Previously this month American professional basketball player had ridiculed a group of men in an Instagram video of his page, referring to them as “queer ass”. The 21-year-old Edwards is heading into his third season in the NBA.
On Tuesday, NBA fined $40,000 to the Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards for homophobic comments he made on a post of his Instagram account.
The league’s president of operations Byron Spruell stated: “Edwards has been fined $40,000 for using offensive and derogatory language on social media.”
Earlier this month, Edwards had mocked a group of men in a video posted on his Instagram page, referring to them as “queer ass”.
Eventually the video was deleted before Edwards issued an apology.
Hall of Fame big man and Los Angeles Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is stubborn that his apology of Edward is insufficient. The Timberwolves star needs to do much more to make up for his fault, according to Kareem.
“It would be easy to dismiss Edwards’ immaturity-he’s only 21-if not for the fact that we’ve seen so many cases of famous athletes and owners in the news spouting racism, misogyny, and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments. This damages sports in general and their teams specifically, and revives the old stereotype of the dumb, bullying jock,” Abdul-Jabbar wrote on his Substack blog.
He continued, “But more important, it perpetuates prejudice against a group and that prejudice often leads to restricting rights and to violence. I don’t think an apology-however heartfelt-is enough.”
“Edwards needs to repair the damage with some voluntary community service with LGBTQ+ organizations, particularly youth groups, to show his support. If he can’t do that much to undo the harm he’s caused, then his apology is meaningless,” Abdul-Jabbar added.
