A $20.9 million Los Angeles home owned by LeBron James was vandalized Wednesday morning at 6:44 a.m. -- just one day before the first game of the NBA finals. The LAPD is investigating the incident as a hate crime and an official police report is expected later Wednesday.
Yes, this is an example of how racism is alive and well. BUT. I have a feeling that this incident will have a minimal impact on LeBron's performance tomorrow. That's part of the reason why he's so incredibly successful. But what would have happened if a similar, but much, much less severe incident happened on a college campus, and LeBron responded the way so many far left regressives do?
The series would be over.
LeBron would be unable to get out of bed, unable to stop crying. Even if he managed to make it to the arena, there's a decent chance he'd have an anxiety attack or meltdown, or that he would be unable to focus on his game due to the trauma of someone writing a word on his garage. Think I'm being dramatic? Then look at some recent examples of college students responding to real and perceived slights. For example, remember that time Emory students were "traumatized" because someone wrote "Trump 2016" in sidewalk chalk?
According to news reports, students began "fearing for their lives."
Early Monday, students say, they were “attacked” by Trump’s name in large, pastel letters on campus walkways and buildings. “Vote for Trump,” “Trump for Pres,” “Accept the Inevitable: Trump 2016” and more chalk sloganeering for the Republican presidential frontrunner was written all over the most trafficked areas on campus.
Because sidewalk chalk.
Or! Remember that time a satirical op-ed caused students at Brown to have panic attacks and fail out of their classes?
Rather than disagree in an intelligent, thoughtful way... students sacrificed their futures to make sure the school newspaper censors itself.
Or! What about the time the Brown/RISD Hillel sponsored an event called Jewish Journeys, featuring actor Michael Douglas and human rights activist Natan Sharansky -- who, by the way, spent nine years in Soviet prisons and forced labor camps on fabricated charges (he also managed to survive five years of solitary confinement by playing chess against himself in his mind)... and the assistant dean had to provide "support for students who had missed class to be involved in activism or who were upset by the evening’s events." Then, of course, there's the time trump won the election, and colleges canceled classes and finals. I get that it was a rough day -- when I found out trump won, I thought I might never sing again. But guess what? I had a rehearsal that day, and I went to rehearsal, because I'm an adult, and that's how adults behave. But this isn't about me. It's about frantic college students who were "unable" to go to class because the election didn't go their way. According to reports: A University of Michigan psychology professor delayed an exam until next week and wished students good fortune during this "tumultuous time." Some Columbia University professors postponed midterms as well. A University of Connecticut professor excused students from attending class. And at Yale University, one professor decided to make an upcoming exam optional.
Then there's the situation at Evergreen State College, which I'd never actually heard of until last week, when (white) Professor Bret Weinstein was told by police that it was no longer safe for him to come to campus, which has been overtaken by angry, violent thugs.
According to the Wall Street Journal's The Campus Mob Came for Me -- And You, Professor, Could Be Next: I was not expecting to hold my biology class in a public park last week. But then the chief of our college police department told me she could not protect me on campus. Protestors were searching cars for an unspecified individual—likely me—and her officers had been told to stand down, against her judgment, by the college president.
Why? Because he went to work, even though black students didn't want any white people on campus that day. In an email explaining his decision, he wrote:
There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and under-appreciated roles (the theme of the Douglas Turner Ward play Day of Absence, as well as the recent Women’s Day walkout), and a group or coalition encouraging another group to go away. The first is a forceful call to consciousness which is, of course, crippling to the logic of oppression. The second is a show of force, and an act of oppression in and of itself.
The result? This video -- which was "created for Day of Absence and Day of Presence [and] stolen by white supremacists to expose and ridicule the students and staff." (Evergreen students have demanded that the college administration remove this video from the whole internet.)
And, taking a page out of Brown's book, they're also demanding that they not have to hand in their homework on time:
This is so sad.
The kids in these videos and examples? If they can't figure out how to handle their emotions -- their tempers, their wild imaginations -- they will never be happy. After all, research shows that feelings of victimhood and low agency are one of the best ways to become depressed. Moreover, if they can't learn how to focus on the task at hand -- their homework, their extracurriculars, etc. -- they will never excel at anything. If LeBron handled a racist (like, actually racist -- not, like, imaginarily racist) incident the way these kids do, the 2017 Championships would be over pretty quickly. He'd be unable to focus, unable to show up for the games on time (or at all), and unable to stop obsessing over something that made him feel bad. And instead of relying on himself to overcome obstacles, he'd appeal to authority figures to do it for him. As anyone who's read the literary masterpiece King James: Believe the Hype -- The LeBron James Story knows, this is the opposite of LeBron. LeBron would absolutely not be where he is today if he were anything but resilient and autonomous. I mean, anyone who can recover from this:
... Can recover from anything.
And anyone who needs a day off of school because a human rights activist you don't like visited campus... will probably need therapy before they will ever amount to anything.
4 Comments
Liz
6/1/2017 06:37:15 pm
Great post as always - have been following the Evergreen State situation with growing disgust. Did you see that the students effectively held Weinstein and staff hostage, but Weinstein's speeches have been nothing but conciliatory (plus, he didn't forget the oh-so-essential "my pronouns are..." in the very second line). It's just beyond absurd that "I respectfully decline to acquiesce to your demands..." is being construed as SO racist that heads must roll, but it's still not as absurd as the administration's response. It would be interesting to compare different reactions from different schools that have faced these problems - which institutions are actually treating students like adults?
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Rush
6/16/2017 02:08:08 pm
Lebron james is a world class basketball player who is loved by every one when it is about basketball. I have been watching basketball match since childhood and till now Lebron is my favorite player. He is alone equal to the whole team and plays at his best when it is solo game.
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6/21/2017 07:33:51 pm
Lebron james is a world class basketball player who is loved by every one when it is about basketball. I have been watching basketball match since childhood and till now Lebron is my favorite player. He is alone equal to the whole team and plays at his best when it is solo game.
Reply
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