Michael Jordan: I Used To Consider Myself A Racist
- wwetvsports21
- May 7, 2014
- 2 min read
Donald Sterling has made news headlines in the last couple of weeks and was apart of one of the most shocking suspensions in sports history. All this due to his racist remarks in a taped conversion with his mistress. Michael Jordan who some critics considered to be quite voiceless when it comes to issues and hot button topics that deal with race over the years even spoke out against Sterling.
Now in a new book from Jordan will be releasing entitled "Jordan: The Life", the iconic sports figure proclaims he was once racist himself towards all white people. Written by Roland Lazenby, has Jordan recall an altercation he had with a White classmate while attending Emsley A. Laney High School back in 1977.
According to Jordan, the girl called Jordan the N-word and Jordan’s retaliation got the future Hall of Famer suspended: So I threw a soda at her. I was really rebelling. I considered myself a racist at the time. Basically, I was against all white people. Lazenby spoke on the presence of the Klu Klux Klan in North Carolina during the years Jordan attended Emsley A. Laney High School.
Lazenby informed Sports Illustrated that Jordan’s hatred for White people could be a byproduct of the monopolizing influence of the KKK over his hometown and a history of racism: As I started looking at newspapers back in this era when I was putting together [Michael's great-grandfather] Dawson Jordan’s life, the Klan was like a chamber of commerce. It bought the uniforms for ball teams, it put Bibles in all the schools.
It may well have ended up being a chamber of commerce if not for all the violence it was perpetrating, too. A lot of the context just wasn’t possible to put it in a basketball book. A lot of it ended up being cut. Michael Jordan: The Life is available now.
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