LeBron James has responded to criticism from Zlatan Ibrahimovic and vowed never to stay silent about social causes.
In an interview on Thursday, Ibrahimovic said sportspeople such as the Los Angeles Lakers star – who has been one of the NBA’s leading voices against racial injustice and police brutality – should avoid involving themselves in political matters and focus only on sports. “I don’t like when people with a status speak about politics,” he said. “Do what you’re good at doing.”
After the Lakers’ win against the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday, James told reporters: “I will never shut up about things that are wrong. I preach about my people and I preach about equality, social justice, racism, voter suppression – things that go on in our community.
“Because I was a part of my community at one point and saw the things that were going on, and I know what’s still going on because I have a group of 300-plus kids at my school that are going through the same thing and they need a voice.
“I’m their voice and I use my platform to continue to shed light on everything that might be going on, not only in my community but in this country and around the world.”
James also pointed to comments made by the Milan striker in 2018 when Ibrahimovic, the Swedish-born son of a Bosnian father and a Croatian mother, claimed “undercover racism” had caused the media to treat him differently from players that had names like Andersson or Svensson.
“He’s the guy who said in Sweden, he was talking about the same things, because his last name wasn’t a [traditional Swedish] last name, he felt like there was some racism going on,” James said. “I speak from a very educated mind. I’m kind of the wrong guy to go at, because I do my homework.”
Indeed, Ibrahimovic told Canal Plus that “undercover racism” caused the Swedish media and public to treat him with less respect and reverence: “This exists, I am 100% sure, because I am not Andersson or Svensson. If I would be that, trust me, they would defend me even if I would rob a bank.”
James’ longtime activism on racial justice issues and his criticism of Trump prompted white Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham in 2018 to tell him and fellow black NBA player Kevin Durant to “shut up and dribble”.
James, who arrived in Los Angeles in 2018 while Ibrahimovic was in the middle of a two-year spell with LA Galaxy, also gave a nod to former WNBA star Renee Montgomery, who earlier Friday became the first ex-player to become both an owner and executive of a WNBA team when the sale of the Atlanta Dream that ended the controversial ownership of defeated US senator Kelly Loeffler was announced.
“There’s no way I would ever just stick to sports, because I understand this platform and how powerful my voice is,” James said. “He can just ask Renee Montgomery if I would have shut up and just dribbled, just seeing that beautiful black woman today (become) part of the ownership group with the Atlanta Dream.”
Dennis Schröder, the Lakers’ German point guard, gave his support to James and confirmed the obvious truth that Ibrahimovic’s attitude is decidedly not shared by many European athletes.
“Every athlete can use our platform and try to make change in this world,” Schröder said. “Zlatan, he’s a little different. Unique player, unique character.”
James’s entry into the social justice arena has been careful and measured over the past decade: a 2012 tweet that declared #WeAreTrayvonMartin; the I CAN’T BREATHE shirt worn before a 2014 game; the 2016 establishment of the I Promise School, a district-run public school in his Ohio hometown that was the brainchild of James’s foundation and the city’s public school district.
But the four-time NBA Most Valuable Player winner has taken his activism to new heights since Trump began picking fights with prominent black US athletes to score political points.
With the sports world at a standstill due to the coronavirus pandemic and amid nationwide unrest over the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, James teamed up with a group of prominent athletes and entertainers to launch More Than a Vote, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization aimed at informing, protecting and turning out African American voters.
“We never told anyone who to vote for or who not to vote for,” he said. “We never said anything about one candidate or another candidate. We just wanted people to exercise their opportunity to vote and create change.”
