NBA’s Jonathan Isaac Becomes First To Stand For National Anthem And Refuse To Wear A “Black Lives Matter” T-Shirt

If you’ve been watching the return of the NBA, the one thing you likely have noticed is that “Black Lives Matter” and social justice phrases have been pasted onto almost every surface, t-shirt, player jersey, pair of sneakers and arena that teams are playing in.

In addition to the league trying to win gold at the virtue signalling Olympics and forcing its politics on its viewers in its “fight for social justice”, the league’s players have also been kneeling in unison for the national anthem before every game. 

That is, everybody except the Orlando Magic’s Jonathan Isaac. 

Isaac – who is also an ordained minister – neither knelt down nor wore a “Black Lives Matter” t-shirt during his first game back, putting him at odds with “every team” who has done so, according to CBS, and making him the first to break from the league’s groupthink. 

Isaac has cited the gospel as his reason for standing, telling the media in a post game interview: “I believe that Black Lives Matter. A lot went into my decision, and part of it is, I thought that kneeling or wearing the Black Lives Matter t-shirt doesn’t go hand-in-hand with supporting Black lives.”

He continued: “So I felt like, just me personally, what is that I believe is taking on a stance that, I do believe that Black lives matter, but I just felt like it was a decision that I had to make, and I didn’t feel like putting that shirt on and kneeling went hand in hand with supporting Black lives. I believe that for myself, my life has been supported by gospel, Jesus Christ, and everyone is made in the image of God and that we all forge through God’s glory.”

“Each and every one of us do things that we shouldn’t do and say things that we shouldn’t say. We hate and dislike things that we shouldn’t hate and dislike, and sometimes it gets to a point where we point fingers, whose evil is worse, and sometimes it comes down to whose evil is most visible,” he said.

“So I felt like I wanted to take a stand on, we all make mistakes, but I think that the gospel of Jesus Christ is that there’s grace for us, and that Jesus came and died for our sins and that if we all come to an understanding of that and that God wants to have a relationship with us, that we can get kept all of the things in our world that our messed up, jacked up.”

He concluded: “I think when you look around, racism isn’t the only thing that plagues our society, that plagues our nation, that plagues our world, and I think coming together on that message that we want to get past not only racism but everything that plagues as us as a society, I feel like the answer to that is gospel.”

This non-controversy, of course, had to prompt a statement in response from the team, who said:

A statement from the DeVos Family and the Orlando Magic following the demonstration during the national anthem prior to tonight’s NBA restart game. pic.twitter.com/pauXmG62cD

— Orlando Magic (@OrlandoMagic) July 31, 2020

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

As CBS notes, meanwhile, kneeling during the national anthem is “technically prohibited”, but NBA commissioner Adam Silver has said it’s a rule the league will not enforce.

“I respect our teams’ unified act of peaceful protest for social justice and under these unique circumstances will not enforce our long-standing rule requiring standing during the playing of our national anthem,” he said.