Own Up, LeBron

Throughout the column, It's not race, LeBron James, but it might be you, Mitch Albom scrutinizes not only the question Soledad O’Brien posed to LeBron, but also his response to the controversial question. Soledad asked if his race was in any way involved in all the criticism that was being fired on him amidst the way he handled his free-agency. LeBron answered, “’I think so at times. It’s always, you know, a race factor.’” Albom found it ridiculous that this question was even brought up. He pointed out that when LeBron was interviewed for his successes, there was no suggestion of it being a so-called “race factor”. He was just a great athlete in these instances. However, LeBron’s popularity went down significantly after the way he handled his free-agency. Albom proposes that it was his building ego, not his race, that caused this.
I, without a doubt, agree with Albom’s point of view. I observe this happening often in our society today. People pull the race card out of their back pockets to get themselves out of trouble and unfortunately, journalists and reporters endorse it by asking the question all too often. LeBron should have realized that he (heaven forbid) actually deserved all of the criticism he received. The egotistical comment he made on television was enough to make people not think very highly of him. He remarked, “’I’m gonna take my talents to South Beach.’”, implying that it was all about how great he is. When he was doing well in his career, nobody said “Oh, he’s only good because he’s black.” But of course, when he messes up, he thinks people stop praising him as an athlete because of his race when he needs to realize that his insurmountable ego is to blame.
Albom really proved his point when he compared the incident surrounding LeBron with Brett Favre’s retreat from Green Bay. When Favre left the Packers his mounting ego was revealed because “ego knows no color“, as Albom states, but did anybody ask Favre about race? Absolutely not. This should have been the case with LeBron as well. By sharing this, Albom points out that if nobody asks the question, people would not have the option of grabbing “race as a parachute to safety.” All of this goes to show the lack of responsibility that most people, not only African-Americans, succumb to.