In 2020, the four-time NBA player of the year went even further by launching "More Than a Vote", recruiting tens of thousands of volunteers to encourage Black people to register to vote ahead of last year's elections, in which Trump was defeated by Democrat Joe Biden. He also has a television talk show on HBO with Carter, who is a businessman, called "The Shop" in which he discusses social issues of the day with prominent personalities.
#Lebron james twitter police series#
James even produced his own 2018 documentary series on the political engagement of Black athletes called "Shut Up and Dribble," whose title was drawn from a Fox News commentator's reaction to the basketball player's clashes with Trump. He had several very public spats with Trump in the past, most frequently played out on Twitter before the social media platform barred the former president over his own incitement of a mob that attacked the US Capitol on January 6. Thanks to his status as an athlete, his commentary on social issues and his activism, James is now seen as one of the most influential sports personalities in the political sphere. "I think it's just the natural evolution and growth of a man," his longtime friend Maverick Carter told the sports new website Bleacher Report in 2018. Since then he has often spoken out about racial discrimination in the country. "I think it starts with the Trayvon Martin situation and the reason it starts with that, I believe is because having kids of my own - having boys of my own - it hit home for me to see and to learn the story and to think that if my boy left home and he never returned," he said in an interview with CNN in 2018. James had avoided wading into social issues in the early days of his sporting career, but that changed with the shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager shot dead in 2012 by a man who subsequently avoided jail under Florida's "Stand your ground" law. Tom Cotton, a hardline Republican senator from Arkansas, took to Twitter to say that "Lebron James is inciting violence against an Ohio police officer. He may be a great basketball player, but he is doing nothing to bring our Country together!" That explanation did little to stem the tide of anger on social media, stoked by prominent rightwing pundits led by former president Donald Trump who said "His RACIST rants are divisive, nasty, insulting, and demeaning. I am so desperate for more ACCOUNTABILITY." it's about the entire system and they always use our words to create more racism. The 36-year-old NBA star, popularly known as "King James," took down the tweet hours later, explaining his post was "being used to create more hate -This isn't about one officer. The killing coincided with the guilty verdict aginst the white police officer charged with the murder of George Floyd, a Black man whose death in Minneapolis last year sparked nationwide protests.
The policeman shot dead 16-year-old Ma'Khia Bryant as she lunged with a knife at another girl in James's home state of Ohio - prompting the Lakers star to post a picture of the officer on Twitter with the words "YOU'RE NEXT #ACCOUNTABILITY." NBA star LeBron James was facing a firestorm of criticism from the US rightwing Friday over an incendiary tweet targeting an Ohio police officer who fatally shot a Black teenager, with conservative pundits accusing the athlete of racism and irresponsible behavior.
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