Transcript of Le Batard & Friends Presents: Shut Up & Dribble (feat. Jemele Hill & Cari Champion) New

I'm tired of this man being celebrated.

For what?

This is The Step Back.

Next drive, steps back, puts up a 3. Bang! LeBron James from downtown.

The Cleveland Cavaliers select LeBron James.

LeBron, what's your decision?

I made a difficult decision, but I understood what my future was about. I believe our president is trying to divide us. My first response was, you bum.

Welcome Back to episode 5, Shut Up and Dribble.

Well, the climate is hot. The number one job in America, the point of person, is someone who doesn't understand the people and really don't give a fuck about the people. Let's use this moment as a call to action for all professional athletes to educate ourselves, explore these issues, speak up, use our influence, and renounce all violence.

I mean, we've been doing some dramatic readings with you. This time I kind of want to do like a slam poetry reading, if you could. It's of the third most retweeted tweet of all time.

Really?

Yes. And it comes from one @KingJames, September 23rd, 2017, at 11:18 a.m. All right.

Wow, that's $5.

No, it's for dramatic effect. I'm about to do dramatic. You're doing dramatic. You clear your throat before you do dramatic.

We also haven't established fines on this show yet, so give it a break.

So as I was, you bum Steph Curry.

Wait, stop right there. That would have been the greatest tweet of all time if it was just you bum Steph Curry and setting up the ultimate rivalry, but it has nothing to do with that really. Jordan.

You bum, Steph Curry already said he ain't going, so therefore ain't no invite. Going to the White House was a great honor until you showed up.

End quote.

Again, I mentioned that was the third most retweeted tweet of all time, but was that not the most give me a hug LeBron has ever done? Like, from the public? I know you're all gonna love me for this. 'Check this out. I'm going to throw Steph's name in there. I'm going to call the president a bum. I'm a champion right now.

Give me a big hug.' Throwing a cup in his ear, a little bit of that to the crowd, a little playing to the crowd. No, I mean, I thought when he did that, it was the most overt claim against the president I'd seen from a pro athlete. People campaigning and all that stuff, that's fine, but this is straight up, he called the president a bum, man. That was groundbreaking material right there.

It did feel like he was calling Steph Curry a bum.

Yeah.

Right.

And then it was interesting to see him retreat into the shadows subsequently after that, when the comments came, uh, with Brittney Griner or China, where he clearly was out of his depth on anything beyond race talk. This fight was a fight that LeBron James wasn't quite equipped for. I'm not even sure it's fair to ask him to try to fight it, but he wasn't here for it much long after that.

Safe to say. His public persona in terms of politics and things of this nature, pretty uneven.

Yeah.

I mean, he's a guy who's had contradicting stances that sometimes come in conflict with one another. And so how do you navigate it? And for most people, it's not a question that you need to really argue about. Like, you can have these competing ideals in your private life or even amongst your friend group or whatever. But when you are the most popular athlete in this country, then it poses different things. So for example, how he could be very outspoken about police brutality towards people in this country and then be very silent about what's happening in China featuring a lot of police brutality. For most people, it's like, "Yeah, I can navigate that because nobody cares." But when it's LeBron, everybody cares.

But he's allowed to be a voice for just Black people if that's what he decided to grow into.

Well, let's see what he decided to grow into because Obviously, and I know you got excited there, we're not sticking to sports today. Further exciting, you're gonna have Jemele Hill on a little bit later to talk about whatever it is you would like to talk with her about. But let's go back to May 2007. The NBA itself doesn't even have a Facebook page yet, let alone LeBron James. He's 22 years old. The Cavs are in the midst of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against Vince Carter's Nets. The Olympics are coming up. LeBron is dedicated to the Olympic team. It's going to be in China in 2008. There's a conflict in Darfur in Sudan. It's led to that point to the death of 500,000 civilians and the displacement of 2.5 million more. China, for the uninformed, supplied Sudan's government with money and weapons. China imported Sudan's oil. Now, Amin, you grew up in Sudan.

Mm-hmm.

You've talked to Ira Newbell. He was a teammate of LeBron James's, and Ira had a very specific issue with the Olympics being in China.

I was reading the newspaper one day, USA Today. At the back of it was a blurb, and I was ironically on the way to shoot around in Charlotte, just reading the back of it. And it was a small blurb in the USA Today about what's going on in Darfur.

So at this time, I'm working for the Phoenix Suns, and obviously I know what's happening in my country. It's been happening for a while, but it's starting to get a little, just a little bit of like news coverage, but not a whole lot. And so I remember when Ira Newbell did this.

What did he do?

So what we did is I constructed a letter imposing on China to do something about the situation. And I passed it out to all of my teammates as well as some other teams in the NBA and tried to get them to sign the petition. And you know, most of my teammates did sign that petition, as you recall. With the exception of one, and we all know it was LeBron. LeBron said, "I don't know enough about the situation to put my name on it." Yeah, it was basically more so just he needed to educate himself more on the situation and become more aware of it, and he just was uncomfortable at the time signing the petition. I mean, I completely understood that. You know, look, he was 22 years old, just in the league. Starting to solidify himself and his career.

I'm going to read a quote from this open letter saying that, quote, China cannot be a legitimate host while it remains complicit in the terrible suffering and destruction. Asking him to sign a petition to bring awareness to it was not the same as asking him to boycott the Olympics. Right.

And he didn't. That was the whole thing that I said. We're not asking for a boycott.

I was really just calling about raising, trying to raise awareness just to get some help over there and kind of do something about the situation.

From Ira's perspective, he just thought it was a situation where because of the Olympics coming up, there was a great opportunity to bring a spotlight to it. But at the same time, he says now that, yeah, the guy was 22 years old and really hadn't dipped a toe in these kind of waters. Almost any kind of situation like this probably would've been daunting, to say the least.

