After Dan Gilbert’s ill-advised open letter to Cavs fans, which called LeBron’s decision to sign with the Heat a “betrayal,” Jesse Jackson had some choice words for the Cavs owner.
“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.”
While I agree that Gilbert’s letter was out of line — LeBron had every right to sign with whatever team he chose — there’s no need to invoke slavery with regard to the relationship between owner and player.
Jason Whitlock had this to say about Jackson’s comments.
Yep, it’s the card. LeBron James and his kiddie handlers screwed up, staging an image-damaging public-relations disaster, and now some African-Americans want to change the subject by changing the argument.
NBA owners and their $100-million contracts are slave owners and King James is Kunta Kinte escaping on the Underground Railroad to Miami’s Tootsie’s Cabaret, where he’ll make it rain.
It’s stupid. Dan Gilbert’s rant was certainly immature, but it wasn’t remotely racist. He sounded like a scorned lover, a guy who gave his heart to a relationship and found out on national TV that the alleged love of his life didn’t care about him at all.
Gilbert vented. I give James credit for not responding.
It’s increasingly clear that people fault LeBron not for leaving Cleveland but for the way he left Cleveland. Gilbert’s letter, while none too smart, wasn’t racist at all.
