Whitlock: Ben Shapiro and ultra-BLM black elites united in animus toward Kyrie Irving, Muhammad Ali, and Malcolm X



The ultra-Black Lives Matter revolutionaries piling on suspended basketball star Kyrie Irving have something in common with Ben Shapiro.

They would all hate Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali.

Shannon Sharpe. Stephen A. Smith. Jemele Hill. LeBron James. Charlamagne tha Fraud. James Brown. The people justifying the persecution of Irving over a harmless and boring documentary would all want to silence and deplatform X and Ali in the 1960s.

X and Ali, the highest-profile members of Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam religious sect, boldly and clearly complained about an unhealthy relationship and power dynamic between black communities and people Malcolm X explicitly described as “Jewish business owners.” Here’s just one of many examples of it.

In 1964, the Egyptian Gazette newspaper ran a transcript of a speech the NOI spokesperson delivered while in the Middle East. X coined the phrase “Zionist dollarism.”

“The modern 20th-century weapon of neo-imperialism is dollarism,” Malcolm X said. “The zionists have mastered the science of dollarism: the ability to come posing as a friend and benefactor, bearing gifts and all other forms of economic aid and offers of technical assistance.”

Any distaste Ben Shapiro, an orthodox Jew and establishment conservative, might have for X and Ali would make perfect sense and would not be driven by bigotry. Shapiro could very well value Israel above free speech, and the wildly popular podcaster seems to carefully avoid taking any risk that could get him and the Daily Wire permanently crossways with global corporations. Shapiro isn’t nearly as bold as his high-profile counterparts Candace Owens and Matt Walsh. Owens relentlessly attacks the pathologies destroying black culture. Walsh unapologetically goes after the intellectual justifiers of childhood gender mutilation.

Over the weekend, Shapiro scolded Owens for retweeting the thoughts of Max Blumenthal, a journalist and critic of Zionism. Blumenthal is a white Jew. On Friday, he tweeted:

“We White American Jews are living in a golden age of power, affluence and safety. Acceptance of this reality threatens the entire Zionist enterprise, from lobby fronts like the ADL to the State of Israel, because Zionism relies on Jewish insecurity to justify itself.”

On Sunday, Shapiro quote-tweeted Owens and publicly admonished her, writing:

“I think the ADL is a partisan hack organization, too. But RTing Max Blumenthal, who spends his life covering for Jew-haters and stumping for Israel’s destruction, makes the conversation significantly worse. It’s garbage.”

Shapiro models the same grievance political strategy used by the ultra-BLM crowd. The criticism he leveled at Owens and Blumenthal mirrors the critiques I’ve faced throughout my journalism career. Because I defend America by arguing that black Americans enjoy the highest level of safety, affluence, and freedom of any black people on the planet, the ultra-BLM activists label me, Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, Larry Elder, and Candace Owens as traitors unworthy of platforms. Shapiro seems to be doing the same thing to Blumenthal, defining the journalist’s work as garbage and unworthy of consideration because of ethnic disloyalty.

It’s a familiar deplatform strategy that’s inconsistent with Shapiro’s “facts don’t care about your feelings” mantra.

So what could unite deplatformers on the left and the right?

Power and money, the best friends of idolatry. Idolatry is at the root of all sin. American culture promotes the worship of commerce and power. Idolatry is most pervasive among the people who stand as cultural idols, the publicly celebrated arbiters of truth, the people who falsely believe they’ve ascended to a place of enlightenment above sin. The idolatry of power and money easily and pervasively afflicts ministers, pundits, and social justice warriors regardless of political affiliation. Self-righteousness breeds the kind of arrogance that makes a man or woman think he or she knows who should and should not be allowed to speak freely and be heard.

Self-righteousness fuels cancel culture. Fear guides it.

Faith in God alleviates fear. When American culture more closely adhered to Judeo-Christian values, the media acted more courageously. Journalists probed controversial thinkers and speakers. We aired their thoughts, refuted their misguided beliefs, and pondered their harsh truths.

Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali were in constant demand at radio and TV stations, college campuses, and wherever truth was explored.

Fear rules secular societies and undermines the convictions of believers. Fear caused Shapiro to support the experimental vaccines and to instinctively disavow Donald Trump. True journalists should prioritize understanding well ahead of support and disavowment.

