Lebron James vs. Laura Ingraham
28.02.2018
Laura Ingraham’s criticism of Lebron James and Kevin Durant feelings on Trump and the state of America have caused a social media scandal. In reaction to the athlete’s video she told them to “shut up and dribble”.
This is an illusion to legendary basketball player Charles Barkley’s expression “shut up and jam”. This implies that words do not matter, basketball is all that counts.
Pro athletes tend to be dismal when it comes to expressing ideas on camera. They have to train 6 days per week for many hours then play on the 7th all throughout high school and university. This makes it not surprising that they have trouble stringing words together or are ignorant in terms of history and politics. But just because someone is dim or bad at expressing themselves must they then “shut up”? No.
Unless Ingraham was just trying to troll for attention up until telling these men to shut up she was doing the right thing – trying to prove them wrong.
Mr. James and Mr. Durant have every right to use their privileged position as famous athletes to promote ideas. Even if those ideas may be highly ignorant. In return famous people should expect to be ripped apart by attention hungry media personalities who are better at arguing ideas.
The only problem in this scandal is this idea that someone has to “shut up”. James is free to “feel” that Trump is somehow racist. Ingraham is free to prove that James’s feelings are wrong.
-Tim Kirby
