Last month, the world celebrated LGBTQ Pride Month, but based on some recent comments from former NBA All-Star point guard Gilbert Arenas, it’s pretty clear that he was not celebrating.
Gilbert Arenas recently sat down for an interview with Vlad TV where he had a pretty blunt message for the LGBTQ community, calling it “the most unfair group walking the planet.”
“I think it’s the most unfair group walking the planet right now. They have a playbook that only they’re playing by. No one else gets to see this playbook, but we’re being judged by everything that’s in this playbook,” Arenas said according to Fox News. “But we don’t know it. So, there’s no open dialogue about what is appropriate and what’s not. We only find out after we [mess] up. That’s unfair. That’s [freaking] unfair. You can’t do that. How do I know something’s wrong until you give it to me?”
When asked if he could provide an example to illustrate his point, Arenas seemed to take issue with preferred pronouns.
“Just words, phrases. Like he, she, it, they. … How do we know? You’re making it up as we go,” Arenas claimed. “There’s not like there’s this [freaking] dictionary of updates, and we can sit there, click it and say, ‘All right I can’t say … they took this out. They added this in.’ We’re just learning, right? That’s really unfair that you can cancel somebody on a playbook that only you have.”
Arenas’ comments certainly did not go over well on social media.
Oppressors always want to demand the oppressed to educate them <for free> like they don't have access to the same resources and more. Y'all are not children. Nobody is obligated to teach y'all centuries worth of history and social-political thought. https://t.co/b4x1rxmiNU
— E. (@EddieQBD) July 3, 2023
"I don't know anything about the LGBTQ community……"
Sounds like "I don't know anything about Black people and it's not my responsibility to educate myself either…"
Yet it is.
Pure ignorance. https://t.co/gkuLZEb4Bc
— Jeux olympiques de Paris du 5 au 13 août 🐢 (@HarlemJ11) July 3, 2023
Hard to tell whether Gilbert is coming from a good place on this or not. Most LGBTQ+ people are absolutely willing to have conversations and educate people when they're genuinely curious, have good intentions and just to teach terms/what is acceptable. https://t.co/EZ24RpU5xx
— T (@TheoTweetsStuff) July 3, 2023
https://twitter.com/homoinstigator/status/1676250463321088002?s=20
It is not my job to educate you when you start off with hatred straight out of the gate. That is usually the case. https://t.co/mtt125a6ex
— Honest Brotha (@TheImperfectLeo) July 3, 2023
Gilbert is telling us how he has no LGBTQ friends (without saying it). https://t.co/4aWBeRDqa5
— 🇩🇴 Sysko 🇩🇴 (@Sysko212) July 3, 2023
Nothing about what he said was "valid."
It was foolish, from beginning to end. https://t.co/e6XDoUQ1kP
— The Easiest Woman In This Room (@Jaffney_Quinn) July 3, 2023
People were not happy with Arenas for his comments, and it’s easy to see why.
[Fox News]