Fear is at the root of the reaction to Kyrie Irving, Kanye West, and Max Blumenthal.

The ultra-BLM revolutionaries and ex-jocks turned broadcasters such as Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and Reggie Miller fear losing their status and high-paying jobs at ESPN, Fox Sports, TNT, CBS, and NBC.

Black Lives Matter is a for-profit shtick. We know that now because we’ve learned how the movement’s founders spent the $100 million raised in the name of the group’s only begotten son, George Floyd.

The reaction to West and Irving demonstrates how members of the black media and celebrity elite line their bank accounts by pretending to be friends of the “revolution.” What West and Irving said about Jewish people pales in comparison to the rhetoric of X and Ali. It’s not in the same galaxy.

Irving retweeted a graphic of an image of a documentary that was released in 2018 based on a book that was published in 2014. It took eight years before anyone realized that “Hebrews to Negroes” posed an existential threat to the Jewish community? Irving’s retweet of the doc is more harmful than Amazon hosting it?

The overreaction is illogical.

The black elites' rush to condemn Kyrie unmasks their real revolutionary mission. They speak for the corporate elite. They speak for Pfizer and other Big Pharma corporations, the primary advertisers on television, the makers of the experimental vaccines Irving refused to take. They speak for Amazon, the hosting and commerce platform that is now buying sports television rights.

No different from Ben Shapiro, LeBron James, Stephen A. Smith, Shannon Sharpe, Charlamagne tha Fraud, and roughly 90% of all Americans don’t want to get crossways with global corporations. They don’t want to jeopardize their power and the money that comes along with it.

The ultra-BLM revolutionaries are paid to make you believe real racism is BYU students shouting at a black Duke volleyball player or that 10 questionable police shootings involving career criminals are a bigger problem than thousands of black men and boys killed by gang violence.

It’s a very profitable scam. But the deception should be obvious now in the aftermath of the Brooklyn Nets suspending Irving for a tweet.

The revolutionaries spit on Kyrie’s free speech and freedom of religion. They co-signed his canceling. They would do the exact same thing to Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X.

LeBron, Smith, Sharpe, and Charlamagne are cowards acting at the behest of corporate overlords. They’re bought and paid for, controlled opposition. I don’t have a problem with it. Just admit it.

I want LeBron to admit that money is his god. He’s not alone. Hip-hop culture is a materialistic, secular culture. It preaches that the pursuit of money justifies all behavior.

Many of the black people disappointed that James and other NBA players haven’t spoken out in support of Kyrie are members of the hip-hop church that breeds love of money.

Many black Christians share the philosophy.

I’m a fan of James Brown, the classy CBS broadcaster. We share the same faith. Our convictions are not the same.

On Sunday, on a CBS NFL pregame show, Brown performed a two-minute monologue that demonized Irving. He insinuated that Irving’s retweet was “anti-Semitic.” Brown never uttered a word about Amazon.

James Brown would hate Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X.

Years ago, before secularism and fear took over American culture, we used to want to understand and debate Ali, X, Kyrie, and Kanye.

Ben Shapiro is a very bright man. He has no reason to fear Kyrie, Kanye, Blumenthal, or anyone who disagrees with him. Armed with the truth, he should engage with any critic and let his light push out darkness.

That’s been the history of America until those of us who believe in God and Judeo-Christian culture chose to deprioritize our faith to live more comfortably in a secular world. Our detachment from God has ratcheted up our fear and caused us to be less tolerant of speech we find disagreeable and uncomfortable. The silenced, the demonized, and the unheard become conspiratorial, unpredictable, and dangerous.

The division destroying America can be directly traced to our lack of resolve to protect the free speech of our adversaries.

Whitlock: Aaron 'The Jerk' Rodgers and COVID-19 might save America



COVID-19 isn’t all bad. It appears that one of its side effects is turning Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers into a combination of Muhammad Ali and Navin R. Johnson.

Of course, you remember Ali, the greatest boxer of all time. Ali fell under the spell of Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X and risked prison and invited national scorn by refusing induction into the military and participation in the Vietnam War.

But do you remember Navin Johnson, the jerk? He was the lead character in the 1979 movie classic “The Jerk.” Comedian Steve Martin played the role of Navin, the white adopted son of black Southern sharecroppers. Navin hilariously has no idea that his black parents adopted him.

