Hasn’t anyone told him that it’s probably best to zip it? Tim Hardaway was recently interviewed by ESPN’s Scoop Jackson (a personal friend of the former Heat player), and it’s a lengthy piece that is both apologetic (for the media debacle and using the word “hate”) and yet boldly affirms his base homophobia, which isn’t unexpected, given the vitriol of the original comments.
Here’s a snippet of the Good:
Like I said when I heard the interview, when I heard myself, it sounded bad. “Them being in another country and they shouldn’t be in America ?” That should have never come out. I was like, “Damn, I messed that up. Damn, I don’t believe that came out my mouth. Damn, that’s not me.”The Bad, or at least, the humorously Bad, is after the flip.Yeah, I took the wrong road. I should have been smart about what I was saying and how I expressed my feelings because I offended a lot of folks. And not knowing the magnitude on how this all escalated. I mean, I offended my family, my friends, the NBA, the gay community, people I don’t know, the [Miami] Heat organization. I realize that I offended a lot of people and caused a lot of friction on a touchy subject. And now it’s my job to make it right.
…So in your mind do you want forgiveness or are you just going to try to get yourself straight?
I want both. I want forgiveness and I want to get my s— together.And that entails
?Right now, learning. Learning that gay people are really no different than a lot of other people. Learning that they work hard, they do things in the community, they are responsible for building parks, rec centers, providing safe environments for kids, just things I had never associated with them before. [This last week] has opened up my eyes to the gay population and what they do. I’m getting a lot of knowledge about them that I didn’t have. Which is going to make me a better person. And if it doesn’t, then I’m a damn fool.
He can’t let go of his security blanket of homophobia.
But still you have issues with gays?Geez, another dude who’s floating the idea of rehabbing the gay-hate away. Maybe that’s what it takes for someone so deeply disturbed about this issue needs, but is Hardaway saying he has no control over what he thinks and says in public? If that’s the case, maybe he does need professional help for a whole host of problems related to that.
I still don’t accept their lifestyle. No.And you stand on that?
Yes. You know, we were brought up to not even condone or associate yourself with a gay person. If you knew of a gay person, disassociate yourself with them.But Tim, you’ve been in Miami for years now and there is a strong and public gay community there. How have you still held on to that same mentality while living in Miami all of these years?
I just get away from it. I just walk away. I see it, I just go the other way, cross the street.So at no point did you ever try to understand their lifestyle or way of life?
No. Never did. Never wanted to.Do you want to now?
No. I don’t want to ? try to find some type of understanding of why they live the way they live or why they are the way they are. Maybe I could go to therapy, maybe someone can help me out with understanding [them], the sensitivity of the issue. But as a person, my beliefs are my beliefs. I don’t have to condone it and I don’t have to be around it. But I don’t have to hate it either.
I have to give Jackson credit — he pushes Hardaway to think deeply about where his homophobia is rooted, and poses several hypotheticals (someone comes out to Tim before he’s brought onto a team — that’s OK, vs. after being on the team — not OK), that proves Hardaway truly hasn’t figured out why he thinks the way that he does.
Hat tip, Kevin A.
Related:
* Leonard Pitts: Good for Tim Hardaway
* Hardaway tries again
* Gay mayor reaches out to Tim Hardaway
* The class of John Amaechi
* Tim Hardaway: ‘I hate gay people’
* Hardaway’s tortured apology
* ESPN message board topic: “Tim Hardaway is right.”
* ESPN’s Outside the Lines, featuring the full interview with infamous remarks, as well as comments from Amaechi.
25 Responses to “Hardaway tries to extract foot from mouth again”
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Let’s take a deep breath and remember how hard it can be even for gay people who are raised by a deeply homophobic culture to become OK with gay people.
It’s not bad what he’s going through right now. It’s part of a process of coming to terms with homosexuality. Most gay people went through a similar process themselves.
If people with deeply engrained homophobia aren’t allowed to go through this process, including honestly exploring their homophobic attitudes, gay rights doesn’t have any hope of gaining traction.
Gays should lighten up a little on this guy. A lot of this is him mirroring his culture.
(yes, I’m gay)
TomK: Bah. Cultural differences are the last refuge of a scoundrel.
I just don’t understand why somebody whose major life expertise is getting an inflatable ball to go where he wants it to go is even being questioned, or listened to, on this subject. Or any other, really.
He lives in Miami and just crosses the street when he sees the gays coming? He must run himself stupid going in circles.