And like I said, I believe more of that is him being young. And at that time, he didn't necessarily have control of his career. I mean, he had control of his career on the court, but off the court, he didn't necessarily have control of his career. He had agents and managers and all these other people probably instructing him and telling him what to do and guiding him.

At this point, Dan, at this age, with this level of discussion point, right? Basically genocide in Sudan. Are we expecting LeBron James to be informed on this, to have something to say, to be sharp on this at 22 years old? Or are we giving him some grace and saying when he says, I need to educate myself, we give him a break at this point?

At 22, totally unfair to ask him to go down the path of being adult enough to answer for things like that when he spent the last 6 years of his life hyper-obsessed on how do I get to the league. You got to give him some time to find his voice. I didn't think that he found it in any way until he joined up with Dwyane Wade and they went a couple of years into being in Miami before he was like, okay, I'll tackle some of these once in a while.

We'll get to that in a second. I just want to get Amin's thoughts on whether you thought LeBron in this position, whether it was unfair like Dan says, or whether you thought maybe he could even come back with a little bit more information or a little bit more opinion when he did actually educate himself.

I think Dan brings up a great point, but when you're at that age for him, and Ira spoke of this as well, you're still trying to figure out who I am as a basketball player. I'm still trying to establish myself in this league. And I know it might sound weird to people like, wait, he's the number one overall pick, he's been in the Finals. You're still kind of not quite discovered your identity yet. I think that's part of it. The other part of it is this was a very obscure humanitarian crisis for the mainstream American public. There are many coaches, many GMs, executives, hell, many American citizens who are educated and have access to resources and are affluent who did not know about this, who could not point to Sudan on a map. So obviously as a Sudanese person, I wish something more could have been done, but I also understood at that time just the fact that Ira Newbell or Don Cheadle or Tracy McGrady, that these people were taking these steps and including traveling to Sudan to go to refugee camps and see what was happening. That in and of itself was a pretty big leap.

It was just the way I was raised and my father growing up in the South was part of the civil rights movement. So, and me, coming from Detroit and just raised, just wanting to help and do something.

If Ira Newble was not his teammate, this probably wouldn't have ended up on his doorstep.

Yeah. So that's a big thing. What made it noteworthy was Ira Newble and every other Cavs teammate signed the petition other than LeBron.

Yeah, but he's got a different set of rules, a different value to being attached to any cause. I actually think I'd make the argument, even though of course you want a human rights activist to advocate for the proper human rights, Sitting that out though, if you don't feel like you have enough information, that seems the most prudent thing for a 22-year-old in his economy class to do.

Not just a 22-year-old, for almost everybody, because it's something that they truly don't understand. It's not like this is dominating the news cycle and how can you not have an opinion?

Okay.

That year I was later traded or I ended up signing with the Lakers in the playoffs and Kobe Bryant actually did a PSA. For the cause that helped raise money when I was out there. I was able to convince him. He did a— him and Derek Fisher did a PSA for it.

Let's go 5 years forward. He's 27 years old. He's a member of the Miami Heat. You mentioned it, that he sort of found his voice alongside Dwyane Wade. Well, at this point, he's got 4 million Twitter followers. It's been a month since the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, who was a Heat fan. He was 17 years old. He'd gone out to buy some Skittles and a hoodie. During warm-ups actually for the NBA All-Star Game, and, um, he was killed. Geraldo Rivera goes on Fox News and says, quote, "I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin's death as George Zimmerman was." Just the most idiotic thing to say, making the symbol of racism the topic instead of the actual racism. So the Heat, they get together in a hotel ballroom and they take this photo. It's basically all of them with their heads bowed wearing hoodies and hashtag we are Trayvon Martin, hashtag hoodies, hashtag stereotype, hashtag we want justice. Dan, you wrote a column on this after they put this out the next day. What did it basically say?

That this is a literal stand that this team is making as the most famous, powerful sports thing that there is in America. They are using the attention that they have for a statement that is being made without a word. They have made a bit of a work of art, and I'm guessing LeBron James is now growing into, uh, I'm done being Dwyane Wade's little brother around here. And for several years, I will remind you, Izzy, that he didn't have any Twitter followers when he started with the Miami Heat. It was a thing when he joined Twitter and realized, oh, I can have my own power over here as well. And this is how he chose to use it. I'm not going to say early on, But long enough into whatever the pressures of America had been the previous 10 years of his life for him to know the statement he was making here without a word.

I mean, we talk about this in the context of LeBron James, of course, but how did you see this and feel this when it came out? This very much felt like to me a team thing, a sort of unity thing, a Florida thing as much as anything. And LeBron was just a part of it.

A Black thing.

A Black thing. Yeah. And, uh, That's what I felt like. I felt like this was something that because it was local enough, that the team came to that conclusion. To this day, I don't know if LeBron spearheaded it or was just one guy who said, you know, is this kind of basically the flip side of the Ira Newbell situation, which is 5 years later about a topic that he's a lot more well-versed on at a time in his life where he feels more established and he's grown into more of a mature adult. And knowing as a father, it's a cause that resonates a lot more, right? Maybe this is the time where he says, "Yeah, I'll sign on to this. Let's do it, guys." Versus him spearheading it. I don't know the answer to that, but it's certainly more understandable if it is him just going along with the group. It's more understandable why, given his advanced situation from 5 years earlier, and also this is a topic that he does know about, that he is comfortable and educated on.

I gotta say, that bothered me a little bit. Like the idea, like you said, you don't understand the value of human life until after you have children. Like that to me is kind of silly. I'm probably never gonna have kids and that hit home with me as well.

You know?