Rodgers has fallen under the spell of podcasters Joe Rogan and Pat McAfee and has refused the COVID vaccine injection. The quarterback’s defiance apparently is going to jeopardize his chance to win the NFL’s MVP award and has invited national scorn.

One of the 50 voters for the Associated Press' MVP award, Hub Arkush, labeled Rodgers the biggest jerk in the league and a bad guy and stated that he won’t vote Rodgers MVP for that reason.

Rodgers is the jerk. He had no idea that deciding what’s best for his body would provoke lunatics to treat him like a 1960s black man.

“I don’t think you can be the biggest jerk in the league and punish your team, and your organization and your fan base the way he did and be the most valuable player,” Arkush said during a radio interview. “Has he been the most valuable on the field? Yeah, you could make that argument, but I don’t think he is clearly that much more valuable than Jonathan Taylor or Cooper Kupp or maybe even Tom Brady. So from where I sit, the rest of it is why he’s not gonna be my choice.”

This is the kind of utter lunacy COVID has sparked among the Branch Covidians, the mask-wearing leftists who believe “my body, my choice” only applies to killing children in the womb.

Arkush reminds me of David Susskind, the popular American TV host who trashed Ali on national television shortly after a jury disregarded Ali’s religious objection and convicted him of refusing the draft.

“I find nothing amusing or interesting or tolerable about this man,” Susskind said. “He’s a disgrace to his country, his race, and what he laughingly describes as his profession. He is a convicted felon in the United States. He has been found guilty. He is out on bail. He will inevitably go to prison, as well he should. He is a simplistic fool and pawn.”

I find nothing amusing or tolerable about the way Rodgers has been treated since it was discovered his COVID immunization didn’t include taking the experimental medical trial that is being hailed as the corona silver bullet. Arkush gave voice to a sentiment that could derail Rodgers’ MVP candidacy. Arkush was dumb for publicly admitting his bias, but he’s not remotely alone.

Many people within corporate media think it’s perfectly fine to discriminate against the unvaccinated. Rodgers could face additional discrimination because he appears to be flirting with the concept of publicly embracing conservative values.

During ESPN’s Monday Night Football broadcast, Rodgers yukked it up with Peyton and Eli Manning, bragged about reading Ayn Rand’s pro-capitalism manifesto “Atlas Shrugged,” and mentioned his Chuck Norris bobblehead. Norris, the action movie star, is a prominent, unashamed Hollywood Republican.

Back in October, I wrote a column about Rodgers cleverly supporting comedian Dave Chappelle by ripping cancel culture and the woke mob during a podcast interview with McAfee.

From way on the outside, it looks like someone slipped Rodgers the red pill.

Or maybe the No. 1 side effect of COVID is the red pill? The red pill is ivermectin?

COVID isn’t all bad. It’s forcing people to wake up and recognize the lies global elites, politicians, Hollywood, Big Tech, and corporate media are shoving into our brains and veins.

The beauty of COVID is that it impacts all of us. Men, women, and children. Rich and poor. Old and young. Black, white, and brown. Believers and nonbelievers. Educated and uneducated. Famous and unfamous.

It’s unifying in the same way that critical race theory has unified parents concerned about what is being taught inside our public schools. Teaching kids to view our country as a force for evil makes a rational person pause, ponder, and push back.

That’s what’s happening with Aaron Rodgers and people across the globe as it relates to COVID and the alleged vaccines. There are too many lies to be ignored or written off as honest mistakes, too many negative consequences to not raise your voice out of concern.

The lockdowns and isolation have sparked a rise in suicides and depression. The normal, healthy development of kids has been compromised. The experimental medical trials don’t seem to prevent COVID as advertised.

The COVID pandemic just might save freedom. It might make men stand up. It has certainly inspired Aaron Rodgers, the NFL’s most talented and interesting player.

Rodgers is remaking “The Jerk” into a superhero movie.

Whitlock: NBA star Kyrie Irving is Muhammad Ali, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has abandoned his religious convictions



Rolling Stone Magazine and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sold out. They're flacks for the establishment now, fighting to uphold vaccine conscription. Kyrie Irving is Muhammad Ali, a conscientious objector resisting an unjust culture war.

