Monday, April 29, 2019

Trump favors the white guy over the first Asian American No. 1 draft pick

Draft pick No. 2, Nick Bosa, left, was congratulated by Trump. The No. 1 pick, Murray was ignored.

Leave it to Donald Trump to make the NFL draft about himself and his base.

Apparently, winning the
Heisman Trophy, the award given to the best college football player, getting drafted in pro-football AND major league baseball or being the first Asian American to be taken No. 1 in the NFL draft was good enough for Trump to send Kyler Murray a congratulatory message

Instead, Trump opted to tweet congratulations to the No. 2
 pick, defensive end Nick Bosa, who is white, and passed over the Arizona Cardinal's choice, Murray, who is part Korean and part African American.
"Congratulations to Nick Bosa on being picked number two in the NFL Draft. You will be a great player for years to come, maybe one of the best. Big Talent! San Francisco will embrace you but most importantly, always stay true to yourself. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" Trump tweeted, completely ignoring Murray's accomplishments.

Bosa voiced his support for Trump on social media years ago. However, more recently he had been critical on numerous occasions of Colin Kaepernick and his national anthem protests. He even went after Black excellence in various tweets, calling Beyonce and Jay-Z’s music “trash” and describing Black Panther as the “worst Marvel movie” ever. All tweets about Kaepernick and attacks on Black celebrities have been deleted from Bosa’s Twitter account. 


The fact that the offensive tweets were deleted indicates Bosa and 49ers are aware the public relations challenge for the team in the liberal San Francisco Bay Area.

In his first press conference in front of reporters who cover the 49ers, Bosa apologized for his past remarks, attributing them to his younger self. 

"I'm sorry if I hurt anybody," Bosa said. "I definitely didn't intend for that to be the case. I think me being here (San Francisco) is even better for me as a person, because I don't think there's anywhere, any city, that you could really be in that would help you grow as much as this one will. I'm going to be surrounded with people of all different kinds, so I'm going to grow as a person. I'm going to be on my own. I'm going to grow up, I'm gonna learn a lot of new things. It's exciting."

Talking about Kaepernick, who started kneeling during the National Anthem in protest of the unequal treatment of people of color by the judiciaal system.
"No, It wasn't directed toward that. It's not like I'm saying his stance and what he was doing -- that's not what I was talking about at all," said Bosa. "It was just a specific thing that happened, and me, as a young kid, a thought popping into my head and, boom, decided to tweet it out. Bad decision. I respect what he's done. If it empowers anybody, then he's doing a good thing. I apologize for that."
Forgotten in the Twitter storm generated by Trump's diss is U. of Oklahoma quarterback Murray, who has thus far kept his political views to himself. Drafted by the Arizona Cardinals, Murray's father is African American and his mother is half Korean.

Ignored by Trump, Murray has attracted the attention of basketball legend LeBron James. Murray has come to an agreement with James' production company for a documentary about Murray's journey to becoming a professional football player. 

After winning the Heisman Trophy last year, he did apologize for homophobic rermarks he tweeted in 2012.

“I apologize for the tweets that have come to light tonight from when I was 14 and 15. I used a poor choice of word that doesn’t reflect who I am or what I believe. I did not intend to single out any individual or group.”


To the credit of both young men, they owned up to their past mistakes and apologized. That is more than can be said about Trump, who hasn't apologized for ignoring Murray, the first player chosen in the NFL draft.
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