Civil rights activist and cultural critic Dick Gregory said in an exclusive radio interview last Sunday, July 18, with a Harlem, N.Y., community radio show that he was contacted by several white media outlets to comment on the statements made by the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers about LeBron James’ decision to join the Miami Heat.
“I told them that I didn’t have any problems with what the owner said,” Gregory began, “I was just glad he didn’t shoot him. Seriously, here’s a man who went to bed that night before James made his decision and his team was worth $900 million, and in the morning it was worth $300 million after James made his decision.”
Gregory compared the owner’s anger to that of a slave master: “The brother went from picking cotton to owning the patent on the cotton gin.”
A listener asked if Gregory were LeBron, would he have taken New York’s billion-dollar package, and his response was:
“It’s bigger than that … we knew in January [that] James was going. How did we know? That’s when Riley said he was thinking about coming back to coaching and then last week they suspended ticket sales … and then they came back two days ago, prices jacked up, then the whole season sold out in two hours.”
“You can just follow that! But, see you all get so carried away you miss things. What went under the table? You know white folks ain’t crazy; they give you property in Peru and all kinds of stuff. So, we don’t know what [went on behind the scenes]. I do know there are a lot of people happy now because they need an image to replace Tiger [Woods]. So, now they got a good, nice image. Don’t keep your eye on James, keep your eye on Shaq and the possibility he might wind up in Miami … that would be a wonderful thing for Shaq to be in that glow,” said Gregory, ending the interview. –leroy baylor
Leroy Baylor can be heard every Sunday 1–3 p.m. EST on “The Communicators” on 90.3 WHCR FM in NYC.