Over the weekend, Rolling Stone published a long-winded hit piece on Irving and other NBA players who are reluctant to take the experimental COVID vaccines. According to Rolling Stone, anti-vax NBA players are standing in the way of the league imposing a vaccine mandate. This is a bad look for a league that prides itself on being to the left of Karl Marx. Irving is seen as the leader of the anti-vaxxers who are pushing around the NBA, according to the writer Matt Sullivan.

The article painted Irving as a nutjob. It criticized him for liking posts from an Instagram account that previously posted messages alleging conspiracies against black people. The magazine trotted out 74-year-old Abdul-Jabbar, a 1960s radical who supported Ali, to reprise the role of David Susskind, the 1960s television host who shredded Ali for refusing induction into the military.

"The NBA should insist that all players and staff are vaccinated or remove them from the team," Lew Al-Sellout told Rolling Stone. "There is no room for players who are willing to risk the health and lives of their teammates, staff, and the fans simply because they are unable to grasp the seriousness of the situation or do the necessary research ...

"They are failing to live up to the responsibilities that come with celebrity. Athletes are under no obligation to be spokespersons for the government, but this is a matter of public health."

Fifty years ago, religious convictions caused Lew Alcindor to change his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. That same man is now driven by celebrity convictions. He's mad athletes are not living up to their responsibilities as celebrities.

What are the responsibilities of celebrities? Are those responsibilities articulated in the Bible, Quran, the Torah?

Thou shalt not disagree with the satanic cabal running Hollywood. Thou shalt not be seen as black if you don't vote for Joe Biden. When Democrats are in power, thou shalt inject yourself with experimental drugs without complaint.

In one breath Kareem is claiming current NBA players don't grasp the seriousness of the situation, and in the next breath he's arguing that Irving has a duty to live up to the responsibilities of celebrity. Is Kareem serious? Is he a serious person?

Kareem is allegedly a Muslim. Arguing for the responsibilities of celebrity is the promotion of idolatry. Islam strictly prohibits idolatry. It's called shirk. As a Muslim or a serious person, Kareem should realize Irving's only duty is to serve God, not celebrity, not the government, not the desires of a 74-year-old sellout.

Muhamad Ali stood against the draft on religious principle, not celebrity principle. When Ali refused induction, he was smeared as a nutjob who joined a religious organization — the Nation of Islam — that promoted conspiracy theories against black people.

Sound familiar?

Kyrie Irving is being treated like Muhammad Ali. Irving, Andrew Wiggins, Jonathan Isaacs, and other unvaccinated NBA players face a similar fate as Ali. Their careers could be halted and cut short. They could lose millions of dollars. Irving plays for Brooklyn. Wiggins plays for Golden State. New York and San Francisco have laws that won't allow unvaccinated athletes to play indoors. Irving and Wiggins could be forced to sit at least half of their games.

Here's what Ali told the media years later about his decision to disobey draft orders.

"My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me n****r, they never lynched me, they didn't put no dogs on me, they didn't rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father. ... Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail."

Let me paraphrase what Irving would say if he channeled his inner Muhammad Ali.

"My conscience won't let me take the jab, or be used as a celebrity influencer to convince black people or poor people to take the jab for big powerful America. Take the jab for what? COVID never called me a victim, a virus never segregated me to second-class citizenship, never hurt a 29-year-old in as good shape as me."

No one believes Kyrie Irving is jeopardizing his health by refusing the vaccine. He's in peak health. COVID poses no threat to his life. No one really believes the unvaccinated pose a threat to the vaccinated. Vaccinated people are contracting COVID and spreading COVID.

The vaccinated want to impose the vaccine on everybody because they've taken the vax. That's it. "I did it so you have to do it." It's the same reasoning that drove the backlash against Ali. No one believed in the Vietnam War. No one saw the war as central to protecting America and American freedom.

Vietnam was a propaganda campaign for the military-industrial complex. Ali courageously avoided his celebrity responsibility to participate in that propaganda campaign. Kyrie is standing against the pharmaceutical-industrial complex that sponsors a high percentage of the advertisements aired during NFL, NBA, and MLB games.

Rolling Stone and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are sellouts.

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Whitlock: NFL COVID policy turning quarterback Kirk Cousins into Muhammad Ali



You don't have to agree with Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins' decision to remain unvaccinated against COVID-19, but you should respect his courage and conviction. It reminds me of Muhammad Ali.

