I know this will come as a "surprise" to anyone who has followed her work with any earnest or interest, but Atlantic writer and race-baiting ESPN alum Jemele Hill is once again struggling to make a consistent point. This time the subject is NBA All-Star Kyrie Irving, who is likely to miss the upcoming season because of his refusal to take the COVID vaccine.
Irving has been put in a position familiar to an ever-increasing portion of the American workforce. Under pressure or threat from the Biden administration, employers are mandating all their workers be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of their continued employment. Irving has been told by team officials that he will not be allowed to practice or play with his Brooklyn Nets until he has received the shot.
Protests against such mandates have swept the country and are reportedly behind the recent flight delays and cancellations of numerous flights offered by Southwest Airlines (though the company bizarrely maintained it was weather that has caused the problems).
Stressing that playing basketball is "not about the money," Irving has maintained that he is doing "what's best" for him even if it costs him financially.
He didn't say it, but there remains the looming question over all these mandates: if the vaccine is effective, why worry about someone who chooses not to get it? If the vaccine isn't effective enough to protect you from one who isn't, why get – and certainly why mandate – the vaccine?
But those aren't the questions that are being asked or answered in America these days. Instead, media outlets are inviting people like Jemele Hill on their programs to tell people to toe the corporate/government line. Hill dropped this gem of wisdom last week on MSNBC:
Look, he made his personal choice. Because we keep saying that is what this is about. Or some people keep saying that. And the Brooklyn Nets had to make their choice in terms of what's best for the organization.
Wait, what? The team doesn't have to respect Kyrie's personal choice? When did that become a progressive, Jemele Hill-approved position?
Suppose we changed Kyrie's personal choice from not getting a vaccine to not presenting as a man. Suppose Kyrie transitioned to a woman and started going by Kylie. And suppose the Nets organization had a policy that prohibited such a behavioral choice.
Would Jemele defend the Nets and proclaim,
"Look, he made his personal choice. Because we keep saying that is what this transgender stuff is about. Or some people keep saying that. And the Brooklyn Nets had to make their choice in terms of what's best for the organization."
A person who thinks that is a position Hill might ever take is the same person who has never read a single thing Hill has written. Personal choices trump all things in her neo-fascist, progressive mindset. Corporations and governments are beholden to the personal whims of someone – anyone – who claims to be oppressed.
That is, until it apparently comes to vaccine mandates.
What's funny is that Hill goes on in the interview to try to blast Republicans for hypocritically politicizing the Irving situation.
What's even more hypocritical about all of a sudden Donald Trump, Jr., Ted Cruz, and other Republicans lining up behind Kyrie Irving – they're all vaccinated. Okay, so, they're basically playing a parlor trick with their audience to continue this inane debate about getting vaccinated. They're trying to keep this – the right wing is – they're trying to keep this as political as possible.
Um, first of all, railing against "the right wing" while mentioning exclusively Republican politicians doesn't sound like you're politicizing this at all, Ms. Hill.
More importantly though, Cruz and company aren't lining up behind Irving because he opposes vaccination. They're lining up behind Irving because he opposes mandates and being forced by his employer (due to government pressure) to inject chemicals into his body. And there are a great many of us who have been vaccinated who wholly support that opposition.
One can be vaccinated and still be opposed to vaccination compulsion by the government and corporate America. And even though it may surprise Ms. Hill, there remain many people across political aisles who are of that mindset.
