I’ve never been a subscriber to the “shut up, and dribble” philosophy. It makes no sense to me. We all regularly discuss these matters and participate in political or social organizations and events we find worthwhile, yet we’re not professional politicians or activists. Who says that famous athletes and celebrities can’t do the same thing?
That being said, given the platform and influence these famous individuals have, they have a stronger moral obligation to be responsible, fair, and accurate in their messaging, activities, and platform, as what they do is much more impactful than what the average person does due to their reach. For example, in 2021 when Lebron James doxxed the one white officer involved in a shooting of a 16 year old girl before all the evidence was revealed, that was an absolute travesty, as it turned out to be a clearly justifiable shooting that likely saved another young African-American girl’s life. He likely influenced how millions of people - particularly African-Americans - perceived this situation due to his influence and platform.
I view JB’s situation similarly. While he’s done a lot of good in the world, he’s clearly flubbed up this Kanye/Kyrie/Black Supremacism issue, and continues to do so by not taking a strong stand against this. Given his platform, who knows how much he’s contributed to allowing this racist philosophy to grow and fester, especially given his reputation as being one of the more astute and insightful athletes in the NBA.
There’s a difference between saying “shut up, and dribble” and holding athletes accountable for their highly influential words and actions when they do participate in speech or activities beyond basketball. Feels like these two distinct things regularly get conflated inappropriately - by both fans and athletes themselves - as the latter is clearly an appropriate standard to hold athletes to where the former is not.
Feels like there’s some of this going on in JB’s messaging here, i.e. that he doesn’t appreciate the difference between the “shut up, and dribble crowd” from the legitimate criticism of his approach to the Kanye/Kyrie/Black Supremacism issue. And he’s just making it worse by continuing to skirt the issue by not fully explaining himself in a perfect opportunity like this.