https://www.thefp.com/p/kareem-abdul-jabbar-on-kanye-kyrie
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Kanye, Kyrie, and Antisemitism
Black people have to know that when they mouth antisemitism, they are using the exact same kind of reasoning that white supremacists use against blacks.’
By Bari Weiss
Sunday, Nov 20, 2022
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar retired from the NBA in 1989, but he remains one of the greatest basketball players of all time. Many argue he is simply the greatest.
He is still—even with Michael Jordan and Steph Curry and Lebron and Shaq and Kobe—the NBA’s all-time leading scorer (38,387 points) and the league’s only six-time MVP. In March, the basketball news site HoopsHype included Abdul-Jabbar in its list of the top ten most influential players of all time. ESPN called him the greatest center in NBA history.
As Jews say every Passover: It would have been enough.
But there’s so much more that makes the 7-foot-2-inch Abdul-Jabbar a true giant. His religious conviction, his integrity, his wide-ranging intellectual proclivities, his outstanding performance in the 1981 movie Airplane!—and the unusual fact that this black, Muslim basketball star has been a consistent and outspoken voice against antisemitism.
For all those reasons, I wanted to speak with Abdul-Jabbar about the various firestorms of late: Kanye and his antisemitic rants; Kyrie Irving’s promotion of an antisemitic movie that denies the Holocaust; and the alarming rash of anti-Jewish hate crimes seemingly inspired by their worldview. A few weeks ago, a banner declaring “Kanye was right” hung over the 405 in Los Angeles as people gave Nazi salutes. On Halloween, the side of a townhouse in an Atlanta neighborhood was sprayed with graffiti: “Jews kill Blacks.” On the stop sign around the corner: “Jews enslave Black lives.” Last week, headstones at a Jewish cemetery in Chicago were vandalized with swastikas and the phrase “Kanye was rite.” And in Brooklyn, physical attacks against Orthodox Jews have become routine.
I asked Abdul-Jabbar about all of that and more in the Q and A below. And if you’re looking for more from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, check out his Substack, where he writes and talks about everything from basketball to pop culture to politics. — BW
BW: We all know you as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but you were born in Harlem as Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. You took the name Kareem in 1968, when you converted from Catholicism to Sunni Islam. In your writing, you’ve credited Malcolm X, who then led the Nation of Islam, for your decision to convert, at least in part. (“In the spring of 1966, while a freshman at UCLA, I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X and when I finished the last page, I knew my life was changed forever” you’ve written.) Can you tell me a little bit about why you were drawn to Islam and Malcolm X’s influence over your conversion?
KAJ: The Autobiography of Malcolm X didn’t convince me to convert to Islam because he had. It’s much more nuanced than that. The book was thought-provoking in that it had me thinking about black and white relationships in a way that I hadn’t fully been able to articulate. It made me realize that racism in America went much deeper than I had realized. Most of it was invisible to the naked eye, like an iceberg.
At the time, people thought if you let a few blacks into schools and movies and jobs, we should be satisfied with that. As if these things were merely to get the ball rolling down the hill. If we just waited patiently, the ball would pick up speed and soon racism would disappear. But the ball wasn’t at the top of the hill. It was at the bottom. And his book made me realize we needed to push and keep pushing if we hoped to gain equality.
My decision to convert to Islam was based on several factors. Mostly, I didn’t want to keep the name of Alcindor, who was the slave owner who owned my family. I didn’t want any of my achievements to bring honor to his name. Second, although I was raised Christian, I wanted to feel connected to my past and my heritage in Africa, which Islam let me do.
BW: Malcolm X was killed in 1965, three years before you converted, and many blame the Nation of Islam for his assassination. Just two months before he was shot, Louis Farrakhan called him a traitor “worthy of death.” What has happened to the Nation of Islam since then? Is the movement today, which Farrakhan has led for more than half a century, recognizable?
KAJ: It is a sad truth that almost all organizations, including religions, can lose sight of their spiritual mission and focus more on gathering power. It’s then up to the members to bring that organization back to its roots.