Cousins spent a week in the NFL's COVID penalty box, the reserve/COVID-19 list. A Vikings backup quarterback, Kellen Mond, tested positive for COVID-19. Cousins came in close contact with Mond, and because Cousins is unvaccinated he was sent home and unable to practice with the team. The 32-year-old quarterback missed four practices.

"It was disappointing to miss practice," Cousins said Thursday when he was finally allowed to return to practice. "In my entire college and pro career, I have not missed four practices. So to miss four practices in one week and not have COVID was frustrating, disappointing."

Cousins told the media he remains committed to not taking the vaccine. He said he will follow the league's burdensome protocols for unvaccinated players. This pronouncement has put him in the corporate and social media crosshairs. He will likely remain a target of the vaxx mob throughout the season. Cousins signed a two-year, $66 million contract extension last year. The big paycheck puts a big target on Cousins' back.

There was a time when small segments of the mainstream media would rally around a public figure willing to defy the establishment and risk ridicule.

Muhammad Ali comes to mind. In fact, Cousins' noncompliance is analogous to Ali's bold stance to reject induction into the military. Ali stood on religious principle and common sense.

"I am a member of the black Muslims, and we don't go to no wars unless they're declared by Allah himself," Ali told Robert Lipsyte of the New York Times in 1967. "I don't have no personal quarrel with those Vietcongs."

Coincidentally, Ali never said "no Vietcong ever called me n****r." That's a Hollywood and corporate media fabrication. It was a popular phrase among anti-war protesters that was later attributed to Ali to give the declaration more weight and traction.

But back to Cousins. He and other, healthy, in-their-prime professional athletes have no quarrel with those coronaviruses. No coronavirus ever called an NFL quarterback to a hospital bed. Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson has tested positive for it twice.

Maryland's Republican Gov. Larry Hogan is trying to pressure Jackson into getting the vaccine. He issued a statement two days ago about Jackson's vaxx status.

"With the rules the NFL put down, I can't imagine a team wanting to forfeit a game or lose a chance at the playoffs and none of the players getting paid because someone won't get a vaccine."

The criticism of Jackson will be muted. It's too high risk. He's black and we know corporate and social media fear criticizing black people. That's racist! Cousins doesn't have the right complexion for that connection. His critics are free to lambaste them however they please. Cousins' dad is apparently fair game.

The anti-Trump, pro-Colin Kaepernick Twitter feed Resist Programming spent much of Thursday attacking Don Cousins, Kirk's dad who is a minister at Discovery Church in Orlando, Florida. To his more than 1 million followers, former NBA player-turned-left wing Twitter troll Rex Chapman recirculated a video of Don Cousins complaining during a sermon that it's tough to hear the voice of God because of cancel culture and critical race theory in academia.

According to Twitter, Don Cousins' religious beliefs are a bad look for Kirk Cousins. You know, the same way Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X's religious beliefs were a bad look for Muhammad Ali.

This isn't about whether you believe in Ali's anti-war stance, or his religious convictions. This is about consistency of point of view. You can't pretend to love Muhammad Ali and hate Kirk Cousins. It's inconsistent.

I can hear my critics. "Jason, it's inconsistent for you to respect Ali and ridicule Colin Kaepernick."

No. It's not. Ali stood on his religious convictions. Whether I agree with everything the Nation of Islam believes is irrelevant to me respecting a man or woman for upholding their religious tenants. Kaepernick, as far as I know, stands on no religious principle. He's a Marxist tool, a communist sympathizer. Black Lives Matter is an atheist movement. Kaepernick's stance was far more opportunistic than principled. Ali actually believed in his actions.

So does Kirk Cousins. His father and Christianity taught Cousins not to be controlled by irrational fear. Fear is what is driving vaccination insanity. Cousins does not fit the profile of someone who could be harmed by COVID. It makes perfect sense for him to be reluctant to inject an experimental, non-FDA-approved drug into his healthy body.

The people pressuring him to do so are not concerned with Cousins' health or the health of Cousins' family. They're concerned about themselves, including Cousins' head coach Mike Zimmer. Zimmer wants things to be easier for the Vikings and himself.

The rest of the vaxx mob just wants Cousins and everyone else to take the same risk they have in taking the experimental jab. It's a cult applying pressure to nonbelievers.

I respect Cousins' decision to stand firm in his beliefs.

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