I’m still enjoying Mr Takei’s take on this. 8^D
He heard himself and realized how hateful he was? Funny because he reiterated his hateful speech the same day on a radio station adding he would even feel the same way about a family member. Most of us hear the words that come out of our mouths as we speak them last time I checked. This wasn’t a gaffe, the man is a has been who thought he could grab back the spotlight for five minutes and it backfired so now he’s backpeddling. He’ll appear on the Surreal Life in a few weeks or months than fade into oblivion again. The only good to come out of this is that it exposes the homophobia rampant in the NBA but that was never breaking news anyway.
Yes, Jack, George Takei is the most awesome person to live. That aside.
The best thing you can say about Hardaway is he’s at least being open about this. I prefer someone saying straight out, “I don’t like gays, and I don’t want to understand them” to the runaround most homophobes give. The whole “I don’t hate gays, I just don’t think they should marry, have kids, or be allowed within 100 miles of decent people.”
When I read the Scoop Jackson interview the other day, I immediately sent a note letting Scoop know that his buddy was still basically full of sh*t.
In the original interview conducted by Dan Lebatard, Hardaway made his odious pronouncements. Lebatard then attempted to give him multiple opportunities to pull back at least somewhat but Hardaway just kept pounding the hate.
It was only after everything blew up in his face; after he had realized what a total idiot he appeared to be, that the apologies started. And the only thing he has really apologized for is letting his alligator mouth overload his hummingbird a**. He is sorry he SAID the words but not at all sorry for the hate behind the words. He is in no way remorseful over feeling this hate, just sorry he got caught. He has no interest in learning anything about what he is hating, he just seems to revel and be proud of the hate.
I also saw something a few days ago that back when he was playing, some sports site did an analysis of the “gayness” of players games and Hardaway was in the top 10. Take that for wahtever you will but the irony, oh the irony
It seems like he just wants to give up the hate the way one learns to let go of hate for someone who betrayed or bullied you– not-hating isn’t about them, it’s about not having your life warped by this horrible feeling to someone who shouldn’t be that important.
Which is a fair enough thing to have in mind to let go of hates based on what was done to you, or to others– but he thinks his hate of people *who have never harmed anyone* is justified, simply because he thinks they are ‘icky’.
Not even CLOSE to reevaluating his ideas.
And yet, when one does learn to forgive those who did do harm, one sees them as normal, fallible humans. Maybe he will learn something after all.
I think it would be really insightful for someone to ask Hardaway if he thinks ‘nigger’ is an offensive word; and if someone called him that, even not in his presence, whether he would be offended.
now, we all know that he would be offended, and that he would probably approach anybody using that word as a toxic personality.
i’d just really like to hear his intelligent explanation for why that word is offensive to him, and what feelings it stirs in him.
sadly, the irony would most likely be completely lost on him.
So with this whole “crossing the street thing” … unless the people involved are holding hands (SHOCK HORROR!) or seriously making out, how does he KNOW that they’re gay?
This whole rehabbing the gay hate away thing is slightly absurd to me, but whatever the breeders need to do to get straight with the gay is fine by me.
Psychobunny: Apparently Tim has great gaydar for a straight man.
The problem with Hardaway’s statements is that he 1) claims that he will try to get away from anyone who is gay and 2) that if he has a teammate who is gay but does not disclose it, that person is untrustworthy.
Say what, Tim? Should the guy come out and be honest so you trust him as a teammate, even though that would necessarily destroy the teammate bond because, in your own words, you would have to get away from that person? We’re pretty much back to his original statement then, that gays just shouldn’t exist.
Oh, and even though BS talk like his helps inspire violence towards gays worldwide on a daily basis, he can’t imagine that people might want to inflict violence on him or his family for his beliefs.
I’m not advocating that anyone should, mind you. But if you bring that kind of ugliness into the world (and he has every RIGHT to), don’t be surprised if it comes back on you. Karma.
Who cares what this ignorant, overpaid fool thinks. The ONLY reason he’s trying to wiggle out of his vile denigration of gays is because someone from the NBA league office told him they were gonna ship his dumb ass to Georgia or ‘Bama if’n he din’t ‘make nice’. Guy is scared shitless he’s gonna be thrown off the pro-sports gravy train.
And…
Unlike the Dixie Chicks he’s a…
Fukin’ coward.
Which is why he’s doin’ what the Corporate Slave State’s overseer tells him to do.
He’s way to far gone in his self-hatred and ignorance to be worth worrying about.
