LeBron James is often questioned about matters that take place off the basketball court.
Several weeks ago, reporters flooded him with questions regarding the controversy surrounding his former Cleveland Cavaliers teammate, Kyrie Irving, who had tweeted a link to a movie that some considered antisemitic.
During a question-and-answer session with reporters following Wednesday night’s victory over the Portland Trail Blazers, James had a question for the media in attendance.
James asked reporters why he received zero questions about a picture that was taken in 1957, but has resurfaced on social media recently, showing Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones
in a crowd of white students preventing six Black children from entering the school. At the time, Jones was a 14-year-old student who participated in the protest at North Little Rock High School back.“I have one question for you guys before you guys leave. I was thinking when I was on my way over here, I was wondering why I haven’t gotten a question from you guys about the Jerry Jones photo. But when the Kyrie thing was going on, you guys were quick to ask us questions about that.”
As some of the reporters tried to interject, he stopped them and continued, saying:
“W
hen I watch Kyrie talk and he says, ‘I know who I am, but I want to keep the same energy when we’re talking about my people and the things that we’ve been through,’ and that Jerry Jones photo is one of those moments that our people, Black people, have been through in America. And I feel like as a Black man, as a Black athlete, as someone with power and a platform, when we do something wrong, or something that people don’t agree with, it’s on every single tabloid, every single news coverage, it’s on the bottom ticker. It’s asked about every single day.“But it seems like to me that the whole Jerry Jones situation, photo — and I know it was years and years ago and we all make mistakes, I get it — but it seems like it’s just been buried under, like, ‘Oh, it happened. OK, we just move on.’ And I was just kind of disappointed that I haven’t received that question from you guys.”
Hip-hop music producer Pete Rock posted the video to his Instagram account today.