But it's not, I mean, it just, it's human nature, Izzy, that when it's something that is similar to you, it'll hit a lot easier and harder. I'm not saying that the value of human life means zero and less, but it, when it's like, oh wait, that's just like me. That makes a big difference, I think, to people in general. And then in this case, like I said, specifically in terms of understanding the forces at work here, right? Understanding a judicial system that does not provide justice for people of color, understanding the rampant stereotyping of Black people, particularly young Black men. In this case, not even a young Black man, a young Black boy, right? These are things that LeBron has known about his entire life versus a foreign country is fueling and arming a conflict in another foreign country, neither of which I've ever seen or could point to on a map. It's a little distant, particularly for someone of that age, 22 years old. The other thing about this specifically is, again, for younger listeners who either weren't of age or weren't even alive when this happened, there was a huge counterargument to Trayvon Martin's murder that, "Well, he shouldn't have been wearing a hood." That somehow the act of wearing a hooded garment was in and of itself a threatening act, and that's something that you shouldn't be doing.

And so it was ridiculous. I mean—

Not ridiculous if you're predisposed to find Black people threatening. George Zimmerman got away with it in Florida, got away with that crime because there is something in our legal system predisposed to allow white people to find Black people more threatening, even if it's just a garment that's making them so.

Right. And tying into that, also was the legions of people who were saying things like, "Yeah, you shouldn't wear a hoodie." It's almost like respectability politics, right? Like, "Oh, pull your pants up and stop wearing a hoodie." And all of these things are, they're red herrings really, right? It's designed to distract from what happened, which is an armed man murdered a child walking home with a bag of candy in his pocket.

And the hoodie's the excuse. The hoodie's the excuse. What do you remember, Izzy, about the doing of this? Because I understand exactly how this was the cause that, that reached him as a human, a father, a Black man. And then at this point now you become activist, right? Because he hadn't done anything.

He hadn't done this. And I remember thinking to myself that, you know, what we want these athletes to be is these voices for a cause. What has been LeBron's cause? And if the cause is simply racism, Great. He and the team took a stance there. If the cause, as we go later on, becomes police brutality and racism, great. Let's do more of that. I want that to be the voice that I want to hear for sports, because, Dan, you wrote in that column, you talked to Jim Brown, and Jim Brown said the modern-day athlete doesn't get behind anything, which means they wasted a lot of their real power. LeBron is learning that money, fame, popularity, and notoriety pale compared to human feelings and consciousness. And to me, like, I don't know if this is because I've just been watching the Vietnam doc on Netflix, but, you know, the activists, the sports-related activists of the '60s and early '70s, like, it was an actual cause. There was meaning there. It was not just anti-government but pro-human life, etc. And it didn't feel like LeBron is finding his lane until maybe right now with the help of the Miami Heat.

The other thing about that photo that I find interesting is that it invites heat, invites it because you feel like you're on the right side of a cause. So when you mentioned Jim Brown, first thing I think of is one of the great sports quotes he ever gave me, which is he said Muhammad Ali did not go from the most hated athlete in America, '60s, civil rights, all of that stuff, the most beloved athlete in America until he lost his ability to speak. Like it, the power of Jim Brown saying that of Muhammad Ali is the crucible that LeBron is at here. And he's not even speaking. He's making the statement without speaking. But in that space, to me, it's super interesting where the power ends up going with the choice. And after that, he learned something, some things that made him sort of back away from what this initially was.

Well, let's, let's more localize it, right? Let's move forward 2 years, because in December of 2014, this is when a white cop in Cleveland had just shot and killed 12-year-old black boy named Tamir Rice for carrying a toy gun 5 miles from where the Cavs played basketball. A grand jury just declined to indict the cop in Ferguson, Missouri who had killed 18-year-old Mike Brown. And a grand jury had also just declined to indict the NYPD cop who killed Eric Garner in a chokehold as he said, quote, "I can't breathe." The Cavs are playing in New York. LeBron says at the Garden about this, quote, "Whew." He says it's a sensitive subject right now. It doesn't matter if you're an athlete or not. If you feel passionate about it, you have the right to speak up on it. If not, don't worry about it. That part to me felt like he just got caught up in the air, didn't know what to say, and then sort of dismissed it at the end. A couple nights later, the Cavs are playing in Brooklyn. There's protesters outside. Kyrie wants to wear a shirt. Derrick Rose wears the shirt that says "I can't breathe" a little earlier.

And Kyrie wants to wear the shirt. LeBron says he wants to wear the shirt. And then they come out for warmups. In this t-shirt that says, "I can't breathe." What do you remember, I mean, about that moment?

Yeah, so Eric Garner, as you mentioned, was killed with an illegal chokehold. It's a tactic that was banned by the NYPD. And I think what made the Eric Garner killing super visceral is we saw the video. We saw the tape of this man being choked to death. And so, when they came out with the t-shirts, again, it's one of those things where it's a very easy point A to point B connection point for LeBron. 'Cause Eric Garner was a larger man, right? And that these cops felt like they had to do all this to subdue him for, by the way, he was, I think, the grand crime of selling loose cigarettes illegally. Like, it was a nonviolent thing that the guy was up to, and for them to use that level of force to even try to subdue him, let alone end up taking his life, it was shocking and sad, and yet all too commonplace. And when you talk about that quote, I remember that quote from LeBron.

Mm-hmm.

And what I heard was kind of almost like a distilling of what we're talking about. If this is something you're passionate about, if it touches you, you should be able to come out and talk about it. If not, we should not be conscripting people to causes that they don't really—

That would've been a better quote.

But I think it's exactly what you said. He's trying to give the out for people like, look, I don't want people coming to me Why haven't you talked about this thing that's happening in Atlantis that's happening to the seahorses down there? I don't know too much about Atlantis. He doesn't want to be conscripted into causes that do not really resonate with him.

Let's fast forward a year then. It's December 2015. A grand jury declines to indict the officers in the death of Tamir Rice. LeBron says, "I haven't really been up on this issue, so it's hard for me to comment. I'm not much of a social media guy." I don't have enough knowledge about it. So here he is again saying, let me educate myself about it. When it happened 5 miles from the Cavs arena, protesters were calling for LeBron to boycott the games, like hashtag no justice, no LeBron. And Tamir's mom called his non-response, quote, quite sad. Where was he at this point? Because that's a bit of a letdown.

