Recently, NYC Mayor announced the rolling back of the NYC vaccine mandate. This paved the way for Kyrie Irving and unvaccinated players to be able to play at home. According to Stephen A Smith, Sports Commentator and host of First Take on ESPN, “I’m very happy KYRIE will be on the basketball court…but he’s no Hero.” See video above.
I responded in a tweet to Mr. Smith saying “Absolutely I agree, but up to a certain point. Kyrie Irving can now play is good for the Brooklyn Nets and the NBA; and NYC took way too long to lift the mandate. Indeed, Kyrie is not a hero and I’m not sure who said that he was, but he’s an individual like all the other individuals who took a position and given all that has happened in society individuals have that right.
Now I had said, sometime ago in an article in The Neoliberal Commentary In our LinkedIn Newsletter that Kyrie Irving represents the vilification of his past. “Kyrie Irving is the embodiment and vilification of his “duppies” realization of #individualism and the new black people resistance, (Revisiting And Reimagining The Black Nigga Within Neoliberal Capitalism. You Know Billy Is A Nigga He Dont Give A Sh*T About Nothing). Slaves and a set of people’s society had made into the lower race who were not allowed to demonstrate any position and who were subjected to savages without any individuality by a concocted science about the biology of races that was at best a #psuedoscience. So, he (Kyrie Irving) champions that.
In fact, some Black scholars such as Dana Berry White and Ramsey et al, and Black people, suggest and even conclude that “nigga” behavior or the tendency for Black people to not give a sh*t is actually part of the Black Resistance and the ways that Black people has historically resisted or opposed discrimination and slavery. Black scholars are writing books that reimagine black Resistance and this defiance and resistance in the face of discrimination and countervailing tactics has led to the idea and the practice of calling Black people who disrupt and “don’t give a sh*t: “Niggas”.
On the issue of “Nigga” behavior; recently, Kyrie Irvine was in the news about his defiance and his “don’t give a shit” (“Nigga”) mentality towards getting vaccinated. Even though it is mandated, and he is only able to play some (away) games due to his refusal to get vaccinated. Many Black people, especially men, refuse to get vaccinated against COVID, just as they refuse to vote in the US elections because they “don’t give a sh*t” and are suspicious of the system that has allowed and maintained discriminatory practices Black people and are against mandates and control. For persons like Kyrie, the ability to exercise certain freedoms and individualism and masculinity has always evaded the Black man and his defiance and “Nigga” behavior could be interpreted as a reaction and developed immunity towards any type of mandate or control that threaten their new comforts, desires and masculinity or personhood.
If truth be told, I was interested in Kyrie’s and many Black men defiance against mandates, the science that tried to convince of their efficacy in protecting vaccines against COVID and their extreme lengths that some would go to fake vaccination by producing false covid vaccination papers that created this new interest in pursuing research on this behavior in relation to the issue of #Neoliberalism #power #privilege & #racism. (See the rest of the article here, where you can also SUBSRCIBE to THE NEOLIBERAL COMMENTARY NEWSLETTER