The announcer for the Sacramento Kings and the radio host who graces the station KHTK Grant Napear has officially been put on administrative leave by the radio station for his comments on the Black Lives Matter movement, as he has tweeted in response to a question as ‘All Lives Matter’.
The questioning tweet came from a former NBA center DeMarcus Cousins.
NBC Bay Area, who owns the company, has released a statement saying: “Our company values and honors inclusion and equality. Racism, injustice and violence run counter to everything we stand for and cannot be tolerated in our society. Grant Napear’s recent comments on Twitter do not reflect the views of NBC Sports California. We’ve spoken to Grant’s employer, the Sacramento Kings, about the matter.”
The Kings released a statement, as well: “Grant’s recent Twitter comments do not reflect our organization’s views and values. We are reviewing the matter further with our broadcast partners NBC Sports California and Sports 1140 KHTK.’
In a consecutive interview with Sacramento Bee, Napear has formally apologized for his case of mistaken statements: ‘I’m not as educated on BLM as I thought I was,” Napear told Marcos Breton of the Sacramento Bee. “I had no idea that when I said ‘All Lives Matter’ that it was counter to what BLM was trying to get across. I’m in pain. I”m 60 years old and I still have a lot learn.”
Breton has also made his thoughts on Napear be known clearly:
“I’ve stopped trying to argue with people who either hate BLM or consider it a terrorist group.
They are not. As the Floyd case proves again—and we should be beyond needing any more proof—police brutality has resulted in the deaths of too many black men. Implicit bias within police departments results in little kids getting beat up for no reason, as we saw in Rancho Cordova recently.
In these cases and so many more, we are left to deduce that law enforcement responds differently to people of color. We are left to deduce that people of color are more likely to get killed, get a beat down or suffer indignity in confrontations with law enforcement than white people.
Those who deny this are part of the problem. Sometimes those who deny it do so with the phrase: ‘All Lives Matter.’ That phrase is politically fraught and a flash point, as we saw when Napear’s tweet blew up.”
Breton further spoke, saying that he believed the apology to be authentic: “But if his apology on the radio is as sincere as the one he shared with me, I support forgiveness,” Breton wrote. “Our community is hurting right now and this Twitter fight is emblematic of our divisions and our pain.”
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Replaced!