It is.

But let me stand back from this for a second just so that the expectations of this aren't unfairly burdensome. I don't know what you expect from your athletes. I don't know what you expect from your human being. So LeBron James was a full-time basketball player, and the inconsistencies you are talking about are not making him to me a part-time man of principle. They're making him a human being who occasionally is inconsistent, might not be equipped to tackle every single thing, and probably didn't quite sign up for when he grabbed a basketball for the first time, I'm going to be the best and most informed thing on every political issue. It— I just don't know I could—

tell me it matters to you. Make me feel like it matters to you. When you're in your team with the hoodie down and everything's so somber, I feel like it matters to you. When you have a year to discuss what just happened near where you play basketball, where you're probably reading or hearing more about it than anybody else across the country, I would expect at that point for you to have some semblance of a response.

You want more and better. And it's fair because that's what advocacy looks like. And it's disappointing when someone who has that power fails to reach your level of expectation. Disappoints you there? I get why you'd want it, but wouldn't you get why he would say, hey, it's not my responsibility to go full spectrum on where you reside on this issue.

I think this one is, as I look back at LeBron's career and this part of his career, this advocacy, this one might be the most confusing one because of everything that Izzy said, because it is a young Black boy. Because it was in Cleveland, in Northeast Ohio, his neck of the woods, so to speak. And for him to— It doesn't seem like you need to educate yourself that much. It follows many of the same tropes of all these other police brutality cases where he did speak up. So that one is the one that confuses me versus some of the other things. I wonder, for instance, Muhammad Ali, if he was in a social media era, would we champion him for speaking up against, "Ain't no Vietcong ever called me nigger." Or would we say, "Yeah, but what about like the indigenous people in Australia who face crazy racism out there? You haven't said anything about them, Muhammad Ali," which is kind of the culture that LeBron is growing up in right now or is operating under. If I say I like oranges, everyone's like, "Oh, so what about grapefruits?" But this Tamir Rice—

If you've already stood up against racism and against police brutality, even if you hadn't dug any deeper into the Tamir Rice case itself, this would be the time where I'm like, okay, Give me your soliloquy. Now is when we want to hear what you have to say about this. And instead, he effectively no comments it and never came back.

Right.

Like, it's not even like, look, this is awful, da da da. But I think we all agree, cops shooting kids, bad.

But what are you guys doing here with— is this that much different than the Ira Newbell petition where he's saying— I'm not saying it's a good admission for him to make, and I'm not saying he's right in either saying it or sitting it out. But if he doesn't know about something, Is he allowed to not know about it and say out loud that he doesn't know about it, or does his public comment on this have to be responsible instead of disappointing because he needs to lie?

I think it has to be responsible because again of the local proximity of it.

How can you be ignorant to this?

None of these, like, with a year after the Olympics, did anybody go back and ask him about what he educated himself on Sudan? No, right? This Tamir Rice in 2014, it happened in 2015. You had the time to educate yourself, and now we're coming back around to it. It's just like, hey, what do you got? Nothing.

It strains credulity that the first time it arrived to him was when reporters asked him, what about this Tamir Rice thing? That's the part. It's not one of those things that, that is obscure. That is—

oh, so you guys have this as faking your way through that answer in order to avoid the subject matter entirely? That's not okay. That's not how I read that.

And this was a bad look for him individually. And what is he going to do next? What he has done in the past, he's going to call on his teammates.

Sehr gut, sehr gut, sehr gut!

Sehr gut?

Wieso?

Steuer ist sehr gut!

Das sagen ganz viele!

Wer sagt das?

Stiftung Warentest, Computerbild, Focus Money, Chip, Finanztipp. Such dir was aus!

Mega!

Aber das ist doch bestimmt kompliziert.

Nö, einfach Foto von der Lohnsteuerbescheinigung machen und fertig. Klingt sehr gut!

Ist sehr gut.

Mit Wieso Steuer bis zum 31.

Juli abgeben.

Hi guys, we're in 2016 now. A lot of things have changed. LeBron starts the year singing Welcome to the Terror Dome by Public Enemy in a Samsung ad. He wins a championship, obviously top of his game, won it with Cleveland, which I think elevated him a little bit more than Miami. 17 days after he won that championship, Alton Sterling is shot on camera in Baton Rouge. Less than a day after that, Philando Castile is shot on camera in Minneapolis. Less than a day after that, 5 white cops killed at a protest in Dallas. Important protest from the Minnesota Lynx and the WNBA at the time. It's a whole nother thing. But then the Banana Boat Crew gets up on stage at the ESPYs in tuxedos. And if you don't know who the Banana Boat Crew is, it's Carmelo Anthony, it's Chris Paul, it's Dwyane Wade, and it's, of course, LeBron James.

Although Carmelo always points out he was not on the Banana Boat.

He was not actually on the boat. He was just on the vacation. But here they are on stage at the ESPYs.

We all feel helpless and frustrated by the violence. We do. That's not acceptable. It's time to look in the mirror and ask ourselves, what are we doing to create change? It's not about being a role model. It's not about our responsibility to the tradition of activism. I know tonight we'll honor Muhammad Ali, the GOAT. But to do his legacy any justice, let's use this moment as a call to action for all professional athletes to educate ourselves, explore these issues, Speak up, use our influence, and renounce all violence. And most importantly, go back to our communities, invest our time, our resources, help rebuild them, help strengthen them, help change them. We all have to do better.

Do you guys think that at that moment when LeBron's reading that, that he's saying, oh, they're talking to me? I need to do all these things because isn't this him basically saying we need to educate ourselves? This is a call to action. We need to use our position. Everything that we're saying, we don't necessarily have to put on these athletes. He's saying, wow, I'm putting this on myself right now.

