6 Ways To Achieve Any Goal by Molly Cain | Courtesy of Forbes Remember that one glorious night not...
TOPLINE
Sales for content designated as antisemitic promoted by NBA star Kyrie Irving skyrocketed this week, proving the far-reaching impact of Irving’s musings as he issued an apology late Thursday after the Brooklyn Nets suspended their star point guard.
The Nets suspended Kyrie Irving, pictured here Monday, over a post he made last week.
GETTY IMAGESKEY FACTS
Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America, the book by the same name of the film tweeted without comment by Irving last week, is the best-selling book in Amazon’s Religion and Spirituality and Social Sciences categories.
Audiobook sales are through the roof for the work characterized by the Anti-Defamation League as amplifying “longstanding antisemitic tropes about Jewish power, control and greed,” with Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America coming in at No. 9 on Apple Books and 13th on Audible’s respective top audiobook lists. It appears that whatever frustration that certain group harbor for Kyrie Irving is not aimed at distributors of the content like Amazon, Apple, and Audible.
Print unit sales of the book also soared, according to data from NPD Bookscan provided to Forbes, with 189 units sold in the week ending last Friday, a roughly 800% increase and marking one of the best-selling weeks for the work since its 2015 publication (data for the current week is not yet available).
Amazon, Apple, and Audible did not immediately respond to Forbes’ request for comment.
KEY BACKGROUND
The Nets suspended Irving for five games or more without pay exactly a week after Irving posted a link to Amazon that sold the accompanying documentary. Irving deleted the post late Sunday after antisemitic rapper Kanye West supported Irving in an Instagram post. Though Nets owner Joe Tsai denounced Irving for sharing content “full of antisemitic disinformation” last Friday, the backlash against Irving was slow. Irving refused to apologize during a Saturday press conference and refused to say he was not antisemitic in a Thursday afternoon press conference. Irving has yet to lose any corporate partners, though his shoe sponsor Nike made a statement earlier this week condemning antisemitism.
TANGENT
Many critics pointed to the backlash against the athlete instead of the corporate entities profiting off of the proliferation of the content, including ESPN commentator Jay Williams who asked Wednesday: “Where is that same attention and energy for the platform that is promoting and profiting off of it?.... I don’t hear any of that talk around Jeff Bezos and Amazon.”
SURPRISING FACT
Jews were the target of 55% of all religious hate crimes in the U.S. in 2020, the last year for which FBI data is available, despite accounting for less than 3% of the U.S. population. The FBI warned Thursday of a credible threat of violence against New Jersey synagogues and identified a suspect, a New Jersey man harboring an “extreme amount of hate against the Jewish community,” Friday morning.
BIG NUMBER
$2.2 million. That’s about how much salary Irving will miss out on if his suspension lasts the minimum of five games, missing out on his roughly $450,000 paychecks for each contest missed
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