{"id":36848,"date":"2018-02-26T12:00:29","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T18:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=36848"},"modified":"2018-02-26T15:45:36","modified_gmt":"2018-02-26T21:45:36","slug":"why-lebron-james-should-not-shut-up-and-dribble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=36848","title":{"rendered":"Why LeBron James should not “Shut Up and Dribble”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not reflect in any way those of the Tiger Media Network, its staff or Fort Hays State University.<\/em><\/p>\n

BY MARIAH SMITH<\/p>\n

Cari Champion is a reporter for ESPN. On February 14th, she hosted an interview with the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Lebron James (Cavaliers) and Kevin Durant (Warriors) during an Uber ride as part of the Bleacher Report\u2019s Uninterrupted series — which took place the night before the athletes played against each other in their teams\u2019 last regular season meeting. <\/span><\/p>\n

The three discussed several topics during the interview, including the racial slur spray painted across James\u2019 home in May 2017. What\u2019s proving to be the most controversial topic was politics. Champion asked them about their thoughts on the country\u2019s status, political climate and the president. As athletes who want to be socially involved, Lebron replied candidly, saying that the \u201cnumber one job in America\u2026 is someone who doesn\u2019t understand the people. And really don\u2019t give a [bleep] about the people.\u201d He continued, \u201cWhile we cannot change what comes out of that man\u2019s mouth, we can continue to alert the people that watch and listen to us that this is not the way.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Durant chimed in, \u201cWhen we talk about leadership, and what\u2019s going on in our country — it\u2019s all about leadership\u2026. I feel our team as a country is not ran* by a great coach.\u201d The camera cut back to Lebron. \u201cIt\u2019s not even a surprise when he says something\u2026 it\u2019s laughable and scary,\u201d said James.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Feb 16, Fox News anchor, Laura Ingraham, discussed this interview in her segment, The Ingraham Angle. In just over two minutes, she <\/span>attempted <\/span><\/i>to make a mockery of these two men and what they had to say. She started by joking about a new segment called \u201cdumb jock alert\u201d and made what I can only assume was a bell sound..? She introduced the story as Lebron talking \u201cR-Rated\u201d politics. Already off to a bad start. One f-bomb doesn\u2019t make anything R-Rated\u2026 actually. But I digress.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s his barely intelligible — not to mention ungrammatical — take on a new [sarcastic excitement] ESPN podcast,\u201d Ingraham said before a short clip of Lebron\u2019s response played. Laura returned for more sarcasm and to introduce Champion and Durant into the conversation. Then Durant\u2019s response was shown, as well as dialogue between Champion and James \u201cI shouldn\u2019t be numb to racist comments. I shouldn\u2019t be numb to your behavior.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When she returned, the story was titled <\/span>Jocks on Politics<\/span><\/i> at the bottom of the screen. She slyly laughed and said, \u201cI\u2019m numb to this commentary, <\/span>like…\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Must they run their mouths like that? Unfortunately, a lot of kids and some adults take these ignorant comments seriously.\u201d said Ingraham. <\/span><\/p>\n

Run their mouths? This is hardly smack talk. Nothing more than she is doing herself. We call it \u201cshade.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what happens when you attempt to leave high school a year early to join the NBA,\u201d Ingraham continues.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here she implies that James’ lack of education and massive early career success correlates to his political intelligence or opinions. It doesn\u2019t take a college degree or even high school diploma to see that what is happening in our leadership is unnerving. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s always unwise to seek political advice from someone who gets paid a $100 million a year to bounce a ball,\u201d said Ingraham. <\/span><\/p>\n

Okay\u2026 here\u2019s where her responses start taking a turn for plain old hypocritical. First of all, I\u2019m no sports fan, but basketball is more complex than bouncing a ball. And I\u2019m not sure what a professional athlete\u2019s salary has to do with their competency in politics or speaking their opinion? Granted, this is coming from someone who earns $2 million a year to sit in front of a camera and present extremely biased information, alternative facts, and calls it \u201cnews.\u201d Ok next:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLebron, and Kevin? You\u2019re great players but no one voted for you. Millions elected Trump to be their coach,\u201d said Ingraham. <\/span><\/p>\n

