People on Twitter are pretty peeved at the Boston Police Department for a now-deleted tweet the department made in honor of Black History Month. The problem? The tweet in question celebrated a white man.
Sunday, the department’s official account tweeted an image of legendary Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach, celebrating the fact that Auerbach was the first NBA coach to draft a black payer, hire the NBA’s first black head coach, and start five black players. The tweet was taken down an hour later after Twitter reacted—quite rightfully—that the post was negligent and offensive.
Given the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, the department's own muddied track record on the issue of race, the many prominent and historic black figures in the NBA (and everywhere else), and basic common sense, one can't help but wonder what exactly the department was thinking in initially sharing the tweet. They replaced the tone-deaf tweet with another one in honor the NBA’s first black head coach, Bill Russell, stating, “Our intentions were never to offend."
