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A player for the Miami Heat is in
hot water, in fact banned from
the team as a result of something
he said during a Twitch stream.
Here is a little bit from
that stream.
>> Let's go [BLEEP] [BLEEP] you
[BLEEP] [BLEEP] [LAUGH] >> Okay, so
that's not really decipherable as
human speech once you bleep it out.
But in addition to just the swears
that were bleeped out, there was
also an anti-Semitic slur,
that was used very aggressively and
confidently by,
this is Meyers Leonard.
JR, had you been familiar
with this happening and
the reaction from the team?
>> No, I hadn't seen that this had
happened because this is more of
a Twitch stream, I don't know which
games that these guys are playing.
>> I think it was Call of Duty.
>> Yeah, and if this is some kind
of promotional thing for
Meyers Leonard to show himself to
the fans as this normal guy who
plays video games, I don't know.
But it's [LAUGH]
I guess you had a glimpse
into what may be many athletes will
just say flippantly, because,
let me find a way to insult someone
with some feisty cuss words,
and that didn't work out for him.
So yeah, Meyers Leonard,
he doesn't get tons of press for
anything else, so this is probably
a pretty bad thing for
him to now be known for,
other than just big man for
the Heat, and generally seemed like
a likable guy, which was probably
why he did this in the first place.
So I think maybe more organizations
are going to rethink whether or
not they're going to put guys in
front of the camera to just go off
the cuff.
>> Yeah, I mean,
the issue is that a lot of these
players are very young.
And, yeah, they might say stuff
like that, trying to be cool or
intimidating or whatever,
especially if you don't have a lot
of experience controlling what
you say online.
Anyway, Leonard issued
an apology yesterday,
claimed that he didn't know what
the slur meant when he said it.
Quote, l am deeply sorry for
using an anti-Semitic slur during
a live stream yesterday,
while l didn't know what the word
meant at the time,
my ignorance about its history and
how offensive it is to the Jewish
community is absolutely not
an excuse, and l was just wrong.
So, look, I'm not
going to say what the slur was, but
it seems like everyone should know
that it's an anti-Semitic slur.
JR, do you think that there is
a chance that a young player like
this, might have heard it, and
didn't actually know what it meant,
what the context was?
>> That's always possible.
But, again like he said, it's not
an excuse, so which is why he
shouldn't even have said that part.
Because I don't think there's
anything that that's within
people's approach to whether or not
they're going to get beyond this.
If you said hey, so I said this
word, I've said it before, [LAUGH]
I've used it somewhat regularly and
no one ever told me many different
about it.
>> So I mean, I was comfortable and
I need to rethink where I come from
and the things that I say because
it's actually pretty ignorant to
just say things that I don't know
what they mean.
Instead of, you know what,
I didn't know what it meant, but
it's no excuse, which is fine to
a degree, because now it leads us
to then speculate, is this
an excuse, they didn't know?
Or did he really know and now he's
trying to get off the hook?
Because in my opinion,
it doesn't get them off the hook,
so it's a pretty bad excuse.
Which leads me to believe that he
didn't know, because it's not like
it's a game winning type of excuse.
I didn't know,
that doesn't make it any better.
So I'm prone to believe him,
because, honestly, it's not like it
got him off the hook or anything.
And it shouldn't, by the way.
>> Sure, I might question whether
a person would not actually know
that it was anti-Semitic, and
as someone termed it on YouTube,
it is the slur rhyming with bike,
basically.
That's as close as
I'm going to come to saying it.
But anyway, in terms of the form of
the apology,
he is trying to explain it, if he
actually didn't know what it meant,
then you would very much want
people to know that you didn't,
even though as he says it's not an
excuse, he says he was still wrong.
If he had said,
I didn't know what it meant,
get off my case, that's terrible.
If he says I didn't know what it
meant, but it's still terrible,
then I think that that's okay,
although we can still question
whether it actually makes sense for
him to say that he doesn't know.
>> Yeah and I guess it also
wonders, because this
is these are the normal processes
you go through whenever something
like this happens, especially when
it's an organization like this,
and it's a well known player or
people with money.
You go through the apology,
which they've done.
Then the next thing is maybe give
them some charities [LAUGH] that
are trying to work towards
knowledge or
spread of knowledge about what's
the plight of Jewish folks and
antisemitism that thrives to this
day, and how to eradicate it.
All those things,
if you start giving to those things
fine, cool, cool cool.
But that's not going to eliminate
the problem.
because, what you're saying,
apparently what your approach is on
this is the problem.
So giving to these organizations,
which maybe the next step, sure,
but it just becomes a PR situation
where then our publicists have to
take over and try and
remedy our image.
And then that's when it
starts to look a little fake to me.
It's like say what
you're going to say, let us
know where you're coming from, and
then eek back into the shadows.
because more talking about this and
more trying to make yourself look
better, actually I think would make
you look worse.
But again,
I'm a different type of person.
Maybe those things do help remedy
people's images, and
I'm just wrong.
>> I mean, I guess,
and people they are paid a lot of
money do this stuff.
Anyway as of right now he's banned
from the team,
he is banned from Twitch.
We'll see if either both of
those last,
how people interpret his apology,
but that's basically what happened.
And be careful in the future when
you're putting people on Twitch,
basically is what we're saying.
>> Yeah, Chris Nabbit in the chat
right now has said,
what did he think that it meant?
That's such a good question.
>> Sure.
>> Hey, if you didn't know what it
meant, you're saying words you're
very comfortable with,
what did you think it meant?
>> Yeah.
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