You got the speechwriter putting Easter eggs. We're like talking about LeBron basically the whole time, and LeBron doesn't realize it.

Well, he's reading so clearly there from the prompter. But I do think the context on some of this they are standing in the middle of America before all of this gets grabbed and held against ESPN and Disney and becoming the word woke or whatever it is. Like the word woke and the weaponization of all that starts around what is ESPN and Disney, what are they doing around this and Caitlyn Jenner that's making me uncomfortable and making sports something different than it was. But I'm not totally sure as those four guys are reading that up there, that they know exactly what's happening in America or what's coming their way and what they'll have to face if they want to keep speaking up on this stuff.

Well, the amount of atrocities that I read to you that has happened to young Black men or Black men in this country, what's happening? And they've seen it all. And it was just, what can we do? We have to say something. We are public figures. Any— all public figures were basically being asked about this if it was in sort of their realm of understanding.

So then what is the next step on that? Okay. When I asked both of you, what's the theory then? If it's that overt and he's that aware of it, why is he doing it that way? Is it because racists buy sneakers too? Is it to protect business? Like what's the accusation you guys are making when he's not allowed to have an ignorance or to be so insulated that he's just a giantly famous rich person. And I don't know, maybe it is possible that he's not that connected to Cleveland or his hometown that he's interested in every racial story that people are talking about.

Then say that. Then this is just a show. This is symbolism and it's just him using his name, but he doesn't really care that much. And this is why I'm saying, if you can't care enough to learn about the Tamir Rice situation, then you don't really care and you are not the athlete that I want to speak on behalf of every other athlete.

There's always room to educate, right? But I don't know how much more education you need. As a Black man from Northeast Ohio who grew up in less than ideal conditions surrounded by other people like that, I don't know how much more education you need to hear about 12-year-old child shot by police officer.

But neither one of you are answering my question. If it's what you're saying, the way you guys are framing this, it seems like this is inauthentic, doesn't care, not aligned with his principles. How could you not know about this? This is not true. So why would he choose that path?

It's going to seem rude. It's going to see— it's a level of selfishness. It's a level of him putting himself above everything else. He doesn't necessarily have time for other things. I can use my voice and my name for a cause if I think it's going to help. I don't have time to dig into that cause and everything that comes with it. And there is an element to it of everything that comes with it is way different than it was in the past. There's a lot more at your front door when you do dip your toe.

I think this is the part that's pure reckless speculation, right?

But hold on a second, let me just find it real quick for you. Forgive me for this for a second.

Time to throw away all journalistic credibility and get reckless. Here is something we like to call Reckless Speculation.

Someone's got to clear me.

You're good.

Thank you. All right, so I think there's a difference between talking about police brutality in New York, police brutality in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri, police brutality in Dallas, in Minneapolis. Like, those are police departments that I don't have to deal with. Cleveland, I got to see them every day.

We've got a great guest to discuss LeBron James and all of his activism. Jemele Hill joining us.

Oh, nice. The, the neighborhood, the friendly neighborhood race lady.

Okay, so she is the definitive voice, if you will, at the intersection of sports, activism, and politics. She's a contributing writer for The Atlantic, and full disclosure, she worked with LeBron on a docuseries literally called Shut Up and Dribble, and she's also worked with Colin Kaepernick on a project about his journey, which we'll get to. Jamelle, in January of 2018, I don't think a lot of people remember this, sort of where the Shut Up and Dribble came from. Kerry Champion, former ESPN colleague of ours, was doing a branded content series produced by Uninterrupted. She got word that LeBron and KD, Kevin Durant, wanted to get together in the backseat of an Uber. And we talked to Kerry about this, but let's watch the video of her with LeBron.

Warriors said if we had an invite, we're not going to the White House. LeBron, you called the president a bum.

Yeah, straight up.

Straight up.

How do you describe the climate for an athlete with a platform nowadays that want to talk about what's happening in our world?

Well, the climate is hot. The number one job in America, the point of person, is someone who doesn't understand the people and really don't give a fuck about the people. And while we cannot change what comes out of that man's mouth, we can continue to alert the people that watch us that listen to us as this is not the way. I mean, I feel like our team as a, as a country is not ran by a great coach. It's not even a surprise when he says something.

It's not even a surprise.

Like laughable. It's like, it's laughable and it's scary, but it's also scary, right?

Right.

Shouldn't be numb to your racism.

Right. Right.

A couple of things about that clip, Jamelle, that get me is I've said this a little bit about LeBron. He seems most empowered when he's got a teammate next to him. Right. And with this, with KD is just like feeling like he's really getting into it.

I felt like once we got in the car, LeBron was very clear that he wanted to state a message. And I don't know if that was because he felt like he was the one that was going to deliver the message and that wasn't necessarily KD's area, 'cause it has not been his situation. It's not his— Kevin Durant isn't known for being the person who wants to speak out. But I remember LeBron felt very, very intentional. And he could see that both KD and I were very intrigued on his thoughts.— about the political process and what was going on in this country and how it found its way to intersect with culture and sports.

But it also, and this is something I said before you jumped on with us, Jamelle, is I want you to make me feel like you care. And in this clip, it really feels like a lot of this stuff had finally hit home with LeBron and he was ready to say something about it, which Carrie said afterwards, she was pretty surprised that he was ready to sort of lay it all out there.

I remember distinctly Kevin Durant even asking him questions like, wow, you know, that's interesting that that's your point of view. I think LeBron came to play in terms of, I'm just going to lay it all out on the line. I've already said what I've said before. What I'm saying isn't new. Water is wet. Sky is blue.

