and worse.
I find it hard to believe that Brown would give Ye’s buddy, Owens, the time of day. This woman sat down in front of Congress and said“Based on the hierarchy of what affects minority Americans, if I were to make a list of 100 things, white nationalism would not be on the list. White supremacy and white nationalism is not an issue that harms to black America.
It’s pretty much the exact opposite of what Brown said in The Bubble in 2020. Yet Ye has raved about Owens for years and is now set to buy the social media network from right-wing extremist in difficulty of her husband. She was there with Ye at TMZ studios when he gave up his race and his hometown so everyone would have eyes to see and ears to hear. She was silent when he stammered nonsense about the self-realization he believed he had achieved, but jumped into the conversation like Brown catching an alley-oop when he launched that absurd Black-on-Black criminal rant.
The world can be an ugly place. Chances are exploited child labor is sewing the clothes on your back and mining the cobalt that powers your smartphone. Football fans from all corners of the world will watch the World Cup in Qatar, even though more than 6,500 migrant workers died during the construction of the stadiums from 2021, according at The Guardian.
To live, people participate at some point in the oppression and death of others. However, it is possible to say no at some point. It was totally pointless for Brown to do business with a company whose leader preaches against everyone and everything he stands for.
You could be in the middle of a manic episode. He admitted to be bipolar, and while not all people with mental health issues say and do hurtful things, there are also some who do. If Brown is friends with Ye and feels he needs help, he should do his best to do so. But, by not leaving, Brown would damage his name. A name that last week was rightly deemed fit to honor the life of one of the most honorable Americans to ever live.
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