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Wade did too well to derail a mistake

Dwyane Wade made a mistake.

He knew it and tried to solve it very quickly, but it’s never quite quickly in the age of social media and instantly everything.

When you tweet something you shouldn’t have to 9 million Twitter followers around the world, it’s out there, an echo that reverberates. You can erase what you wrote and he did, but you can’t make it disappear.

D-Wade, a retired Miami Heat legend and beloved icon, was defended by some but buried by consensus. The mea culpa came quickly, the explanation, the words carefully written. Helped. But it is never enough.

In the offensive tweet, Wade supported Nick Cannon after the television host was fired from ViacomCBS for making anti-Semitic comments on his podcast. Wade tweeted to Cannon, “We are with you” and “Keep driving!” along with a black fist emoji.

The national context deteriorated, as both Cannon’s comments and Wade’s initial reaction came at a time of great tension in America over prejudice and division. It is more than the continuing protests for racial justice following the killing of George Floyd. These are ignorant anti-Asian episodes related to the coronavirus / COVID-19 pandemic originating in China. And it is an increase in the hate crimes of anti-Semitism affecting those of the Jewish faith.

Wade quickly wrote: “I want to clear up my now deleted tweet. I wasn’t advocating or forgiving what Nick Cannon said specifically, but I had expressed my support for owning the content and the brand he helped create. “The emoji this time was prayer hands.

Less than an hour later, Wade said in another tweet: “I was too quick to respond without being fully informed of his wounded anti-Semitic remarks. As you all know, I have ZERO tolerance for every hate speech! “

The first response was an explanation that didn’t work.

The second was better because it recognized that Cannon’s words were anti-Semitic, offensive and offensive to many in the Jewish community – and because he rightly reminded the world of what Miami knows very well about Dwyane Wade’s heart. Who is like man.

A show of hands from anyone who reads this. Who is perfect out there? (I’d be the boy near the end one line.) Who has never made a mistake and regretted it? Most of us do more than we would like to admit. Almost none of us have Wade’s platform and voice. It means that he must choose his words more carefully, a lesson learned.

For this imperfection, Wade deserves the benefit of the doubt, not a lasting sentence. The way he led his life off the pitch indicates a man of principle and high character, fairness and inclusion. He should earn him a free Prison Prison card for an aberrant misstep like this.

This is a man who led the heat request for justice after Trayvon Martin’s killing in 2012.

Wade in 2016 was one of the four NBA players who joined and asked for the athlete’s activism towards social equality to start the ESPY Awards. “Racial profiling must end. The mentality to be shot to death must end, “he said.” Not to see the value of black and brown bodies must end. Enough. When there is too much is too much. “

In 2018, it was D-Wade who visited and raised Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland after the school saw the massacre of 17 students and faculty, the deadliest high school shootings in U.S. history.

It was Wade, just last February, who appeared on the “Ellen DeGeneres Show” and spoke of his 12-year-old daughter as a transgender. The love and pride expressed by Wade for the fact that Zion became Zaya was seen as a milestone in public support for black trans children.

Wade said on the show: “We are proud parents of a child in the LGBTQ + community and we are also proud allies.”

This is a man who has consistently led a very public life on the right side of defense, of issues of conscience and equality.

This week he stumbled upon a tweet he regretted. It makes him human, no less a man.

We know who Dwayne Wade is and we know it by heart.

Greg Cote is a sports columnist for the Miami Herald who was named in the top 10 in the column in 2018 by writing to the Associated Press Sports Editors. Greg also regularly appears on the Dan LeBatard Show With Stugotz on ESPN Radio and ESPNews.

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