BW: I want to focus on Farrakhan’s influence. He believes that Jews are parasitic, that Jews are behind a plot to exploit black Americans, and that blacks are the real Jews from the Bible. We’re hearing these ideas come out of the mouths of musicians like Kanye West (“Jewish people have owned the black voice”) and athletes like Kyrie Irving (“I cannot be antisemitic if I know where I come from”). For many Jews, hearing this kind of rhetoric is shocking, but many black Americans have noted that these views are more commonplace than we’d like to admit. So what I think a lot of people are afraid to ask is: How mainstream are these beliefs among black Americans? Are Kanye and Kyrie unique? Or has the influence of people like Farrakhan made this strain of antisemitism somehow more normal than many want to believe?
KAJ: Certain black leaders do exactly what certain white leaders do who want to gather followers, money, and power: They find a scapegoat they can blame. They can’t blame others who are marginalized because of the color of their skin, like Latinx or Asian-Americans, so they go for the default villain of fascists and racists: Jews.
What astounds me is not just the irrationality of it, but how self-destructive it is. Black people have to know that when they mouth antisemitism, they are using the exact same kind of reasoning that white supremacists use against blacks. They are enabling racism. Now they’ve aligned themselves with the very people who would choke out black people, drag them behind a truck, keep them from voting, and maintain systemic racism for another hundred years. They are literally making not only their lives worse, but their children’s lives. The fact that they can’t see that means the racists have won.
BW: Some Jewish Americans, especially the ones living alongside black Americans in cities like New York, see their relationship with their black neighbors through the lens of the Crown Heights Riots and the Knockout Game—not the civil rights movement. They see the statements uttered by Kanye and it just confirms what they already thought: That there is deep animosity. Are they wrong?
KAJ: They are not wrong that some Jews don’t like Blacks and some Blacks don’t like Jews. Both these groups should be treated as the embarrassments they are. Both groups are basically pawns of white racists who like nothing better than to see these groups fighting each other rather than fighting systemic racism and antisemitism meant to keep both of them down. The fact that it works in these cases is shocking to me.
BW: Have you encountered this type of black-supremacist antisemitism in your life? If so, where? And how have you responded?
KAJ: A few years ago, I wrote an article criticizing Ice Cube for an antisemitic post. I know Ice Cube personally, and I like him. He’s a decent man, a wonderful musician, and I love his movies. I just thought he made a mistake.
He was mad at me that I didn’t just call him up and discuss it with him, rather than call him out publicly. I see his point. But because he’d already made his statement publicly, I felt it was my responsibility to address it in the same public forum. If I didn’t, then there would be millions of his fans, mostly black, who would accept his opinion without examining it. For me, it’s as much about defending the black community as it is defending the Jewish community. After all, our fates are intertwined.
BW: For black Americans who do get caught up in Jew-hatred and conspiracy theories about Jews, where does that come from? Is it just Farrakhan’s legacy? Or is there something else going on here?
KAJ: It’s human nature for those who are abused to find someone else to abuse in order to make themselves feel better. Conspiracy theories allow people to justify their irrational biases with the superficial appearance of intellect. Unfortunately, it reveals just the opposite: lack of ability to think logically.
BW: When you hear this kind of rhetoric on the national stage—when you heard Kanye’s comments, say—what was your reaction?
KAJ: Exhaustion, frustration, sadness. Social media has given huge platforms to people just because they are famous. Being famous for one thing does not mean your opinion about something else is valuable. I faced a lot of that when I started writing seriously after retiring from the NBA. Rightfully so. I wanted people to judge me on the content of my articles, not because I scored points. I’ve won eight journalism awards in the past eight years, so I hope now they just look at my words.
Kyrie Irving may be the sweetest guy in the world at home and among his friends. But once he decides to broadcast his opinions to the world, he needs to be judged only on the content of what he says.
BW: I’m especially curious about your reaction because you’ve been so vocal for so long in combatting antisemitism. One of the reasons you listed for your boycott of the 1968 Olympics, in addition to the racial violence happening here at home, was your “intense dislike for the International Olympic Committee’s president, Avery Brundage,” who had benched two Jewish runners during the 1936 Berlin Olympics in order to appease Hitler. The decision to boycott wasn’t a choice you made as a wizened celebrity athlete. This was 1968 and it was your only opportunity to play basketball in the Olympics, since NBA players couldn’t play for the national team back then. At 21 years old, where did you find such moral clarity?
KAJ: I’m normally a very quiet, reserved person who prefers being home than out and about. But I can’t stand injustice of any kind, against anyone. That gets me on my feet doing something.
