An injured Miami Heat player while playing Call of Duty: Warzone dropped an Anti-Semitic slur, calling his opponents, “f8cking cowards” and “Kike bitch”.
Mayers Leonard has been out all season with an injury and the Heat hold the option for his 2021-22 season…which it appears could now be in jeopardy. He has been suspended by the NBA.
Leonard was dropped by his gaming sponsors as a result of his comment.
Meyers Leonard says racial slurs while playing CoD pic.twitter.com/WHwUnbV0pR
— Main Team (@MainTeamSports) March 9, 2021
“The Miami Heat vehemently condemns the use of any form of hate speech,” the team said. “The words used by Meyers Leonard were wrong and we will not tolerate hateful language from anyone associated with our franchise,” the Heat said in a statement. “To hear it from a Miami Heat player is especially disappointing and hurtful to all those who work here.”
The Heat said Leonard will be away from the team indefinitely and will probably become a free agent at the end of this season.
The word ‘kike’ is an offensive slur word used to demean Jewish people. It is derived from the Yiddish word “circle”. When coming to Ellis Island at the twentieth-century Jewish immigrants who filled out forms upon entry, did not want to mark check boxes with an X, a representation of the cross and Christianity.
Instead, they used a circle and were eventually called “kikes” by immigration officers. That slang eventually followed them to the communities where they settled and is equivalent to using the “n-word” against African Americans.