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"Runaway slave"

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, Jul 12, 2010.

  1. CR19

    CR19 Member

    Funny. I never caught that story. I'll take the fault on my previous point.
     
  2. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    Yeah. But Jackson is talking about attitudes, not comparing the situations.

    Did Gilbert feel some kind of "ownership" of LeBron? Maybe. He's a team owner.

    I think there is a double standard -- owners can trade players without being worried about trifles like loyalty, but a player leaves and he's a turncoat.

    But I don't think it compares to slavery.
     
  3. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    I'm a little surprised LeBron has been quiet about some of the things Gilbert said. Accusing someone of quitting is just about the biggest dig anyone can take at an athlete.

    I guarantee you Gilbert wasn't the only one who thought LeBron quit in that series though.
     
  4. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    It's hard to have sympathy for someone who is pulling an eight-figure paycheck from said owner.
     
  5. Boomer7

    Boomer7 Active Member

    The thing is, James had the right to be selfish by choosing where he played. He was a free agent. As a result, I have no patience for anyone who calls James a traitor or anything of that nature, and Gilbert did toe a dangerous line in implying that James belonged to Cleveland, all facts to the contrary.

    Jesse Jackson, meanwhile, comes in and throws kerosene on the fire, as he is wont to do.
     
  6. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Whitlock actually rips into Jackson for trying to make it about race:

    http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/Jesse-Jackson-LeBron-James-Dan-Gilbert-slavery-comparison-071210

    And Boomer, no one is disputing that LeBron had the right to leave. What made people angry about it was how he did it. There's a right way, which is what every other athlete has done (except for Favre), and a wrong way, and LeBron did it the wrong way.
     
  7. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    The slave comparison isn't new or necessarily out there. Larry Johnson (the basketball player, not the running back) used it at some point during his NBA career and drew some flak. I think Curt Flood used it - a book on him is titled, "A Well-Paid Slave."

    I have a hard time putting my finger exactly on it, because the rational part of my brain realizes that these men get paid and paid handsomely, and that men like Jackie Robinson actually had to battle their way into top-level professional sports. However, I definitely understand why there is something slightly uncomfortable, considering the legacy of this nation, about black men demonstrating their physical prowess for the entertainment of largely white audiences. Particularly while the achievement gap academically between the two races remains so wide.

    Go to any inner-city, and the ratio of teen-agers who think they will become NBA players - and this is kids who can't even make their high school team - to the number who think that they'll get a college degree some day is probably 10 to 1. Combine all of those sobering images and facts with the tone of Gilbert's statement, and I can understand Jackson's reaction, even though it may require many people to have to overlook the messenger, who has acquired a reputation as the man who cried wolf.

    You can be well-paid, even wealthy, and still degrade yourself or be degraded by others.

    P.S. I guess it wasn't Whitlock. Someone wrote that "dance" line, though. Freeman, maybe?
     
  8. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Curt Flood used it because at the time he was playing, there was no free agency in baseball with the reserve clause. Teams had the right to give one choice to the players: Take this salary, or retire. You only leave this team when we want you to.

    Flood gave the book the title because he was challenging the reserve clause after the Cardinals were going to trade him to the Phillies. He didn't want to go, because he had his home and business interests in St. Louis. When he challenged the reserve clause, he was criticized because he was making a very good living. Flood's point was that in spite of making a good living, he should still have the right to decide where he wanted to play.
     
  9. Boomer7

    Boomer7 Active Member

    I didn't like the way he left either. But Gilbert used the words "disloyalty," "betrayal," and "deserted" to describe James in that letter. Those aren't the words of someone who disagrees with the way he left, those are the words of someone who objects to the fact that he left -- and who felt entitled to keep a player who was under no obligation to stay.

    Oh, and Jesse Jackson has company in the Idiots Who Casually Invoke Slavery Club!

    http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/07/bachmann-obama-turning-our-country-into-a-nation-of-slaves.php?ref=fpb
     
  10. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    The day's never finished.
    Dan Gilbert's got him working
    Someday Dan Gilbert will set LeBron free.
     
  11. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I understand that, and I acknowledge that athletes have it far, far better than they did in Flood's time. But I'm sure there were plenty of people back in the 1960s and '70s who thought that Flood should shut up and just be happy to have a job playing Major League Baseball. In fact, just this weekend I was talking LeBron with a couple of family members, and they were adament - in 2010 - that athletes basically owe it to the teams that drafted them to stay there, because: (1) "What's the difference between millions there and more millions somewhere else?"; and (2) They should just feel fortunate someone allows them to "play a kid's game" for money.
     
  12. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    From what I've read, it sounds like Lebron owned Gilbert more than vice versa. Not sure any owner/organization has ever bent over backwards for one player more. Hired his buddies to high salary jobs just to hang out, let his posse travel on the team plane, allowed him sign off authority on all personnel moves, moved the practice facility closer to Lebron's home, hired a personal travelling masseuse just to cater to the King's massage needs, and spent the last year begging and groveling at Lebron's feet. If that's slavery sign me up.
     
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