Kings and KHTK threw away a chance for Napear to be redeemed after a big, bad mistake
One tweet. That’s what ended Grant Napear’s decades-long career as the TV voice of the Sacramento Kings and the most popular sports talk radio host in town. One tweet in which Napear — unwittingly, according to him — repeated a phrase often used by detractors of the civil rights group, Black Lives Matter. It torched all those years, all those games, all those ratings wins, all that work.
On Tuesday, Napear’s run ended after 32 years of calling Kings games and 26 years as an afternoon radio host on KHTK-1140.
The language used by the Kings to describe Napear’s dismissal was that Napear “resigned.” The language used by Bonneville International, the parent company of KHTK, was that they had “parted company” with Napear. The words are meaningless. It was over. Napear would never be allowed to read his apology on the air. In it, he vows “I will do better.”
No one used the word “fired,” but that’s what happened.
Of course, some would celebrate this development because you don’t work in one market for that long without gaining detractors. And plenty of people on social media believe in skipping straight to execution, no matter the offense.
I can’t stand the “cancel culture” we live in now where one mistake – one! – can mean you are unemployed.
If Napear were insisting that he did nothing wrong, that would be one thing. If he were pulling a President Donald Trump and doubling down on his mistakes, I wouldn’t be writing this.
But I am because if we are ever going to make racial and ethnic progress in this country, we must have room for forgiveness. People should be allowed to learn from their mistakes and to understand that what they say, what they believe, must change for us to understand each other better. People can evolve, better, be redeemed.
Should we forgive Napear?
What do we solve by throwing people away? Nothing.
Consequently, because the Kings, KHTK-1140 and its parent company went with the hang-him-high approach instead of reconciliation, they have made a big mistake. This is a knee-jerk punishment made in the heat of a moment that doesn’t fit the crime. Some of the involved parties will one day look back with some measure of regret.
And I’m speaking as someone who was once the target of Napear’s wrath. He vented many times at me back in the 2006-2010 time-frame, when Napear was the king of KHTK. I took on the Maloof brothers, former owners of the Kings and close friends of Napear, so I was Public Enemy No. 1 of the Grant Napear Show.
In recent years we were friendly, cordial, but I think it would be a stretch to say we were friends. We never shared a meal together. Even though I’ve been in this town as long as he has, I can count on one hand the number of times I appeared on his show.
In other words, this isn’t about cronyism. And it’s not about excusing him either.
I understand what what Napear tweeted Sunday night was wrong. Napear never should have responded to former Kings player DeMarcus Cousins, who wanted to know what Napear thought of the civil rights group Black Lives Matter.
Cousins was clearly baiting Napear.
The wise response from Napear would have been to ignore Cousins, with whom Napear had a rocky relationship when Cousins played in Sacramento from 2010 to 2017. Or if he was going to respond, Napear would have done well to say he supported BLM.
Instead, Napear repeated a phrase in his response tweet that is often used by critics of BLM to devalue their message: “ALL LIVES MATTER.”
Napear told me he didn’t understand enemies of BLM use the phrase “all lives matter” as a way to change the subject of what BLM is trying to say: That the lives of African Americans are devalued by American institutions such as law enforcement.
What Black Lives Matter means
The George Floyd killing in Minneapolis by the police has triggered civic unrest around the world. Police brutality is ingrained in our society and protected by powerful forces in our community. Cleaning up graffiti and broken glass is easier than addressing the injustices that have driven people into the streets.
I support Black Lives Matter Sacramento and oppose the implicit bias in local police agencies who responded calmly to white protesters resisting arrest in one case and beat up an African American kid resisting arrest in another. I have written about all these issues and more – and some of Sacramento’s leading law enforcement leaders won’t speak to me anymore – because I believe police brutality and deep conflicts of interest in our law enforcement community are a plague and the primary reason cities are burning.
A radio guy can listen better
But would I call for Napear’s head? No, because I believe Napear didn’t know “all lives matter” was a phrase used against BLM.
How do I know this? Because by his own admission, he’s a sports guy. And that has been my impression of him for some time. But that’s not all. I have received emails and voicemails from what I would guess are mostly white people who have told me they saw nothing wrong with saying, “all lives matter.”
Some people take those words literally, as in, that every single life on this earth has value. I’ve heard from people who view these words in religious terms as in, all of God’s children are loved by God.
We view things differently. And our society fractures when people refuse to listen to those who experience oppression. For too long, the unequal treatment in our country has been treated as a hoax by too many people.
Napear was willing to listen and learn. He was willing to apologize and make amends. And he got thrown away.
“I was blinded by my privilege. The privilege of not worrying about my sons when they leave home, the privilege of jogging in my neighborhood without being suspect,” Napear wrote in an apology he was never allowed to read.
“That is a lesson learned. To be clear: Black Lives Matter. Black VOICES matter. With all the problems we are seeing in this country on a day-to-day basis, the fact that someone is fearful of walking down the street, of being profiled, of interacting with law enforcement, it’s unconscionable.
“To conclude, my sincerest apologies, I will do better.”
By disallowing someone to be redeemed, we all lose.
This story was originally published June 2, 2020 at 5:17 PM.