Yeah. I mean, I think for a lot of us who see athletes in that position, like he's occupying a very rare air, is that historically he Some people consider him to be the greatest ever. He is the leader in his sport. He's the face of his league. And that's a pretty cozy position to be in, just in the sense that you don't really have to say anything on the political front or the social justice front, and people are just fine with you. And there is an argument to be made that maybe you shouldn't, given what your stature is. But that's what I mean about LeBron kind of growing into the role. Like, I think sometimes we have this false assumption or false expectation that as soon as an athlete gets a platform, that they should automatically be ready to speak up. And if we think about our own voices and our own journey as people who are in media, people who are journalists, it didn't come that way. It had to come through experience. It had to come through seeing. It had to come through observing. And I think it was the same way with LeBron James.

We have reached, in his mind, a critical mass point in our country where we had a leader in office who did not respect the office and certainly didn't respect a lot of the constituents of which he was put in charge of governing. And I don't know if he knew this was going to be his moment. I know that somebody in his position has to be kind of calculated about when you speak out, what you choose to speak out on. But I think the moment came to him, and he decided, you know what, I'm ready right now to really go all the way with my opinions about the president in a way that I haven't really engaged politically.

So when we walked away, I was like, we have something so special. What we have seen is an athlete, a generational athlete, and others would say arguably the best to ever do it, speak unapologetically about being a Black man in this country, being a Black person in this country, and what it means and the cost that comes with that. He was very clear about, I'm a rich Black man, but I live in Brentwood and they let me know that I'm still Black no matter how much money I make, no matter how successful I am. I understand that I am a Black man at the end of the day. End of the day, first and foremost. And so when we left, I immediately felt like that was very special and significant because— and we hate to do comparisons, but no athlete of this caliber had ever done this, especially in basketball. We didn't see Michael Jordan do it. We definitely didn't see Magic Johnson do it. That was a different generation, a different approach, a get-along approach. LeBron was like, I'm 10 toes down. I am saying this and I mean it. And so for that in itself, I knew it was historical.

I do want to get the reaction that got the reaction. Laura Ingraham on Fox News reacted this way.

Must they run their mouths like that? Unfortunately, a lot of kids and some adults take these ignorant comments seriously. Look, there might be a cautionary lesson in LeBron for kids. This is what happens when you attempt to leave high school a year early to join the NBA. And it's always unwise to seek political advice from someone who gets paid $100 million a year to bounce a ball. Oh, and LeBron and Kevin, you're great players, but no one voted for you. Millions elected Trump to be their coach. So keep the political commentary to yourself. Or as someone once said, shut up and dribble.

Must they, Dan? Man, that triggered you, didn't it?

I'm not racist. They're lippy. They're lippy. It's not that I'm racist.

I know that they was doing a lot of work right there.

Does that sound even worse now?

I've said this before, and, you know, just to give you all kind of a full view of this. So at the time, I was already working on Shut Up and Dribble, but it wasn't called Shut Up and Dribble. It was a nebulous project that, frankly, there was some difficulty in finding what the story actually was. To be honest, it was a little all over the place. We knew that we wanted something with sports and social justice and looking at the history of, like, activism. And there was nothing really tying the story together. And as soon as Laura Ingraham said, "Shut up and dribble," it was like, "We got it." So, I give her a lot of credit, and I thank her because she kinda gave us— She gave us the structure that we needed to finish piece because we, while we had a lot of great material, great interviews, great footage, it wasn't cohesive yet until she said that. So thank you, Laura. I appreciate it.

Well, where does LeBron though disappoint you here the way that he disappoints Izzy? Because you want him to care a little more. And where is fair to put the expectations for him, Jemele, when we just showed you a clip in which he was talking about Trump and offering no expectation on Kevin Durant, who didn't seem to have much of anything to say next to him? Because it's often fair not to think that every single athlete should have an opinion exactly like yours. And so we don't expect anything from Kevin Durant on this front, do we?

No. Um, all the focus and attention is on, on LeBron. And, you know, I have to admit, this is a question I struggle with all the time, whether or not it is an obligation or whether or not it should be something that you have to be led to do. Depending on the situation, I could land on either side of it. And that is just because I recognize the inherent unfairness of the fact that not just Black athletes, but Black people in general who did not create racism, who did not create white supremacy, are then forced to be the ones to bring all the solutions to the table, that are the ones forced to create the conversations and the dialogue. All of it is on us, and we're the ones who are most victimized by what is happening. And To me, what it does is weaponize a certain level of incompetence around people who are not Black. It allows people to happily be ignorant and they're never tasked and never get the responsibility of having to do and ask something more. Because no white athlete is ever going to be asked that kind of question. I mean, it just doesn't happen.

They're not going to be asked, well, what do you say to the white people who say this. They're not asked for the accountability of what other white people do. And Black people are asked to be accountable for not only what Black people say, but for what white people say. And when I think about it in that context, it allows me, even in moments where I wish an athlete, where I wish LeBron would've been stronger on something, like, yeah, I still remember what he said about Tamir Rice. To me, that was a missed opportunity and a failed moment. But at the same time, I have to then have a dialogue with myself and say, am I asking too much? This man is here to play basketball. He didn't sign up to be some kind of activist leader, even though he's in a position to have the most change because by nature of his influence. So I think we also have to understand it in that context.

Let's, let's get, let's fast forward to, to 2019-20 because we haven't even gotten to COVID. So we've got LeBron first. He's a Laker. We should, know this, uh, stays quiet when Daryl Morey shows his support for Hong Kong while the Lakers are playing in China. That same season, Kobe passes away, COVID starts, the NBA stops, and then a Minnesota cop kneels on the neck of George Floyd for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, kills him. LeBron posts side-by-side photos of Derek Chauvin kneeling and Colin Kaepernick kneeling to his Instagram followers, and he says, do you understand now, or is it still blurred to you. That summer, he started the More Than a Vote campaign. Now we're in the bubble. This is just while they're in the bubble. A Wisconsin cop shoots Jacob Blake 7 times in the back. Kyle Rittenhouse shoots 2 protesters with an assault rifle. The Bucks go out on strike, and so all of sports go on strike. LeBron gets annoyed, and he walked out of a players-only meeting supposedly because it was kind of all over the place. But then he calls up Obama with Chris Paul, Carmelo, Russell Westbrook, and Andre Iguodala, and they demand action from the owners.

