Ex-NBA player John Amaechi Said: Bryant outburst caused "serious damage"
Former NBA Basketball Player John Amaechi says that Kobe Bryant caused “serious damage with his outburst” when he directed a homophobic slur at a referee during a match, last week.
Jeni Quirke
Former NBA Basketball Player John Amaechi says that Kobe Bryant caused “serious damage with his outburst” when he directed a homophobic slur at a referee during a match, last week.The Los Angeles player was fined $100,000 by the National Basketball Association after he mouthed the words “f*cking faggot” towards a match official after a foul was recorded against him.
Bryant, who is the third-highest paid sportsman in the US has since apologised in a statement to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, saying: “What I said last night should not be taken literally. My actions were out of frustration in the heat of the game period.”
In his New York Times blog, Amaechi says that Bryant’s actions “matter more than ever” and that he should “stop fighting the fine”.
The retired openly-gay basketball star who currently works as a psychologist, educator and political activist says: “When someone with the status of Kobe Bryant, arguably the best basketball player in a generation, hurls that antigay slur at a referee or anyone else — let’s call it the F-word — he is telling boys, men and anyone watching that when you are frustrated, when you are as angry as can be, the best way to demean and denigrate a person, even one in a position of power, is to make it clear that you think he is not a real man, but something less.”
“Right now in America young people are being killed and killing themselves simply because of the words and behaviours they are subjected to for being perceived as lesbian or gay, or frankly just different. This is not an indictment of the individuals suffocated by their mistreatment, it is an indication of the power of that word, and others like it, to brutalize and dehumanize.”
Amaechi has also criticised Bryant’s apology, saying: “I am amazed that people still think apologizing in such a way as to make it clear that it was the victims who misunderstood is acceptable. I had hoped that the sorry-if-you-are-oversensitive school of apology would by now have been thoroughly discredited.
“I don’t think Kobe Bryant is some vicious homophobe, but I do think he made a mistake and has sounded more like a squirming politician than a national hero since the incident came to light. When you know that people hang on your every word, you should take more responsibility when the wrong words spill out in anger. When you understand that people treat you like a god, you should endeavour to be more benevolent when you exceed expectations and more contrite when you let people down.”
In his blog, Amaechi also tells Bryant to stop fighting the fine. He says: “You spoke ill-advised words that shot out like bullets, and if the e-mails I received from straight and gay young people and sports fans in Los Angeles alone are anything to go by, you did serious damage with your outburst.
“Use that money and your influence to set a new tone that tells sports fans, boys, men and the society that looks up to you that the word you said in anger is not O.K., not ever. Too many athletes take the trappings of their hard-earned success and leave no tangible legacy apart from “that shot” or “that special game.”
To read the full New York Times blog, see http://offthedribble.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/a-gay-former-player-responds-to-kobe-bryant/?scp=1&sq=amaechi&st=cse
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