New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick provoked outrage this week as he used a racial slur in an insensitive rant against the Brooklyn Nets and their co-owner rapper Jay-Z. Opining that the team should consider changing their name to the ‘New York Ni**ers’ in what one can only assume is meant to be a dig at Jay-Z’s use of the n-word in his lyrics, Mushnick argues that since the team has a new “urban” locale it should get the full “Jay-Z treatment.”:

As long as the Nets are allowing Jay-Z to call their marketing shots — what a shock that he chose black and white as the new team colors to stress, as the Nets explained, their new “urban” home — why not have him apply the full Jay-Z treatment?

Why the Brooklyn Nets when they can be the New York N———s? The cheerleaders could be the Brooklyn B——hes or Hoes. Team logo? A 9 mm with hollow-tip shell casings strewn beneath. Wanna be Jay-Z hip? Then go all the way!

Mushnick’s comments have already fueled a firestorm on Twitter, with numerous commentators in the sports world calling for him to be fired by the Post immediately.

The sports blog Bob’s Blitz has posted a response from Mushnick to the backlash. He wrote:

Bob – Such obvious, wishful and ignorant mischaracterizations of what I write are common. I don’t call black men the N-word; I don’t regard young women as bitches and whores; I don’t glorify the use of assault weapons and drugs. Jay-Z, on the other hand…..Is he the only NBA owner allowed to call black men N—ers?”

Jay-Z profits from the worst and most sustaining self-enslaving stereotypes of black-American culture and I’M the racist? Some truths, I guess, are just hard to read, let alone think about.

(Same column I provide support for Amar’e Stoudemire at a time when everyone in town is ripping him to shreds. That was my LEAD, too, but what does that matter?)