LeBron and The Race Card
In the words of Chris Carter; “Come on, man.”
So, I am supposed to believe that a man who was loved by many across the country and world is now hated by many because of his race. Not because of his ego stroke known as “The Decision”, but because he is young, rich, and black. So race didn’t matter when people were singing LeBron’s praises and anointing him as “King James”, but race now matters when people are rightfully still upset. Come on, man! If Larry Bird had did the same to Boston or any other high profile white player had pulled a “The Decision” on their team after 7 years of telling them and their fans that they will bring a Championship to the region, they would have received the same hate. Matter of fact, I recall that when Gretzky was traded to the Kings, many Canadians hated him, called him a traitor, and burned his jersey. And guess what, Wayne Gretzky is a white man. I also don’t recall the Media asking Wayne Gretzky if he felt like race was a factor in how some people had had hated him. And I don’t recall the Media doing “Outside the Lines” type specials highlighting the so called racial divide with Gretzky.
When Chad Ochocinco, T.O., and Kobe and their defenders, bring up the racial element to why these guys are hated, I completely understand. The Media constantly plant these guys as villains and consistently paint them in a negative light to the point that it comes off as there is some personal vendetta between the overwhelming white sports media and these black players. You can’t help but bring in the racial element because there is no other reason to explain why these guys are consistently hated while the Favre’s of the world are continued to be praised despite their own foolishness.
But in the case of LeBron, I and many who agree with me don’t see it. We see a spoiled professional athlete who hasn’t learned to accept the fact that his actions caused many to dislike him. Instead of acknowledging that, and apologizing, he has chosen to antagonize the situation and play the victim by using the race card. The whole retweeting “racially charged” tweets is just another showing of a grown man who hasn’t grown up. You invite haters to come at you on twitter, then you retweet a few of the tweets that were racially charged and now you want us to feel more sorry for you!? In the worlds of Ochocinco, “Child Please.” Why when one goes to those profiles, they no longer exist? Either LeBron set this up to fit the narrative or these people just created fake profiles to tweet LeBron and then deleted them. The later doesn’t sound plausible to me, but it could be true. I am more likely to believe that this is a setup by LeBron and his people, considering he told ESPN about it and sent them the tweets to illustrate what he has been saying. Of course, ESPN obliged LeBron and made a segment out of it. And since LeBron is loved by the Hip Hop community and in Hip Hop, beefs are manufactured for more support and publicity; I am even more likely to believe that this is manufactured.
At the end of the day, all of this will eventually blow over, LeBron will be loved again, and the race card will be tucked away to never be seen again. Until 4 years from now, and he takes his talents to L.A., and then we’ll be right back to pulling out the race card and ESPN will be right back to exploiting the situation.
And I’ll be back to thinking, in the words of Chris Carter, “Come on, man!”
by Roye L. Barber, Jr.
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