In reality, 2.6 million fans voted for Lebron to start in the 2018 NBA All-Star game, for the fourteenth year in a row now. He was also voted the league MVP four times, which ties him with Michale Jordan. (Again, not a sports fan, just a millennial with Google.) As far as votes on stating political opinion go, no one voted for you either, sis. I\u2019m not sure how your opinion is any more important or needs to be heard more than any other citizens\u2019 opinion. And if we\u2019re talking about the presidential popular vote, which I\u2019m assuming she is, Trump still fell short by 3 million to Hillary Clinton. But.. yeah, sure\u2026 \u201cwe\u201d voted for him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cKeep the political commentary to yourself, or, as someone once said: Shut up and Dribble.\u201d More on this later. This is the statement that really put her under the microscope.<\/span><\/p>\n

After returning from commercials, Ingraham continued her attack, now turning to Durant, and his grammatical mistake (noted in his quote above). <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI still can\u2019t get over the fact that KD said \u2018I feel like our country is not ran by a great coach. Does that mean I should [stutters] go for a ran tomorrow morning before my radio show?\u201d Ingraham says.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the news host is now a grammatical expert and a comedian? Interesting. I thought if athletes had to stick to sports, news anchors should stick to the news? No? Guess not. I hope she got a good chuckle out of that weak jab. She\u2019s probably the only one who was genuinely entertained by that unnecessary comment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ingraham was met very quickly with scathing backlash. Her \u201cshut up and dribble\u201d comment has been called racist by many. And while I don\u2019t see a direct racial component, I do see extreme hypocrisy. She insisted that she\u2019s been using that phrase, but swapping out the verb for 15 years to call out celebrity political commentary, mentioning her 2006 book <\/span>Shut Up and Sing<\/span><\/i>. She has, in fact, been known to try to silence many left-wing celebrities out of political commentary. Her most recent targeted Jimmy Kimmel after he criticized the GOP\u2019s ACA replacement attempts, saying \u201cshut up and make us laugh every once in a while.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I find it interesting that Ingraham expects celebrities to stay out of politics for many reasons. The first being that the man in office as we speak, was, in fact, a celebrity prior to taking office. He had a TV show, The Apprentice<\/em>.<\/em> Even more so, he was known for frivolous spending, giving his unsolicited opinions and crude comments and gestures towards women or anyone who crossed him. Ingraham isn\u2019t the first person to slam celebrities for their political interest, and I\u2019m sure she won\u2019t be the last. On another, more important note — at the end of the day, celebrities and athletes are citizens too. They are expected to pay taxes and have the right to vote, just like everyone else. Suddenly, when they have a platform, they\u2019re no longer allowed to be politically invested or speak their opinions? Or is it just when they push a \u201cleft\u201d or \u201cliberal\u201d agenda that is contradictory? Do you expect them to just pay their taxes and ignore what their money is going toward or the decisions that are being made for everyone else? Politics affect them too. And even if it didn\u2019t affect them, they have the same right to speak their minds freely, granted by the first amendment. The same right that allows Fox and Ingraham to speak their minds, no matter how ignorant or hypocritical they may be.<\/span><\/p>\n

James responded within days stating that Ingraham’s comments only enlarged his message, and helped him create more awareness. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI get to sit up here and talk about social injustice\u2026. We will definitely not shut up and dribble.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo Credit: Fox News<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not reflect in any way those of the Tiger Media Network, its… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":36853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11284,55],"tags":[3579,11631,6527,11281,441,11630,103,290],"class_list":["post-36848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-independent_opinions","category-opinion","tag-fox-news","tag-laura-ingraham","tag-lebron-james","tag-mariah-smith","tag-opinion-2","tag-shut-up-and-dribble","tag-tiger-media-network","tag-tmn"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/fox-shut-up-dribble-lebron-kevin-durant.jpg?fit=1201%2C676","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36848"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36856,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36848\/revisions\/36856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}