At 7 feet, 4 inches tall, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar can certainly tell a tall tale. Writing on the Hollywood Reporter site, he makes the incredible claim that the national anthem is the equivalent of the feel-good songs slaves were forced to sing to drown out their oppression.
Abdul-Jabbar, the leading scorer in NBA history and the man who boycotted the 1968 Summer Olympics, writes:
"'Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work,'" observed ex-slave-turned-abolitionist Frederick Douglass. To the slave owners, singing slaves would drown out their own cruelty and oppression, clothe them in a coerced choir of decency. But it wasn't enough that the slaves had to sing, they had to sing their oppressor's feel-good songs that are summed up in the Porgy and Bess refrain of 'I've got plenty of nothin',' and nothin's plenty for me."
Today the song being demanded is the national anthem during football games, Abdul-Jabbar writes. Prior to the start of a recent NFL exhibition game, African-American members of the Philadelphia Eagles refused to be "coerced" into honoring the feel-good song and instead protested during the Star Spangled Banner. "For them, lyrics like 'land of the free' don't accurately represent the daily reality for people of color. They love their country but want that country to recognize the suffering that occurs when it isn't living up to its constitutional promises."
President Donald Trump reacted to the exhibition game protests by tweeting, "Numerous players, from different teams, wanted to show their 'outrage' at something that most of them are unable to define." That prompted Abdul-Jabbar to shoot back: "Who would know better how to define their outrage: the privileged darling of white supremacists, the 94 percent-white team owners, the 75 percent-white head coaches or the 70 percent-black players who actually take the field each week?" Abdul-Jabbar further flashes the race card:
"The daily challenge for African-Americans is getting white Americans to listen to their song, especially when it isn't a grinning, grateful or pandering patriotic song. Two movies have recently been released that sing songs that define black America's continuing frustrations and outrage: Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman and Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You. Both movies are about black people finding their voices and then having the courage to use those voices to tell their truths. But will America listen to what they're singing, especially in today's post-truth and 'alternative facts' environment?"
Selected by Hillary Clinton to serve as U.S. Ambassador of Culture in 2012, Abdul-Jabbar says Sorry to Bother You is "a wickedly funny and absurdist satire about class struggle and the systemic racism that attempts to usurp the authentic voices of people of color." This movie, says the man who never had to apply for a job, is an accurate reflection of studies that show job applicants with black-sounding names are less likely to be called in for interviews and that students with black-sounding names are more likely to be seen as troublemakers.
The millionaire former athlete who's owned mansions in California and Hawaii writes that satire is "the genre of choice for oppressed people trying to change the status quo." Satire has sharp teeth honed on rage that feed on complacency and includes "a good-hearted but naive person who gets the naivete kicked out of them by coming face to face with the dirty truth about the world." It shatters "our hardened perceptions and bubble-wrapped indifference to others' suffering."
We also learn from Abdul-Jabbar's inflammatory post that he's counting the president's lies. He says Sorry to Bother You "reflects that traditional dark ending, telling us that just exposing the injustices to people isn't enough and may even profit the villains, as we've seen with the tally of Trump's over 4,000 lies and misrepresentations only making his base's support more fervent."
Perhaps Abdul-Jabbar is aware of his own absurdity because he uses the word absurd four times in his post.
