Jackson rips Gilbert's LeBron comments

[Hortical]

Sunday, July 11, 2010
Jackson rips Gilbert's LeBron comments
Associated Press

CHICAGO -- Jesse Jackson criticized Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert on Sunday, saying Gilbert sees LeBron James as a "runaway slave" and that the owner's comments after the free-agent forward decided to join the Miami Heat put the player in danger.
“
His feelings of betrayal personify a slave master mentality. He sees LeBron as a runaway slave. This is an owner employee relationship -- between business partners -- and LeBron honored his contract.

” -- Rev. Jesse Jackson on Cavs owner Dan Gilbert's comments about LeBron James
Shortly after James announced his decision last week, Gilbert fired off an incendiary letter to Cleveland's fans, ripping the 25-year-old and promising to deliver a title before James wins one. He called James' decision "cowardly" and later told The Associated Press he believes James quit during a handful of Cavaliers playoff games.
"He has gotten a free pass," Gilbert told the AP in a phone interview late Thursday night. "People have covered up for [James] for way too long. Tonight we saw who he really is."
Jackson said Gilbert's comments were "mean, arrogant and presumptuous."
"He speaks as an owner of LeBron and not the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers," the reverend said in a release from his Chicago-based civil rights group, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. "His feelings of betrayal personify a slave master mentality. He sees LeBron as a runaway slave. This is an owner employee relationship -- between business partners -- and LeBron honored his contract."
Messages were left Sunday night seeking comment from Gilbert, the Cavaliers and James.
Jackson also called Gilbert's comments an attack on all NBA players and said the owner should face a "challenge" from the league and the players' association.
NBA spokesman Tim Frank declined comment.

[Islandman]

I don't think it was necessary to frame it in racial language as he did, but I actually agree with Jesse on this one. The man played out his contract, was a free agent and signed a new contract that suited him best.

I suspect the Cavs owner is just trying to deflect anger from him to Lebron though.

[Gamma]

i don't see anything racial about it...it is fair comment.

[myYout]

Si, it nuh tek much fi dem show dem true colors eee. Typical pale face, dat nuh suprising at all.

[Hortical]

When I first heard the comments by Jackson I was somewhat taken aback. Jackson sometimes means well, but his rhetoric is often inflammatory.

Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete by William C. Rhoden puts a lot of these issues into perspective.


Here is a review of the book
The Paradox of the "Slave Athletic Celebrity", July 16, 2006
By M. JEFFREY MCMAHON "herculodge"

This review is from: Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete (Hardcover)
Rhoden's aim in this finely written and very readable screed is to explore the African American star athlete's paradoxical dilemma: On one hand, he is worshipped for his athletic prowess and is lavished with millions of dollars. On the other hand, he is beholden to white team owners, white league administrators, and as such is limited to the role of a super-paid lackey.

Some reviewers object to the slavery analogy and the exodus from the plantation to the Promised Land that is heavily used in Rhoden's argument. But Rhoden is correct to point out that the slavery is both spiritual and power-based. Spiritual because too many African American athletes, Rhoden charges, are so busy micromanaging their careers that they have no sense of the broader context, of African American history (one star athlete was shocked with disbelief when he discovered that blacks were once banned from Major League Baseball). Power-based because too many blacks are relegated to "black" roles and forget the larger mission of making more opportunities for blacks in positions of privilege.

Whether or not you agree with Rhoden's analogy, I would argue that the book is nevertheless very readable and entertaining, giving us powerful narratives of how black men, starting with the emancipated slave fighter Tom Molineaux, left America to fight the English champion Tom Cribb and showed whites that blacks' athletic performance defied stereotypes about being dense, ignorant, maladroit, etc. By studying Molineaux, Ali, and other African American greats, Rhoden shows how black athletes who see themselves as symbols of black power help forge the way for other black athletes.

On a personal note, Rhoden, an African American, explains in his own life growing up in Chigaco in the 1950s and 1960s, that sports are a great avenue for learning about race and American history. I am no exception. As a child, I loved Hank Aaron and one day as I read about the way he was bullied and denied white restaurants and hotels, I got a bitter taste of what this country was like for people of color and contemplated the hideous color divide.

Sports is a powerful metaphorical arena for talking about race and Rhoden has done an exemplary job of developing that metaphor in a book that is always engaging and provocative.

[Islandman]

The slavemaster reference was intended to stir up racial feelings. I didn't see the need for it in this situation. Lebrons decision can be defended without introducing that angle.

[Gamma]

respectfully disagree still. that behaviour is beyond the pale, it is not just a man venting because the player left, it rose to level of a proprietory interest...not an employee whose had fulfilled the term of his contract and whose contract had expired through effluxion of time.

i know you are skittish about raising the race card, but really and truly who raised it?

[Bruce]

Name one "slave" other than Lebron James who got a half-hour of air time on ESPN.

[Gamma]

Tafknap?

[Sickko]

Jessie is still seeking relevance....

[Gamma]

anyway bruce this is LESS about lebron and MORE about gilbert! gilbert is acting a certain way irrespective of the facts.