Even Michael Jordan got a call, but then LeBron, what did he do? He just played basketball and won a championship. So I'm not sure, Jamelle, what you make of what he did there. Did he do much while it was there at his doorstep and the whole world was watching, or was this just more of him just kind of, I don't know, group thinking and just kind of going with whatever everybody else said?

I mean, I think the players, um, were understandably emotional, but because of the situation with the lockdown, being in the bubble, I don't think they honestly knew what to do. And they knew that they felt something. They knew that something wasn't right. They knew that something needed to change. But I don't think they actually had an organized plan of how they needed to change it. And that's really no fault of theirs. They're not professional activists. Like, if we go back and look at the Montgomery Bus Boycott, for example, that was plotted, strategized, executed. 2 years. And I don't know why we think on the fly that Black athletes should be able to create a national movement or create some kind of substantive change without research, without strategy, without talking to people on the ground. That was just all happening in real time and they reacted very emotionally. And I know that they called Obama trying to get some leadership. And if I recall, one of the main things, his point was that they still needed to play, that people still needed to see them. I kind of disagree with that, but, you know, it's their careers, it's not mine.

So I understood his perspective. But I think it was one of those things where I'm not sure LeBron knew what to do, and I think that's fine too.

Why was that not fine on Tamir Rice?

I think for when you look at the situation, and again, I, I don't know if today LeBron would have that same response. And naturally, just because LeBron is in his position, that doesn't mean he can't internalize some of the same damaging tropes that affect all of us because we're conditioned in this country. You know, a lot of times, because we're used to violence happening so frequently, whether it be state-sanctioned violence or intra-community violence within the Black community, our immediate thought process is, how could they have prevented their own demise? And so instead of saying, yo, it's wrong for a trained professional to not know the difference between a toy gun and a real gun, and in this situation to be so panicked and scared. And with that, I don't even say panicked and scared because that lets him off the hook. But to react that recklessly, instead of putting the onus on the adult, LeBron's default was, or his go-to response was, this is why I don't let my kids play with guns. I was like, it's not about the guns. It's about this system of violence that seems completely sanctioned by not just our country, but by a system that is supposed to be protecting us.

And so just because you're LeBron James doesn't mean that you can't internalize oppression like everybody else.

Would you say the largest victory for LeBron in terms of just public stance and when he dips into the political world was in the 2020 election, because we read your column from The Atlantic and after Trump lost in 2020 and you wrote, quote, the election is a clear demonstration of why athletes should use their public platform to advocate for justice and democracy. Now that Black athletes have seen how powerful their voices can be, the stick to sports narrative may be gone for good. I don't know if that ended up actually happening, but was this LeBron?

It did not.

I never—

wrong.

We do know it didn't end up happening.

She got that one wrong. She, uh, And it's for all time. And you just read it right to her face.

But did he pick a villain and at least defeat that villain for the time being?

It worked for the time being. And now that we look back on what's happened over the course of 5 years, and it's funny because, uh, I think I did write this for The Atlantic for 2024. I'm pretty sure that I did, leading into the 2024 election, about all that momentum that was gained in 2020. And I realized it was a very unique moment not just because of COVID but because you actually had two pretty outspoken leagues that were both— all were in both leagues, that being the WNBA and the NBA, where all the players were actually together. It's so much easier to organize when everybody's there, right? And so you had that, and you had the fact that you had players in the street who were protesting when George Floyd was murdered. And so it was a very rare time that you would see that. And so my obviously poor assumption was that that was something that would be a blueprint and would show them that it works. And 2024 rolled around and you barely heard from athletes in the political space. I did not see many of them, if any. I'm struggling to think right now, campaigning for Kamala Harris or just even encouraging people to vote.

You saw some things here and there, like I know the NFL ran something. But that same energy that was there in 2020 was not there at all in 2024.

We go back 2 years to 2022, actually. And that's— we actually read a— reread a Will Leach column in New York Magazine in which this was just before the midterms in 2022, which he was— LeBron didn't respond when J.D. Vance called him vile. So he wasn't really going back and forth. The More Than a Vote campaign thing kind of grew quiet. And then there was this quote from it he said surely athletes saw how much shit James was taking and concluded totally understandably, no thanks. And so he was kind of a human shield for a lot. Did it die down there because of that 2020 victory? And it's just like, hey, we're— My work here is done. Yeah, we're in a victory lap mode.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that's part of it. And I also think that sometimes the examples of what the consequence can be can feel louder than the examples of what the progress is. You look at Colin Kaepernick, and I contend that of the many ways that he was let down was because none of the players really stood up for him. And, you know, like, of course, some imitated his demonstration, but you needed players en masse in far more massive numbers, not necessarily protesting. Even if you didn't protest, you at least needed to let it be known it is not okay to exile and to suppress somebody for expressing this kind of belief. And they didn't do that, and they didn't protect their own rights to speak up. And as a result, the NFL was able to quickly get them in order. And so I think the same thing kind of happened with LeBron, is that even though, you know, LeBron didn't lose any money, you know, he, he didn't lose a contract, he didn't lose his job, he's still a great player, he's still celebrated. But it got him permanently in political crosshairs. And that's where a lot of players don't want to be.

Like, every time if LeBron says anything related to any kind of social justice or expresses any kind of political opinion, it's going to be content on Fox for weeks. And a lot of players, they just don't want the smoke.

I think you might have gotten a piece of that wrong, though. I think the China thing did cost him money. And I think getting close to the fire on the sneaker stuff made him say, I'm not going to talk anymore about anything that I don't know anything about.

