LeBron James says he ‘never condoned violence’ against cops after being slammed by pundit Candace Owens
NBA star LeBron James fired back at a conservative critic who blamed him for a recent police shooting by saying that he has never condoned violence.
James defended himself on Tuesday, after conservative pundit Candace Owens accused him of heightening racial tensions in a manner that led to two Los Angeles Sheriff’s deputies getting shot.
The Los Angeles Lakers player continued that he grew up in a black community in an inner city that was “ghetto” and believes that “what’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong.”
“I've seen a lot of counts, firsthand (sic), of a lot of black people being I guess racially profiled because of our color, and I've seen it throughout my whole life,” James said.
James continued that he was “not saying that all cops are bad” but that videos keep emerging all over the US of “acts of violence toward my kind.”
“I can't do nothing but to speak about it and see the common denominator,” he said.
“What's going on in our community is not okay, and we fear for that and we fear for our lives. It's something that we go on every single day as a black man and a black woman and a black kid and a black girl, we fear; we fear that moment where we are pulled over.”
Owens recently took issue with James’ tweet on May 6 stating that black people are “literally hunted” when they leave home, after two white vigilantes shot and killed black man Ahmaud Arbery.
On September 13, the day after two Los Angeles deputies were shot, Owens called out James on Twitter.
“‘Why does this happen? Because pea-brained celebrities that are idolized like @KingJames tell young black men that they are ‘literally being hunted,’” Owens tweeted.
“This is the natural result of such hyperbolic, dishonest rhetoric. The racist, anti-police, black lives matter LIE is to blame.”
In his remarks on Tuesday, James said, “I have zero comment on the sheriff.”
James also accused in Wisconsin of racial profiling black man Keonte Furdge, whom they handcuffed at gunpoint when he was moving into a home.
"The next-door neighbor called the police on him, and the police came in the house without a warrant, without anything, and arrested the guy,” James said.
“A black man because he was sitting out on the porch.”