LeBron James seemed a bit miffed on Wednesday night when talking to reporters after the Lakers’ win over the Portland Trail Blazers.
It didn’t have anything to do with the game, though. Instead, it centered around everything the media hadn’t asked him. James said he was “disappointed” that nobody asked him about a recently revealed photo of Jerry Jones from 1957 at North Little Rock High School.
The Washington Post published a story reflecting on America’s recent troubling past with racism and how that past is still permeating many facets of life today, including NFL head coaching hires where Black coaches are routinely struggling to get jobs. Jones plays a big part in that as an NFL owner who has never hired a Black head coach.
James pointed out that reporters never asked him for comment on this. He compared it to when they asked questions about the Kyrie Irving situation.
The Lakers star told reporters to “keep the same energy” for both situations.
LeBron just called out the reporters for not asking him about the Jerry Jones segregation photo and told them to “keep the same energy” they had for Kyrie 😳 pic.twitter.com/a7POasQrRz
— LakeShowYo (@LakeShowYo) December 1, 2022
“I was wondering why I haven’t gotten a question from you guys about the Jerry Jones thing. When the Kyrie thing was going on, you guys were quick to ask us questions about that…When I watch Kyrie talk, he says I know who I am. I want to keep the same energy when we’re talking about my people and the things we went through. And that Jerry Jones photo is one of those moments that our people, Black people, have been through in America.
I feel like, as a Black man…when we do something wrong or something that people don’t agree with, it’s on every single tabloid…But it seems like to me the whole Jerry Jones situation, and I know it was years and years ago, we all make mistakes. I get it. But it seem like it’s just been buried under ‘oh it happened, OK. Let’s just move on.’ And I was just kind of disappointed that I hadn’t received that question from you guys.”
There’s certainly plenty to unpack there. What it all starts with is the Jerry Jones photo in question.
The photo from North Little Rock High School includes a 14-year-old Jerry Jones standing in a crowd of white students who were blocking six Black teenagers from entering their school after it was officially integrated in 1957.
It’s awful. It’s certainly not a good look for Jones, who Jones has even been questioned about it himself, saying he was there to “observe” rather than take part. Given the situation at hand in the photo and the time they were living in it’s pretty easy to be skeptical about Jones’ responses there. This happened around the time the Little Rock 9 happened at Central High School in Arkansas.
There’s also the fact that Jones still has never hired a Black head coach for the Dallas Cowboys through more than three decades of ownership at this point. They’ve also only had two Black coordinators under his watch. That is inexcusable and indefensible.
LeBron is right — there are plenty of double standards out there when it comes to coverage of Black people and the way Black issues are covered. It’s why, for example, there are constant reminders that we can’t forget about the perilous situation Brittney Griner is in right now as she wrongfully serves time in a Russian penal colony. There are plenty of things James could compare the coverage of this Jones situation to.
Kyrie Irving’s retweet of an anti-semitic film just doesn’t feel like one of them.
This isn’t really a “keep the same energy” situation, as James says it is. There has been plenty of discussion about what Jones said. Jones has also spoken on the matter twice now, once with the Washington Post and another time with ESPN. He admitted his wrong, whether folks believe his remorse or not. He was also 14 years old at the time of the photo in 1957.
Irving’s situation was just last month. For days, he refused to apologize to anyone he’d harmed. He’d kept the story alive himself. Nobody is perfect and no one is asking anyone to be that, but he just kept digging in.
Now, it’s reasonable to argue that other NBA players shouldn’t have been pressed on questions about Irving. James is the face of the NBA, so it’s reasonable to think he’d be asked about other NBA matters. But, on the other hand, NBA owners didn’t have to answer for Robert Sarver’s foul actions. NFL owners likely won’t be pressed about Jones’ photo either. One could say the same standard should probably be kept across the board — no one else should be held accountable for one’s actions.
But to compare these two situations just feels like the ultimate form of whataboutism and that’s not really something we should be getting into.
