Sports
I
was prepared this week
to write an article on
sports and fatherhood.
Instead, I was struck by the
season opening basketball
game of the Cleveland Cav-
aliers on Thursday, October
30th, featuring the return of
Akron, Ohio’s native son,
LeBron James. With hours
of national sports coverage
and thousands of fans who
traveled downtown to enjoy
a free concert from
Kendrick Lamar and Imag-
ine
Dragons—including
live commentary from
Charles Barkley and jokes
from comedian/actor Kevin
Hart—the event was over-
whelming.
The city unveiled a new
local celebrities all to see
the homecoming of LeBron.
Nike even unveiled a new
commercial, where “King
James” invites the entire
city of Cleveland into a
team huddle and prep-talk
to win a championship in
classic black and white film.
It felt like I was watching
the NFL Super Bowl, but it
was only Cleveland’s first
game of the season with
LeBron back, featuring his
new teammates; Kevin
Love, Kyrie Irving, Deon
Waiters, Tristan Thomas
and more. It was also the
season premiere of new
Cleveland head coach,
David Blatt.
By the way, the game
With all of the sports
commentators speaking about
how amazing the opening
night was, I couldn’t help
thinking about the American
hypocrisy of sports and race
10-story high LeBron James
banner, featured six hours of
fan experience from Nike,
invited fans to game watch-
ing parties at more than 40
bars and restaurants, and
unveiled a humungous,
state-of-the-art scoreboard
inside Quickens Loan
Arena, where those with
tickets to the game received
free LeBron James T-shirts,
a season schedule magnet
for their refrigerators and
twenty-thousand glow-in-
the-dark wands to wave
during the game announce-
ments in high-definition 3D.
Of course, the game was
sold out, with superstar
musician, Cleveland native
and part team owner, Usher
Raymond and his protégé
Justin Bieber sitting court-
side, along with filmmaker,
Spike Lee, football Hall of
Famer turned TV star,
Michael Strahan, and
dozens of other national and
included NBA All-Star and
Olympian Carmelo Antho-
ny and his New York
Knicks, with the second
game of their new head
coach, Derek Fisher. And
after all of the crazy build-
up, LeBron James went on
to have a horrible outing in
a 95-90 loss. At one point in
the first half, he was 1-9
shooting
with
four
turnovers, on his way to 17
points and eight turnovers.
I felt sorry for the dude. I
could only imagine how
anxious he was to get it all
over with. At the end of the
day, he still needed two and
half hours worth of energy
to play a basketball game
before granting a hundred
post-game interviews about
the loss. Not only that, I
read his wife Savannah
finally gave birth their first
baby girl to add to his
excitement and exhaustion
on Monday night, October
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But with all of the sports
commentators
speaking
about how amazing the
opening night was, I could-
n’t help thinking about the
American hypocrisy of
sports and race. I’ve been to
the city of Cleveland on
several occasions and know
people from the area, as
well as from other cities of
Ohio. And it’s the same old
American story; blacks live
on one part of town in
poverty, while whites live
on the other in wealth. And
race relations still don’t mix
like you would think they
would in year 2014.
So I watched the
rehashed stories of
white Cleveland Cav-
aliers fans who
angrily
burned
LeBron James jerseys
just four years ago
when he left the city
to take his talents to
South Beach, and I chuck-
led at their audacity.
Thousands of these same
angry white fans now pro-
fess to love him again,
including Cavaliers owner,
Dan Gilbert, who was
forced to humble himself
and apologize for his
tantrum and public letter,
which lambasted LeBron
and his character.
I’m sorry, folks, I know
we all look at sports as the
perfect meeting ground
between race, gender, class,
creed and culture, but it
continues to astonish me
how the white American
populace could care less
about Lebron James’ twin
brother, if he wasn’t blessed
with the same freakish ath-
letic
skills
to
play
basketball. And if James
had such a twin brother,
would these fans bother to
even buy him a drink? Not
unless he brought LeBron
with him.
As we inch closer to year
2015, we still have millions
of white Americans who
would never read this sports
column just because it has
the word “black” in it, iden-
tifying a people and culture
that they refuse to learn any-
thing about. And if black
athletes couldn’t dunk,
shoot, rebound, or pass a
basketball; run, pass, catch,
intercept, kick or punt a
football; or throw, catch, hit
or pitch a baseball, white
Americans wouldn’t care to
know them either.
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LeBron James and American Hypocrisy
“The Wake of Vanport”
Join us for the first public screening of the
NPMTC Vanport Oral Histories
November 15
Photo courtesy of Oregon Historical Society
Save the Date! Mark your calendars!
S ATURDAY N OVEMBER 15, 2014 AT 2 P . M .
V ANCOUVER A VENUE F IRST B APTIST C HURCH
O.B. W ILLIAMS F ELLOWSHIP H ALL
3138 N V ANCOUVER A VE , P ORTLAND , O REGON
“The Wake of Vanport” honors the death of a city and the viewing of its
history through the collection of Vanport stories told by the voices of those
who lived there. It is also a celebration of life after loss. Vanport is a lost city
of Oregon with a rich history for all Oregonians.
vJoin us for this screening of multimedia works
vPost presentation discussion with survivors and producers
vRefreshments will be served
v Open to the public and free admission
The Vanport Multimedia Project is an ongoing project of The North Portland Multimedia Training Center (NPMTC) to
collect and archive oral history from individuals in the Portland African American community. Thanks to the generous
support of Meyer Memorial Trust, the Oregon Community Foundation, the Multnomah County Cultural Coalition and
The Skanner Newsgroup for supporting the 2014 Vanport Multimedia Project. NPMTC is a project of The Skanner
Foundation.
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November 5, 2014 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 9