New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick triggered a pretty big backlash today with just a few sentences written about the newly-relocated NBA Team, the Brooklyn Nets and its co-owner, rapper Jay-Z.
Writing today in the Post, Mushnick states:
As long as the Nets are allowing Jay-Z to call their marketing shots — what a shock that he chose black and white as the new team colors to stress, as the Nets explained, their new “urban” home — why not have him apply the full Jay-Z treatment?
Why the Brooklyn Nets when they can be the New York N——s? The cheerleaders could be the Brooklyn B—-hes or Hoes. Team logo? A 9 mm with hollow-tip shell casings strewn beneath. Wanna be Jay-Z hip? Then go all the way!
The sentences above appear online and in the paper itself censored as you see them above. No changes have been made. And no surprise, the backlash was swift. Many commentators have called for him to be fired. The reaction on Twitter is fairly universal (read: bad). A few examples follow:
What Phil Mushnick wrote (and his editors approved) about the Nets/Jay-Z is out of line even by the Post’s “standards.” nypost.com/p/sports/knick…
— Michael Smith (@undecided) May 4, 2012
New York Post Columnist Goes Full-Racist on Jay-Z’s Brooklyn Nets nymag.com/daily/intel/20… via @sharethis
— Questo of The Roots (@questlove) May 4, 2012
I mean, if Phil Mushnick didn’t like the @brooklynnets‘ new logo and colors, he could’ve just said so.
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) May 4, 2012
As for Mushnick, the columnist whose words started this whole backlash, he has reportedly responded. The blog Bob’s Blitz posted this response it says comes from Phil Mushnick countering the outrage:
Such obvious, wishful and ignorant mischaracterizations of what I write are common. I don’t call black men the N-word; I don’t regard young women as bitches and whores; I don’t glorify the use of assault weapons and drugs. Jay-Z, on the other hand…..Is he the only NBA owner allowed to call black men N—ers?”
Jay-Z profits from the worst and most sustaining self-enslaving stereotypes of black-American culture and I’M the racist? Some truths, I guess, are just hard to read, let alone think about.
(Same column I provide support for Amar’e Stoudemire at a time when everyone in town is ripping him to shreds. That was my LEAD, too, but what does that matter?)
So where do you come down? Is the criticism of Mushnick valid or not? Cast your vote and sound off in the comments.
Nick Ramsey
Nick Ramsey is a senior producer with MSNBC’s “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.”