JJ Redick criticized for using racial slur in video

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Chinese internet and technology company Tencent recently produced a video of 30 NBA players sending Chinese New Year wishes to Chinese fans. However, one of the players, JJ Redick, was discovered using racial slur “c***k” towards Chinese fans, which sparked outrage on Chinese social media on Monday.

A famous Weibo blogger @MakeMalik posted a video of Redick using racial slur towards Chinese fans. /Photo via Weibo

This issue first came to light when a famous Weibo blogger @MakeMalik posted a video revealing Redick’s racial slur, which caught the attention of Chinese netizens on Weibo.

In the video, Redick said “I wish all of the NBA c***k fans of China happy Chinese New Year.”

After the video was found inappropriate by some Chinese netizens, NBA removed the part of Redick in the video secretly and re-uploaded it on the website, according to Global Times.

Redick posted an explanation on his Twitter account. /Photo via Twitter

Redick later posted on his Twitter account, explaining that he was tongue tied and the word he said was not among his vocabulary.

However, his short response was not accepted by most of the Chinese netizens. Even some foreign netizens found his explanation not convincing.

“I don’t believe that Redick was tongue tied. In the video, he said the whole sentence fluently. Please don’t fool us around and what we need is Redick’s sincere apology,” a Weibo user commented.

“I don't get it. If he was tongue tied, why couldn't he tell the cameraman ‘Let's retake this 10-second clip again, I will re-organize the sentence.’ Is that really hard?” said an American Twitter user.

Jeremy Lin's post on Weibo. /Photo via Weibo

Jeremy Lin, who was also a Chinese-American NBA player, posted on his Weibo account, saying that he talked to Redick on the phone early in the morning and believed that he was not a racist person. Lin encouraged Chinese fans to avoid using hostile words towards Redick.

Redick posted a letter of apology on Twitter. /Photo via Twitter

Under the strong pressure, Redick posted an apology letter on Twitter, expressing his sincere apology to anyone he offended.

“I was intending to say ‘NBA Chinese fans’ but it sounded weird in my mind so I change it mid-sentence to ‘NBA fans in China.’ It came out the wrong way,” said Redick in his apology letter. “Had I known it sounded anything like that, I would have been mortified and recorded the greeting over again.”

Up until now, NBA hasn’t given any official response on this issue yet.