Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James apologized on Dec. 23 for a post on his Instagram page quoting song lyrics about “Jewish money” over the weekend.
The post shows Lebron James sitting in a vehicle and wearing a purple Lakers hoodie, with superimposed lyrics, “We been getting that Jewish money, Everything is Kosher.”
The line comes from a song by rapper 21 Savage.
“Apologies, for sure, if I offended anyone. That’s not why I chose to share that lyric. I always [post lyrics]. That’s what I do. I ride in my car, I listen to great music and that was the byproduct of it,” James told ESPN.
“So, I actually thought it was a compliment and obviously it wasn’t through the lens of a lot of people. My apologies. It definitely was not the intent, obviously, to hurt anybody.”
Surprised LeBron, who makes very few mistakes, put this out. Does quoting lyrics from a song absolve the person quoting from the responsibility behind the words? I’d argue no, especially with a following of 45 million. pic.twitter.com/efv9gkXres
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) December 23, 2018
The National Basketball Association (NBA) later accepted LeBron James’ apology for the post and will not impose a penalty on the player, a source told ESPN.
LeBron James has deleted the post from his Instagram account named @KingJames, which has about 46 million followers.
The post came not long after LeBron James blasted NFL team owners as “old white men” with a “slave mentality” in the last episode of HBO’s “The Shop.”
The show features several stars from the sports and entertainment fields, with a series of discussions and debates in various barbershops around the country, according to IMDB.
When talking about the national anthem protests in the last episode, James said, “In the NFL they got a bunch of old white men owning teams, and they got that slave mentality,” reported Fox.
James also praised the NBA for being more tolerant than the NFL over controversial topics.
“I’m so appreciative in our league of our commissioner,” James said. “He doesn’t mind us having a real feeling and be able to express that. It doesn’t even matter if Adam [Silver] agrees with what we are saying, he at least wants to hear us out. And as long as we are doing it in a very educational, non-violent way, then he’s absolutely OK with it because at the end of the day the players are the one that makes the ship go.”
“The players are who make the ship go,” he continued. “We make it go. Every Sunday, without Todd Gurley and without Odell Beckham Jr., without those players, those guys, there is no football. And it’s the same in the NBA.”
“The difference between the NBA and the NFL: the NBA is what we believe [a player] can be, the potential. In the NFL, it’s what can you do for me this Sunday or this Monday or this Thursday. And if you ain’t it, we moving on,” James added.
However, the show has not been universally appreciated by audience members.
“This show is nothing but a bunch of multi-millionaire (and billionaire) level celebrities sitting around, drinking goblets of red wine and complaining. That’s it,” user josh1anderson commented on IMDB about “The Shop.”
“No doubt about it, athletic privilege has become a very real and dangerous thing. Kids follow their example more so than their own parents. Stuff like this is just throwing gas on the fire of our social media ‘influencer’ driven society that we’ve created.”
