“It’s time to look at ourselves — and our collective moral outrage — in the mirror, says former NBA player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,” in Time.
Couldn’t agree more. Abdul-Jabbar lambastes the American habit of finger-wagging. Our fingers are, of course, controlled by the media.
Where I jump off the wagonload of self-congratulation is the point at which we elect lawmakers who are the enablers of racism. We exercise our fingers when we’re talking about racism but we get awfully lazy when faced with taking measures to eliminate it. Unstinting equality of educational and professional opportunities? Fuhgeddabahtit!
I love A-J for rooting out even more of the day-to-day hypocrisy and confusion we suffer from here in the US. And very selective indignation…
Shouldn’t we be equally angered by the fact that his [Donald Sterling’s] private, intimate conversation was taped and then leaked to the media? Didn’t we just call to task the NSA for intruding into American citizen’s privacy in such an un-American way? Although the impact is similar to Mitt Romney’s comments that were secretly taped, the difference is that Romney was giving a public speech. The making and release of this tape is so sleazy that just listening to it makes me feel like an accomplice to the crime. We didn’t steal the cake but we’re all gorging ourselves on it.
Make no mistake: Donald Sterling is the villain of this story. But he’s just a handmaiden to the bigger evil. In our quest for social justice, we shouldn’t lose sight that racism is the true enemy. He’s just another jerk with more money than brains. …K A-J, Time