Filed under: Bobcats, Hawks, Kings, WNBA, NBA Videos, The WorksToday in The Works: how hangtime can be used for evil, starring Tyrus Thomas and Josh Smith; an important lesson about Rocky Mountain cuisine; and why we should pay attention when NBA stars show genuine love for the WNBA.
But first, Shoals waxes on the continued targeting of Omri Casspi.
A Convenient Target: I'm back, shiny and new, with a few important matters to catch up on. I also want to thank Rob Peterson for so capably filling in during my absence.
Right before Yom Kippur, the most solemn of all the Jewish holidays, an Omri Casspi mural was once again defaced with a swastika. We live in hateful times; allusions to Nazis and the Holocaust have gone from absolute taboo to an integral part of some folks' political yammering. Still, there's a big difference between ignorantly comparing the President to Hitler or Stalin, and seeking out the image of a Jew -- not once, but twice -- in order to slap a sign of mass slaughter across it.
The swastika is perhaps the simplest act of hate-speech imaginable; it doesn't even require basic literacy, and no one notices if it's backward. It's such an easy gag, some are convinced this is the works of teenage vandals, not hardened white supremacists. But the fact remains: Omri Casspi, the first Israeli in the NBA, a player whose rookie season was a non-stop outreach campaign to Jewish basketball fans, is being invited back to Dachau in the city he now calls home. Seeing as the Kings rookie was held up as a symbol or pride and progress, this latest turn of events is not only grim, but also the worst kind of irony. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
No comments:
Post a Comment