Bucs' Carlton Davis Apologizes After Using Anti-Asian Slur in Deleted Tweet

Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Carlton Davis apologized after using an anti-Asian slur in a tweet he has since deleted.

Davis wrote "Gotta stop letting g--ks in Miami" before taking down the post. The Carol City, Florida, native suggested the word carries a different regional connotation but that he will "retire that word from my vocabulary giving the hard times our Asian family are enduring."

In a follow-up tweet, he said he "did not realize it has a much darker, negative connotation" and had "learned a valuable lesson."

As the COVID-19 pandemic began spreading in the United States, the FBI warned in March 2020 that hate crimes against Asian Americans could climb. Politicians including former President Donald Trump were blamed for stoking the hatred by calling COVID-19 the "China Virus."

Stop AAPI Hate, a nonprofit that logs incidents of hate, violence, bullying, discrimination and harassment against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the U.S., subsequently reported a rise in the documented cases of anti-AAPI hate. The group logged 3,795 incidents between March 19, 2020, and February 28, 2021.

On March 16, Robert Aaron Long allegedly shot and killed eight people at three Atlanta-area massage parlors. Six of the victims were of Asian descent.