Several people around the NBA have spoken out about Donald Trump’s executive order to halt border crossings for foreign nationals from select, Muslim countries. The ban has been denounced as religious persecution, illegal, and damaging including to those players in the NBA, some of whom questioned whether they would be able to take road trips to Toronto and be able to return.
After the Golden State Warriors beat the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday night, 113-111, Warriors coach Steve Kerr was asked about Trump’s executive order.
Kerr, who was born in Beruit, Lebanon, and whose father Malcolm Kerr was assassinated in 1984 spoke of what he felt was an escalation and backwards approach to combating global terrorism.
Via Twitter:
Steve Kerr gives his candid thoughts on the Muslim Ban. pic.twitter.com/ex1CI7Ob3d
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) January 30, 2017
As someone whose family member was a victim of terrorism, and having lost my father: If we’re trying to combat terrorism by banishing people from coming to this country, [we’re] really going against the principles of what our country is about, and creating fear. It’s the wrong way to go about it. If anything we could be breeding anger and terror.
I’m completely against what’s happening, I think it’s shocking, it’s a horrible idea, and I’m really .. I feel for all the people who have been affected. Families are being torn apart, and I worry in the big picture what this means to the security of the world.
It’s going about it completely opposite. You want to solve terror, you want to solve crime. This is not the way to do it.The NBA continues to speak up in a meaningful way in the modern political arena.