Unfortunately, we have to write about the Ray Rice fiasco that’s currently dominating water cooler conversations around the country while increasingly turning off fans to the horrific job NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has done in the wake of Rice’s brutal punch of then-fiancé Janay Rice (neé Palmer). That’s because 20-year-old Sixers rookie Joel Embiid tweeted an insensitive joke about the situation.
By way of Liberty Ballers’ Michael Levin, comes this snapshot of a tweet Embiid sent out yesterday — then deleted — joking about the infamous elevator punch Rice knocked out his fiancé with.
It’s not even an original joke, though that’s really not the point. The hellmouth that is Brian Kilmeade of “Fox And Friends” uttered the same inappropriate aside on the show after TMZ released video of the elevator punch and Rice was suspended — months later than he should have been — indefinitely by the NFL while getting cut by the Ravens.
As Levin notes for SB Nation, Embiid really messed up here, but it’s important to remember he’s just a 20-year-old rookie who has nothing to do but rehab and continue his comedic stylings on Twitter.
While Embiid’s egregious lack of tact with the tweet shouldn’t be swept under the rug, he did take the tweet down, so he has to understand how inappropriate it comes off, especially when you realize how it minimizes domestic violence.
This whole Ray Rice story has made us nauseous for months, and it’s gotten worse over the last couple days when the public reacted with so much outrage only when the punch video surfaced, even though we’ve known for a while that Ray Rice punched his fiancé hard enough to make her unconscious and then dragged her around the Revel casino like a rag doll.
Joel Embiid is a young player, who has become a celebrity on Twitter, seemingly overnight. He’ll learn from this experience, and we shouldn’t castigate him too severely for what will hopefully just be a minor blip of brainlessness in what will hopefully be a successful NBA career.
While Kilmeade of Fox and Friends has a well-documented history of sexism and doesn’t have age or a lack of experience to fall back on for his stupid comment, Embiid still does, lets just hope he learns from it and remembers that words — and tweets — have meaning and the more popular he gets on social media the more people will critique what he shares in 140 characters or less.
Joking about domestic violence, especially so soon after it became a national talking point, isn’t just stupid, it’s irresponsible. Domestic violence is a very real problem in this country, and abroad, and there isn’t a smidgen of humor involved in the issue.
Embiid is young enough we’ll all give him a second chance, but he has to remember the scope of his popularity moving forward and not use his place to make light of that which should be lamented.
What do you think?
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