I think that's a fair assessment. So yeah, I mean, I stand corrected. I think when you're dealing with something as complicated as that, as a geopolitical issue, is that we know that there are ways in which you don't have to always involve yourself. You gotta pick your spots. But obviously that was very much tied to the NBA and how they make money. And did LeBron lose some credibility there? I think it's fair to see it that way.

I thought it was his worst public moment.

To me, that was—

Worse than Tamir Rice?

I thought it was more public. I don't know why. I saw more of it than I saw the Tamir Rice response.

I think it was the conflict of interest, right? It was the clear conflict of interest of there's a reason why he's not going to be vocal on this, and it's not because he's not educated enough, although that would've been, I guess, an understandable statement to make. It's because, "Hey, this is where my bread is buttered.

I'm not about to kill that golden goose." He was triaging his priorities live as we were watching.

Yeah.

And I think that— to see someone be compromised so clearly, I think that's what makes it a more jarring thing than Tamir Rice. Meanwhile, this was kind of more— it was— first of all, it had already been a huge story. Because Daryl Morey was really the kicking off point, because the NBA was a kicking off point. And then the hypocrisy of people saying, "Oh, the NBA is in bed with China," as if the rest of America isn't.

And it's not as if he was interviewed the second after he saw the tweet. He had time to come up with something and he was still just caught off guard.

But you guys are doing something interesting here because I would understand why Jemele would say and sound almost hurt in saying it. More than Tamir Rice? That one hurt you guys more than Tamir Rice? Because on behalf of— look, I don't want to speak for Black people, but on that one, LeBron, we wanted you to— like, we wanted you to at the very least, no, come down from the bubble or the ivory tower and be like, acknowledge here that you have some knowledge of this. Like, the hurt in that is different than a world away and some political, uh, you know, weaponized thing.

He was making money off of the atrocities that happened in Cleveland. He was making money despite the atrocities. That are happening.

We're happy.

And also, I wouldn't say hurt. I would just say it was a bigger kind of fiasco of a moment. And not— that's not my personal pain or disappointment in him. That's just knowing the gravity of that situation for the exact reason that Izzy just gave.

Well, exactly. And there was— I think that's what makes the Tamir Rice moment more disappointing, because there was no money at stake for LeBron James. There was nothing at stake. It would have cost him nothing to say something. And listen, everybody's compromised. Let's just keep this real. Like, we're all compromised in some respect. But with China, as Amin just said earlier, America is compromised. This is not just an NBA issue. The running joke is don't let China cash the check. Like, that's about our whole country. And the level of, at least to some degree, I can understand when you are compromised better than when you aren't.

No, no, you've absolutely changed my mind on this. Uh, the Tamir Rice was his worst situation because of what I said earlier, that people might not remember. It was after the sentencing that he had this. So it was a year later that he had time to think about it, to do research on it, and he still effectively no commented it. So you're right. I've switched my thought. The China situation is his second most embarrassing public moment. So where are we now with LeBron James? He's obviously the imperfect spokesman, but he is still very much a spokesman for athletes, for Black men. Um, where are we, Jamelle, with LeBron and sort of gauging his public persona when he gets out there in terms of politics?

Despite his missteps that he's had both globally and domestically, I do think that people will generally view him as somebody who cared and as somebody who tried to do the right thing. We can debate whether or not that's good enough, whether that is too low of a bar, but when you think about all the expectations, all the pressure that has been on him since he was literally a teenager, I think he has more to be proud of in the social activism space than he doesn't. And I think that's probably all we can really ask for, given that activism is not his first job.

Right.

You know, there are plenty of athletes who get the mantle of being a face in the league and don't really do shit with it. Listen, a lot of Kobe Bryant's awareness didn't come till late in his career, OK? Because, like, my entire relationship with Kobe started because of comments I felt were tone deaf that he said about Trayvon Martin. But I think because myself and other people called him out about it, it caused him to look at the issue differently. And then after that, he became very involved in Trayvon Martin's parents, the foundations, and the activism that they did. And my last interview with him, when I asked Kobe if he were still playing in the NBA when Colin Kaepernick took a knee, and he said he would. And I don't know if you get that answer from Kobe 5 years in or 7 years in or even 10 years into his career. So it just shows you that these guys are learning in real time about what it means to have that platform. And they are going to get it right sometimes. And there's going to be a couple ones they wish they had back..

But if you're LeBron, when your career is done, I think he will be able to positively stand on his record as somebody who tried to do the right thing most of the time.

Jamelle, last thing before we let you go. Uh, you did this whole interview behind you is a bunch of shoes and a box that says Jeevon Chi. And I'm just wondering, how much do you think, how much do you think the shoes behind you cost if you totaled them up?

See, you know what, Izzy, this is why I hate this question.

That's wrong.

That's wrong.

I hate this question. First of all, let me just say this. These are not all my shoes. Only half on the— what would be to my right. Those are all my husband's shoes.

Yeah.

My shoes are here on the left.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

What just happened there was Izzie was saluting your man's shoes and putting the trope on you.

Yeah, right.

Exactly. The Givenchy— oh, actually, no. Yes, the Givenchy box. That's his. That ain't mine.

Look, I— You're the only person there. I see a bunch of shoes. I'm assuming they're yours. So my bad, Javale.

But the reason I hate this question is because my mother told me to stop doing interviews in our dressing room because she's like, people gonna look at your shoes and judge you and they gonna wonder how much you cost.

So right, so right. Look at that.

Look at that. Always listen to mom.

Yes. And the next time I do an interview with y'all, I'll be doing it for doing it from my, um, Family Dollar closet, which is around the corner where there's more of the Old Navy shoes and everything.

Thank you, Jamel.

Thanks, Jamel.

All right, thanks, guys.

Okay, so the homework for this week, it's an actual book we're reading. It's called There's Always This Year on Basketball and Ascension. It's by Hanif Adur-Raqib. He's a poet, a MacArthur Genius, a finalist for the National Book Award, an Ohio native, and he'll join us on the season finale, there will be a quiz.