BW: Since then, you’ve been an outspoken defender of the Jewish people. As a black man and a Muslim, what’s made you feel such a strong commitment to fighting antisemitism, in particular, when there are causes that are surely closer to home for you. To put it bluntly: why antisemitism?
KAJ: Like I said, I hate injustice of any kind. Practically speaking, it has to be clear to any thinking person fighting against being marginalized that no one is free unless everyone is free. We can’t stand up and demand equality, but then point at another group and say they don’t deserve it.
BW: We’ve seen a discrepancy in terms of the public and institutional responses to Kanye and Kyrie. Kanye’s been totally canceled; Kyrie got a five-game suspension. Some say the reason Kanye was dumped was because he was a Trumper. Do you think there is something politically motivated going on here?
KAJ: We see the same thing for team owners who get treated differently in terms of punishment. When there are so many millions of dollars on the line, the arc of moral justice bends a lot slower.
BW: What do you think is the right response to a celebrity or a star athlete who makes antisemitic statements?
KAJ: There should never be a one-size-fits-all punishment, because everything depends on what is said and the reaction from the celebrity when called out. In Irving’s case, he refused to acknowledge the damage he was causing and went on to cause more. Sometimes, celebrities might say something harmful without realizing it, but when it’s pointed out are immediately apologetic. Then, nothing should happen. We all make mistakes, and we should be supportive of those who are willing to learn.
I think it would be very helpful for sports organizations to offer presentations in critical thinking to their players. Too many players either didn’t learn this in college, or didn’t attend college where they might have learned it. In the end, this might save teams a lot of money and bad publicity, because it might eliminate some of the illogical prejudice being posted.
BW: So, if you’re the owner of the Nets, are you giving Kyrie a suspension or something more? What about if you’re the CEO of Adidas—are you ending a $2 billion dollar branding deal with Kanye?
KAJ: West is another example of someone not capable of learning from his mistakes, and choosing his own ego over facts and logic. So, yes, that is not the kind of person any business should want to align themselves with.
BW: I want to end by focusing on the relationship more broadly between blacks and Jews in America. In July of 2020, you published a powerful condemnation of antisemitism titled “Where Is the Outrage Over Anti-Semitism in Sports and Hollywood?” Here’s a passage that struck me:
One of the most powerful songs in the struggle against racism is Billie Holiday’s melancholic “Strange Fruit,” which was first recorded in 1939. The song met strong resistance from radio stations afraid of its graphic lyrics about lynching:
Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees
Despite those who wanted to suppress the song, it went on to sell a million copies that year and became Holiday’s best-selling record ever. The song was written by a white, Jewish high school teacher, Abel Meeropol, who performed it with his wife around New York before it was given to Holiday.
The American Jewish community I grew up in was one that prided itself on its history of joining black Americans in their fight for civil rights. We knew the names Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, two Jewish civil rights activists murdered in Mississippi in 1964 alongside James Chaney. We studied the picture of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marching with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma. Has that relationship unraveled?
KAJ: I don’t think it has unraveled. The only difference is that those Jews and blacks who never understood how our fates are intertwined now have an instant platform to express their irrational thinking. The majority of Jews have been steadfast in their support of civil rights when other groups have wavered. They have done it on the ground by joining marches, and they have done it in the arts by writing books and movies promoting civil rights. African Americans need to recognize that commitment and do the same for them.
BW: What does healing the bond between our communities look like?
KAJ: The bond doesn’t need healing, because it’s already there. People like Kyrie Irving and Kanye West give the impression that it’s not, but only because we are all surprised by someone from one marginalized group using the same bad, racist arguments against another marginalized group. Even wrong perceptions can become self-fulfilling prophecies if we don’t address them every time they appear.
We don’t have to heal the bond, we have to strengthen it even more by joining together to condemn every act of prejudice against every marginalized group. We must do it swiftly and emphatically.
BW: If you were putting out a statement, what would you say to Jews? To Black Americans?
KAJ: In the words of Marvin Gaye in What’s Going On: “You know we’ve got to find a way/To bring some understanding here today.”
Wouldn’t it be great if a great quote were enough? Marvin may inspire me, but in practical terms I’d say that we have to be mindful of our common goal to live in a country that values us and in which our children will never be called names, humiliated, can walk without fear, can pursue love with anyone they choose, have a fair shot at any profession they choose. That doesn’t just happen. We have to work together to achieve that. And anyone who doesn’t share that goal must be shoved aside.
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