From a white man commenting at bizpacreviewdotcom:
Re: Shaquille O'Neal's response to Colin Kaepernick's protest
George Eifer Oklahoma City University
“Shaq contiues to be the class of black athletes. All others need to take a course from Shaq on how to present yourself as a professional. Kaepernick is uneducated on oppression of blacks. I recall advice from my youth, "It is better to be thought a fool rather than open your mouth and remove all doubt". I guess Kaepernick and others of his ilk never heard or if they did they did not listen. The real oppression of blacks is at the hands of other blacks. Witness the black on black crime in Obama's home city Chicago. Not one of the blacks in the public eye have the guts to address this.”
During Shaquille O'Neals illustrious, hall-of-fame career as an NBA center, the most dominant player at his position during his era, the great center, more often than not, could not be counted on during close games. A notoriously bad free-throw shooter at just around 50 percent, Shaq ended many a game on the bench during fourth quarters. With fouls to give, opposing coaches knew how to have their players foul the self-proclaimed “Big Aristotle” to send him to the free throw line, where he rarely made both. This enabled teams that were close or down to catch up. And while he did win 4 league championships during his career, he had a lot of help in ex-Bulls coach Phil Jackson and a Jordan-esque player in Kobe Bryant. He was never the sole reason for his teams' success, and often times his teams had to pull off the victory with him on the bench.
Now retired and a successful commentator on for NBA TV, we witness again how Shaq can not be counted on when the game is on the line for black people.
Across the nation African Americans are increasingly shedding the false narratives about ourselves and the nation that enslaved our African ancestors , brought us to a land they stole from Native people, and then had those ancestors build their nation. We have sung along to national anthems that celebrate our deaths for seeking freedom. Not only just sung them, but sung them more beautifully that it is ever sung. “We too sing America.” We, are sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers and friends are not safe from having our Blackness criminalized, our very beings stigmatized, to the point where we can be gunned down in cold blood, and America doesn't bat an eye. Our many educated and hardworking people lose out on jobs to folks with neither the education nor experience we've attained because of the color of our skin and the myriad ways mainstream society is allowed to discriminated. Many contemporary blacks who had long hoped denying the racism and disparities which fuel America would help them attain the American Dream, are now realizing what those of us long labeled radicals and conspiracy theorists have known (thanks cell phone cameras!) We are examining our national anthem and discovering that it celebrates the murders of freedom seeking Africans who sough to escape from slavery. So when San Francisco 49er's quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided two weeks ago that he had to do something, anything, to call attention to many of the issues affecting Blacks people, he decided to boycott the national anthem by not standing.
Naturally, the media went to who they knew they could count on. The modern equivalent of the House Negros, so accepted and rewarded by the majority that players like Barkley, Shaq,and even my favorite player ever, Michael Jordan, whose “Republicans by shoes too,” was his infamous response to why he chose to remain silent on social issues during his playing days.
Shaq is one of those athletes for whom attaining a mass, commercial appeal was just as important as championship quests. Hence, athletes, ex and current ,such as Shaq and Charles Barkley, another Hall of Famer and NBA TV commentator are mostly silent when it does come to social issues regarding Black folks. In his defense he didn't condemn Kaepernicks protest, he just made it a point to demonstrate that it is stand he would never take. When Athletes do speak it almost always involves blaming the victims, Whoever their corporate overlord is,be it a network, the leagues, shoe companies, soft drink makers, etc, they require black athletes to possess a detachment from black communities and issues that crosses into Jim-Crow era coon-ery to make their white paymasters feel safe and secure. I listened horrified as former sports role models show their true colors, and they are neither black nor brown. Imagine if someone with Shaq's stature, with his battalions of white fans, could have done with a show of support for Kaepernick's protest. We will have to do just that. Imagine.
And so, just like the non-free-throw shooting big man of his youth, Shaq again disappoints.