I have to give Jackson credit
Oh bull f*king sh*t you do. Did you miss the part where Jackson pulls a scenario out of his ass about gay teens attacking Hardaway’s kid, or the part where he asks Hardaywa if the reason he hates fags is because he was molested (with the implicit hint that, that’s what fags do, right)?
Jackson can kiss my pansy ass. He’s no less of a homophobe than his friend. He’s just better at hiding it.
Throughout the entire interview, Jackson bemoans the fact that his good buddy was stupid enough to say IN PUBLIC what he should have kept away from the cameras. The message is that homophobia in big league sports is only a problem when it gets on camera. It’s OK behind closed doors.
Now I can’t even stand to look at Hardaway. I almost wish he’d have just said, “Yeah, I hate the gays! So, what?”. At least he’d have had some spine at that point. Now he’s just some sort of freakish spectacle that I can’t even understand. It’s really sad.
He HATES broccoli? What does that even mean? Does he know the meaning of the word, hate? Only morons and 3 year-olds HATE broccoli. The rest of us normal people either enjoy eating, don’t enjoy eating it or are somewhere in between. This is just too sad and weird to comprehend.
Oh, my God! Please, someone, email Pat Robertson so that he’ll have a talk to Tim Hardaway about the gays. That would be classic.
Hardaway goes on PTI or Outside the Lines and says something like, “You know I just learned that God will attack the earth with meteors if we legalize same sex marriages. Pat Robertson told me that.” That would just be classic.
Please, Tim, call Pat Robertson, then call a joint press conference so that you guys can talk about the gays. Such a press conference would be better than the Final Four, Superbowl and World Series put together.
“He is sorry he SAID the words but not at all sorry for the hate behind the words.”
Yep. It’s one of those “I’m sorry if you were offended” non-apologies. But they seem to be pretty common these days.
“I should have been smart about what I was saying and how I expressed my feelings because I offended a lot of folks.”
sounds similar to
“In no way was it meant to demean him, and I’m sorry if he was offended” - George Allen
and
“My intention is never to offend anyone for his or her personal beliefs, and I am sorry if anyone was personally offended by writings meant only as criticisms of public politics.” - controversial blogger
He admits he’s ignorant and wants to educate himself. This sounds more real and sincere than most canned apologies. That he still displays some of the ignorance he says he is fighting is not surprising.
Hatred is an expression of fear. Some of our fears are real, and some are pure inventions. Hardaway admits his fear was due to ignorance. He lapses back into spouting the prejudices of his upbringing (can someone talk to his mother and father?), but in talking about how gay people help in “providing safe environments for kids” he gets to the heart of the lies the religious right uses against gays. Good for him.
Do we want to hate, or do we want to convert the ignorant? I would suggest Hardaway, for all his previously vitriol, seems to have allowed himself to be educated. Keep it up Mr. Hardaway.
I agree with epistemology.
Remember that our society is permeated with homophobia at its core, and said homophobia is just another aspect of mysoginy… not to mention the sad truth that most people in his situation would have not even tried to learn.
Yes, he has a long way to go- guess what? At least he started. Give him some fucking credit, ok?
Tim Hardaway might just be a little bit dumb. Its not an uncommon condition and there is little about his professional achievements that demonstrates great intellect.
He seems to be making an effort, albeit a clumsy and dumb effort.
Smart people do a better job of overcoming the ideas of their background or at least disguising them to avoid offending progressive people. That doesn’t make them better than TH, just smarter.
We need to show some generosity to folks with a dumb shaped learning curve and give them the time they need to come around. There are too many of them to just write them off.
I doubt that Hardaway’s statemtents really fuel violence against gays. If anything he sparked a dialog amongst folks who othewise would have wallowed in their abject ignorance. Naturally, it will only be a few such people who really learn anything, but sometimes you have to take what you’re given.
Obviously, all gay people should have to register with the National Bureau of Keeping Track of Homos and wear a prominent pink triangle somewhere on their persons. So decent folks like Mr. Hardaway don’t have to guess when they should cross the street to avoid getting AIDS. ‘cause you can get it if a homo crosses your shadow, y’know.
The problem here is that none of you heard Hardaway’s rant in context. He was clearly just being satirical. It’s also clear that you are race-ogynists for only attacking a brother. It’s clear that the Left Wing Noise Machine would have slimed Timmy no matter what he said. You were just out for a scalp, and that you chose to slime a brother by taking his satirical rant out of context just shows what meanies you are.
Who’s to say that feet do not belong in the mouth? It’s time we stamped out podiaoriphobia.