Background
Please allow me to post a short personal commentary on recent Kyrie Irving’s tweets and instagram posts.
Outline
Here are the areas that we will cover:-
- Personal Story
- Tweets
- Personal Take
- Sport League Take
- Civil Rights
Personal Story
Mother Line
Elizabeth (née Larson) Irving is part African American and Part Lakota Indian.
Unfortunately, Elizabeth passed when Kyrie was only 4 years old.
Kyrie is an enrolled member of the “Standing Rock Sioux” Tribe
Drederick Irving, Kyrie’s father, raised him with the help of Kyrie’s aunts.
In 2004, Drederick married Shetellia Riley.
Kyrie was born in Melbourne, Australia.
Drederick Irving was in Australia playing basketball.
“Standing Rock Sioux” Tribe
Please read more about the “Standing Rock Sioux” Tribe here:-
I just discovered Kyrie’s ancestral roots as I started this post.
I have yet to actually read the Wikipedia posts.
Tweets
In October 2022, Kyrie posted a couple of tweets and instagram posts.
Kyrie faced criticism because of the posts.
Personal Take
Outline
- Tweets
- Tweets Feedback
- Protect You
- Learn
Tweets
Unfortunately, Tweets are very limited.
Tweets can not be longer than 280 characters.
Tweets Feedback
Some may retweet what you just said.
Some may comment.
Protect You
Based on your chosen communication platform, Tweets, good people may ask you for more clarity and illumination.
Learn
Upon having to clarify and illuminate a few times, one has to learn.
Learn in the sense that:-
- Tweets
- Are tweets really an appropriate platform
- Audience
- With public tweets where you lack the protection of fore knowing and choosing your audience, you have to think each time, do you really want to release a tweet
- Power of Choice
- In a free society, everyone has the choice of public speech
- Yet, one loses the choice of whether feedbacks will be private
- One also loses control of how each person will take that word
Sport League Take ( NBA )
In my opinion, the NBA has gone the furthest on protecting and nourishing African American Athletes.
Instances
- Los Angeles Clippers
- Donald Sterling
- Phoenix Suns
- Robert Gary Sarver
Both very wealthy owners.
Both Jewish.
Yet, they have been pressured into selling their ownership stakes.
Civil Rights
Jews have been co-bearers in the Civil rights struggle.
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
A Brief History of Jews and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s
Judaism teaches respect for the fundamental rights of others as each person’s duty to God. “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor” (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a). Equality in the Jewish tradition is based on the concept that all of God’s children are “created in the image of God” ( Genesis 1:27 ). From that flows the biblical injunction, “You shall have one law for the stranger and the citizen alike: for I, Adonai, am your God” ( Leviticus 24:22 ).
American Jews played a significant role in the founding and funding of some of the most important civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
In 1909, Henry Moscowitz joined W.E.B. DuBois and other civil rights leaders to found the NAACP. Kivie Kaplan, a vice-chairman of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now the Union for Reform Judaism), served as the national president of the NAACP from 1966 to 1975. Arnie Aronson worked with A. Philip Randolph and Roy Wilkins to found the Leadership Conference.
From 1910 to 1940, more than 2,000 primary and secondary schools and 20 Black colleges (including Howard, Dillard and Fisk universities) were established in whole or in part by contributions from Jewish philanthropist Julius Rosenwald. At the height of the so-called “Rosenwald schools,” nearly 40 percent of Black people in the south were educated at one of these institutions.
During the Civil Rights Movement, Jewish activists represented a disproportionate number of white people involved in the struggle. Jews made up half of the young people who participated in the Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964. Leaders of the Reform Movement were arrested with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1964 after a challenge to racial segregation in public accommodations. Most famously, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched arm-in-arm with Dr. King in his 1965 March on Selma.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were drafted in the conference room of Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, under the aegis of the Leadership Conference, which for decades was located in the RAC’s building.
The Jewish community has continued its support of civil rights laws addressing persistent discrimination in voting, housing, and employment against not only women and people of Color but also in the LGBTQ+ community and the disabled community.
Summary
My take is that Twitter has its limitations.
Those who use twitter have to be aware and judge to what extent they want to be subjected to its brevity.
A lot of phone calls that come my way, I do not take.
It is usually Telemarketers.
We live in a time where one can not take every phone call; nor forward each received message.
Beloved
Beloved, May our heavenly Father Bless and Keep each of us.
Co-Laborers
It is a sin and immoral to deny someone the covering and protection that would otherwise be afforded them through co-laboring.
One of our many sins of omission.
Sins of Omission
- James 4:17 ( Link )
- To him therefore who knoweth to do good, and doth it not, to him it is sin.
Street
It is bad karma.
You end up having to pick from fruits that ain’t yours to pick out of.
Learning in the Open 