A few weeks ago, LeBron James and confidante/handler Maverick Carter made the not-totally-out-to-lunch suggestion that some of the negative reaction to James’ highly orchestrated move to South Beach had a racial component. Such obvservations were dismissed by The Bleacher Report’s Kyle Bunton, who argued, “If all this was because of race, people would have been making Lebron dolls and lynching them around Cleveland.” I wonder then, how might Bunton or his thoughtful publishers explain away the tweets James shared earlier today via his Twitter account. Here’s one of the highlights :
Opined New Times’ Chris Joseph, “The Internet is a lovely place. You can use it for stock quotes and porn. You can also use it to anonymously insult other people with vile racial slurs. Hooray, Internet! For their part, Twitter responded immediately and shut down the offender’s account. A better response would have been for them to have shoved a railroad spike dipped in syphilis up that guy’s rectal cavity.” While I share Joseph’s revulsion, I disagree with the practice of censoring said hate speech. Though perhaps not as effective as a railroad spike dipped in syphilis, @RyanOutrich would have eventual been outed by someone and subsequently forced to live with the consequences of harassing LeBron with the dumbest, ugliest thing that popped into his or her tiny skull. Chances are, few intelligent persons, whether they like the Heat or not, would find such behavior socially acceptable.
But the other reason I’d prefer that @RyanOutRich’s account stay up is because it provides valuable evidence that Kyle Bunton isn’t living in the same USA as the rest of us. LeBron can earn more money than G-d ; the minute he offends anyone’s notion of “team player” or appears to rising above his station, there’s always gonna be someone calling him…well, you know. Is James’ level of self-obsession (or at least the way he’s presented himself) tiresome and easily mocked? Sure, but there’s little to indicate the likes of Brett Favre or Curt Schilling have ever contended with the sort of invective aimed at LBJ.