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Black Basketball Recruits Warned About Bruce Pearl After Auburn Head Coach Attacks Kamala Harris

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NewsOne.com 

Bruce Pearl, the head coach of the Auburn Tigers, on March 15, 2024, in Nashville, Tennessee.  | Source: Andy Lyons / Getty

A social media post from the white head coach of one of the top men’s college basketball programs in the nation has sparked calls for Black players he’s recruiting to consider being student-athletes elsewhere.

Auburn University head coach Bruce Pearl’s fateful commentary on Monday morning offered a sharp rebuke of Vice President Kamala Harris while employing a term that critics say conservative Republicans have turned into a racist dog whistle.

At the same time, the underlying suggestion behind the post was that Pearl supports Harris’ opponent, Donald Trump, a man who has spent decades demeaning and racially discriminating against Black people.

The combination of circumstances prompted an outpouring of calls to prevent Pearl from successfully recruiting Black student-athletes to play for any basketball program that he leads.

Journalist Roland Martin was among the first to draw attention to Pearl’s post on X, formerly Twitter, that thanked MAGA U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton for lying that Harris – whom he called “extreme” – would “kick you off the health insurance you get through your job” once she becomes president.

Cotton then fearmongered along racial lines when he claimed “she wants everyone—even illegal aliens—on a government plan.”

Pearl – whose success as a basketball coach has come courtesy of the parade of talented Black players he’s coached – responded to Cotton’s disingenuous post with a wild conspiracy theory about what he described as Harris’ “socialist, woke progressive beliefs” and accused her without proof of “changing  them or hiding them to get elected!” Pearl punctuated his post by adding: “We won’t get fooled again!”

That, in turn, prompted Martin to issue a warning to “all Black ballplayers and their parents considering @AuburnMBB” and call Pearl “trash.” Martin reminded those players that “There are many other SEC schools to consider. Choose accordingly.”

Others soon offered similar sentiments.

“So, Bruce Pearl is advertising that he is maga racist trash,” one person posted on X. “Good to know.”

Another wrote: “Thank you Bruce Pearl for removing the invisibility cloak and revealing who you really are. To think you coach young Black men and don’t understand what ‘woke’ is. Coaches making $$ off people they really do not like is a thing.”

“Bruce Pearl built his Basketball program and legacy on the backs of Black athletes,” another post said. “Now he publicly backs Trump and MAGA racist polices and agenda that target Black people. Why would any Black parent send their child to play under MAGA Bruce Pearl? Stay away.”

Hasan Jeffries, an author who is also the brother of House Minority Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, cautioned: “If they love #Trump then they hate you!”

Whether Pearl wants to admit it, his social media post attacking Harris carries the strong suggestion that he supports Trump’s candidacy and more.

Pearl, who is Jewish, could come under fire for speaking out in such strong terms against the candidacy of a woman who could become the first Black and Asian president of the United States.

Pearl’s race could particularly factor in what is sure to be an ensuing firestorm because of his influential position leading a group of mostly Black young men. That is especially true since Trump has referred to Black people and nations in derogatory terms to go along with his decades-long documented history of discriminating against Black people.

To be sure, Cotton’s post included a screenshot from an NBC News article that was published back when Harris was a presidential candidate in 2019 — well before her historic election to the vice presidency and her current candidacy for the White House.

Cotton’s post referred to her calls back then for “Medicare for all,” a position that she no longer supports in her current iteration as a presidential candidate.

But, as CNN pointed out earlier this month, falsely claiming that Harris is still a proponent of the policy has conveniently become “a Trump campaign attack line.”

In other words, Pearl lashed out at Harris under the falsest of pretenses that have been championed by the Trump campaign in what was likely a knee-jerk reaction to promote the MAGA ideals his social media post suggests he upholds.

In case you missed it, the term “woke” has effectively been co-opted by conservatives in usage that is tantamount to the N-word, critics have said.

As of Tuesday morning, Auburn University had remained silent about the budding controversy.

Pearl has previously taken to social media to express other political opinions along these same lines.

That includes reacting to the failed assassination attempt on Trump last month when Pearl blamed the political violence in Western Pennsylvania on “the media” and “Justice Dept” in criticisms that echo sentiments espoused by Trump.

Later that same day, Pearl rejected comparisons of Trump to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and staunchly pushed back against a New Republic article that he said suggested “Trump in 2024 is Hitler in 1932” despite the existence of the Republican-led Project 2025 agenda that aims for sweeping restrictions of civil freedoms and liberties.

 

Pearl, notably, has also criticized President Joe Biden’s administration for not doing enough to support Israel following a terror attack from the Hamas militant group in October.

SEE ALSO:

Advocacy Group Alleges NCAA Schools Conspiring Against Black Athletes

March Madness Money: Are HBCUs Treated Fairly During The NCAA Tournament?

The post Black Basketball Recruits Warned About Bruce Pearl After Auburn Head Coach Attacks Kamala Harris appeared first on NewsOne.