UNITED STATES OF AMERICA — It’s a sad day in America when the President finds time on a Friday night to insult an Emmy Award winning television journalist and one of the greatest basketball players of all-time. In case you’ve been living underground for the past 36 hours or so you’ve seen the latest piece of childish foolishness that the most powerful man in the world tweeted out. Here you go just for kicks and giggles:
Lebron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made Lebron look smart, which isn’t easy to do. I like Mike!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 4, 2018
Unfortunately for him, this tweet will go down as the beginning of the end of his presidency. Yes, I know the Mueller investigation’s ongoing etc. However, there’s still support for him even when it’s obvious there was foolishness taking place. All of the skeletons will soon come out of the closet. However, most people watching this situation don’t understand the power of affiliations and how stepping to cats wrong can ultimately hurt you. Why? Because it depends on how deep their affiliations run.
Growing up in Gary, Indiana better known as The G, taught me the power of affiliations, turfs and territories. Understanding those basic concepts is the difference between success and failure both physically and metaphorically.
Donald Trump first of all, insulted a respected figure in the family of journalism. Calling a journalist dumb is the worse thing you can do to a reporter, author or news anchor because you’ve attacked his creditability. When you attack everything that he uses to make a living you’ve stepped out of bounds and guess what playa? Everybody that makes a living doing what he does suddenly jumps in the car with him.
All disagreements with him both socially and politically go out of the window. Why? Because you just attacked family. So instead of having Don Lemon against you, you’ve got all media against you. How does the rest of the world get any information about whatever you’re doing or trying to do? Our opinions of you are formed by the folks in the media but you just called a respected player in the game dumb. Folks aren’t going to sit back and let that ride.
Secondly, he attacked LeBron James and then tried to give Mike some love in the process but it backfired and blew up in his face. Like him or not, LeBron James is one of the most influential people in the world and when he talks he’s like E.F. Hutton, people listen. Not only is he the greatest basketball player on the planet today but he represents everything good about overcoming poverty and making good on the promise of coming back to the ghetto to lift it up.
He was raised by a single parent in the ghetto where literally a village helped to get him through. By the time he was 16 years old he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the caption “The Chosen One!” He’s lived up to every piece of hype ever thrown his way. He signed a contract for more than $95 million with Nike before he’d even graduated from high school and has gone on to be one of the greatest role models and players of all-time. He’s never been in trouble with the law or made the news for anything other than playing basketball and giving back to the hood.
He married his high school sweetheart and had three children by the same woman. He took his high school buddies out of the ghetto with him and they’ve learned the business of marketing, promotions and player representation etc. He’s shown them how to make millions for themselves.
He’s darn near a billionaire and he’s still playing. LeBron represents the American dream and the President attacked his intelligence. Now everybody affiliated with LeBron in some form or fashion just dove into the car with him. Even those that have hated on him for years are in the front seat riding shotgun. Why? Because even though they don’t like him for whatever reason he’s still family.
You know the drill. A boy can talk crazy about his brother all day long but you better not say a word about him. Then it’s going to be a fight. Everybody that is hood, hoop, single parent raised and educational affiliated is now defending LBJ.
That one tweet has people that wouldn’t normally respond or voice their opinions about the President’s foolishness on Twitter speaking out. People like Bill Russell, Steph Curry, Donovan Mitchell, Karl Anthony-Towns, Swin Cash and a host of others are coming along side of LeBron. It’s called affiliations bruh.
When Michael Jeffrey Jordan, the most influential person on earth comes out and makes a statement you know you’ve messed up. Don’t tell me that he’s not the most influential person walking because folks that have never even seen him play will argue you to the death that he’s the GOAT. Who cares who’s the GOAT but my point is that they ride hard and have never seen him play.
Jordan has NEVER had a public opinion about ANYTHING in the 34 years since he was drafted into the NBA in 1984. Not a definitive opinion anyway. Yeah we saw the dun cut the baby in half back in 2016 after the roof blew off as people were outraged by both the police shootings of unarmed blacks and the killings of police officers. He gave $2 million dollars but split it down the middle giving the Institute for Community-Police Relations and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund a million each so that he wouldn’t have a pick a side in the discussion.
However, for the first time in history ole boy had a REAL opinion and he defended LeBron. He said in a statement that said, “I support LJ. He’s doing an amazing job for his community.” That statement was powerful in and of itself because it unites all of the folks, in this situation at least, on the same side. All of the Jordan riders have gotten into the car with Lebron because Trump attacked the cat that their guy supports at least in this situation. So if my guy supports him then I do too. That’s the thinking when it comes to affiliations.
See how it works? It’s all about who’s affiliated with who. You learn that on a hood level but the world works the same way. Therefore, Donald J. Trump made no new friends and even lost some with that dump tweet. With all kinds of folks taking offense to his attack on people they respect or that remind them of themselves, Trump dug a hole that he may not ever get out of.
The problem is, it’ll only get worse because he can’t help himself. The more people attack him for his ignorant comments the more he’ll keep digging. It won’t be long before both the media, general public and Congress completely turn their backs on him. Stop me when I start lyin’!
Playas Thesaurus:
1) Dun: noun – the person in question, dude, guy, etc. It’s whoever I’m talkin’ about and its non-gender specific.
2) Ole boy: noun – the person that I’m currently talkin’ about.