Grant Napear Fired

Napear, who did television for the Kings and had a talk show for decades, just got fired. DeMarcus Cousins, who had feuded with Napear, got into the following tweet battle over Black Lives Matter

Grant Napear

✔@GrantNapearshow
Hey!!!! How are you? Thought you forgot about me. Haven't heard from you in years. ALL LIVES MATTER...EVERY SINGLE ONE!!! https://twitter.com/boogiecousins/status/1267271720282415104 …

DeMarcus Cousins

✔@boogiecousins

@GrantNapearshow what’s your take on BLM?

I don't understand why that comment could be considered grounds for firing. Am I also insensitive or is there a backstory?

 

I thought he resigned. The whole thing seems a little rash, prompted by the heightened tension - there might be some history behind it. Listening to Napear for years he doesn't come across as one who a) likes to provoke or be contrarian just to boost his profile (unlike many in the biz) and b) someone who wouldn't be aware that the "All Lives Matter' response is tone deaf as hell. He seemed like a person who realized there is a world outside of sports. Maybe the insta-resignation will eventually blow over when people cool off.

 

I read the station fired him from the talk show and then he resigned from the Kings job.

 

Napear has shit all over Boogie Cousins for years, in ways that were uncomfortable to listen to.

I'll put it this way: I am quite confident that Boogie toosed that line in the water because he knew Napear couldn't resist making a racist asshole of himself. He was right.

Napear's in a gots-to-go situation.

 

Another good example to "not go there ever." All lives matter doesn't seem like a bad sentiment. Certainly not a fireable offense. All lives should of course matter. But ... right now all lives matter is a slur. It is deemed SOOOOOOO racist. You are saying you don't care about black lives. At least that is the perception. All lives matter is a direct rebuttal to "Black lives matter." You simply can't value all lives over black lives publicly and keep a job. All lives do not matter (right now to the race police). BLACK LIVES MATTER and don't deviate from that or you will go the way of the Kings announcer ... out the door.

 

Or, you know, just don't be a racist shithead. That works too.

 

Fredrick,
I don't know you. I don't know whether you are a member of any minority class or whether you are white, straight, male, Christian, educated, married... all the privileged classes in our society.

I do know your quote is an example of everything that is wrong with our society today as it deals with minority relations.

For too many years, society has done everything it can to keep minorities downtrodden. Minorities are not willing to accept that any longer.

Black people have never said that all lives don't matter, they are saying that THEIR lives matter. They are tired of being treated as second- or third- or whatever-class citizen. They deserve to be heard. They deserve to be respected. They deserve to be treated equally because they are equal.

When you rebut that with All Lives Matter, you are trying to retain the status quo. And that status is not acceptable.

Your quote disregards that, and if you don't believe what I wrote, then you need to know your privilege and your racism (no matter how unintentional) have just become apparent. And for that reason, I'm glad I don't know you.

 

Too bad. I really enjoyed his work.

 

The Athletic piece suggests he wasn't fired simply for a single tweet that all lives matter. That appears to have been the last straw.

 

He's had a few back-and-forths with Cousins and Matt Barnes in the past. A case could be made for Cousins baiting the hook, but, dammit, Naphear should have known better.

 

I don't think Napear should have been fired. But I know he was rough on Cousins when the Kings traded him. Napear worked for the Kings and much of the vitriol may have been to have been to protect the public image of the franchise when the Sacramento made the Cousins trade.

But I have a grudging admiration for how clever Cousins was in baiting the trap.