At a sports business conference on Wednesday, Michael Rubin, a minority owner of the Philadelphia 76ers, was asked about Robert Kraft’s recent troubles with the law, given that the Patriots owner is a friend of his. In his response, Rubin reported that the incident has sparked a sudden sociopolitical awakening in Kraft, who, after being arrested on two counts of soliciting prostitution for frequenting a massage parlor and paying masseuses to manipulate his penis to the point of climax with their hands and mouths, now understands what it’s like to be a black NFL player confronting the racist criminal justice system:
“The biggest thing that I talk to Robert about every day these days is, he’s finally seeing what it’s like to be a player in the NFL and a player in the NBA, when you have experiences with law enforcement that aren’t the way that you thought they were going to be,” Rubin said.
“The whole thing was made up by law enforcement,” Rubin then said in regards to the police’s initial claims that the sting that busted Kraft was part of a sex trafficking ring—claims that now appear erroneous after police have still yet to charge anyone with sex trafficking charges. Rubin continued:
[Kraft] was illegally videoed, he was illegally pulled over, and now, you know, Rob’s like, “Man, I get what our players go through when they get pulled over and they’re discriminated against.” So, you know, I think it’s been eye-opening for him. He was like me a year and a half ago; I thought the criminal justice system was perfect in 99.9 percent of the situations, and today I recognize that it doesn’t work well in most of the situations. Not because they’re bad people; because the system is fundamentally broken. What law enforcement always does is over-charge, and no one can fight it, so the people will plead down and you’re stuck within the system.
Good on Kraft for coming to realize that racial profiling exists and is bad, and kudos to Rubin for acknowledging that “the system is fundamentally broken” in light of the experiences of his friend, Meek Mill. (Though Kraft getting popped for buying a handy at a rub-and-tug spot is not even close to racial profiling.)
It’s hard to give either of these guys a Medal of Wokeness, though. Had either of them simply listened to and taken seriously the stories and experiences of their fellow countrymen at any time during the past, say, several decades when the fucked up nature of the criminal justice system has been plastered everywhere for anyone with even a modicum of curiosity in and compassion for the lives of black and brown people to notice, they would’ve come to these awakenings a hell of a lot sooner. Maybe it would’ve been soon enough to prevent the world from falling into its current state, or at least to not subject us to a soon-to-be-released police video depicting Kraft at the exact moment of ecstasy and awakening when he realizes that black lives do in fact matter right as he splooges all over his stomach.
H/t Mike