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The Idiot of the Week: LeBron James

Lebron James, El American

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In a week in which the battle for El American‘s Idiot of the Week award has been one of the tightest, basketball player LeBron James has finally won it with MVP honors and slam dunk included.

Last Wednesday, LeBron James severely threatened a cop on Twitter -with a photo of the officer included- writing “YOU’RE NEXT,” accompanied by an hourglass and the hashtag #accountability, implying that time was running out for the cop before he had to be held accountable and convicted.

Screenshot of the deleted tweet.

The officer in question had been involved, a few hours earlier, in an incident in Columbus, Ohio, in which Ma’Khia Bryant, a black woman, was killed. In a video released by the Columbus police, it can be seen how Ma’Khia Bryant is about to stab another black girl and, after ignoring the officer’s warnings, he shoots her down, probably saving the life of the assaulted woman.

Shortly after, LeBron James deleted the tweet, but thanks to the screenshots and video, we could all observe how LeBron James rushed to draw racist conclusions, obfuscated by the skin color of the police officer and the person shot.

It is amazing how LeBron James has excellent eyesight to focus on the hoop and make baskets, but at the same time, he seems to suffer from selective blindness, whereby he only sees that the policeman was white and the person shot was black, being unable to observe the knife she was wielding.

We suppose that if his sense of justice is based on skin color, and not on the facts and circumstances surrounding any incident, he would think that in the NBA if a white referee calls a foul against a black player, it would be for racism.

The most challenging challenge to understanding that criterion of justice of his would come when a black player fouled another player of color. Given that the victim of the attempted stabbing was also a black girl, we find it impossible to understand what goes through LeBron James’ mind.

Instead of seeing a police officer saving one of the black lives that matter, LeBron James only saw a white man killing a black woman, and that was enough to threaten him and spread his picture on Twitter.

Refusal to apologize

But what LeBron James did get a double-double with, and what makes him with honors MVP of The Idiot of the Week, was his pathetic attempt to justify himself after deleting the tweet.

He said the tweet had been because he is: “so damned tired of seeing Black people killed by police. I took the tweet down because it’s being used to create more hate. This isn’t about one officer. It’s about the entire system, and they always use our words to create more racism. I am so desperate for more ACCOUNTABILITY.”

His tweet is being used to “create more hate,” he says. And he calls for more accountability. But he doesn’t say it regretfully because he is among those who generate more hate with his tweet and behaving irresponsibly. He says they use his words to generate more racism. Double somersault, pirouette, spin, and slam dunk.

LeBron James
LeBron James. (Image: EFE)

The irresponsible and hate generators are the rest, he is a poor victim. Perhaps this explains how his reasoning works with respect to racism. He jumps to conclusions based on his prejudices about the color of people’s skin, not based on their actions. But the racists are the ones who explain to him that this is precisely the definition of racism.

Ignacio Manuel García Medina, Business Management teacher. Artist and lecturer specialized in Popular Culture for various platforms. Presenter of the program "Pop Libertario" for the Juan de Mariana Institute. Lives in the Canary Islands, Spain // Ignacio M. García Medina es profesor de Gestión de Empresas. Es miembro del Instituto Juan de Mariana y conferenciante especializado en Cultura Popular e ideas de la Libertad.

Social Networks: @ignaciomgm

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