New York Knicks executive Larry Johnson has a different take on the racial fire that’s recently ignited over Clippers owner Donald Sterling, looking at the broader picture to make his main point: It’s high time blacks started their own league, he said.
In a tweet, the former star player wrote: “Black people your Focusing on the wrong thing. We should be focusing on having our own, Own team own League! To For Self!!”
It’s not the first time that Mr. Johnson drew critical attention to the fact that the NBA is headed primarily by white executives and played mostly by black athletes, the New York Post reported. In 1999, he said during the NBA Finals between the Knicks and Spurs that, “We’ve got a lot of rebellious slaves on this [Knicks] team.”
He followed that up with an explanation of his use of the word slaves: “We don’t go with the mainstream,” he said, the New York Post reported.
Mr. Johnson was hired two years ago to help out with Knicks business operations.
He sent his tweet out about the same time the NBA announced it was kicking off an investigation into Mr. Sterling, who allegedly complained to his girlfriend about posting photos of him with black people on her Instagram account.
SEE ALSO: Donald Sterling banned for life by NBA, fined $2.5 million
Mr. Sterling’s alleged statements, as reported by TMZ: “it bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people. Do you have to?” He also allegedly said: “You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it on that … and not to bring them to my games.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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