Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: LeBron James' COVID-19 Meme Was a 'Blow to His Worthy Legacy'
On Christmas Eve, LeBron James posted a meme on Instagram that compared COVID-19 to the flu and the common cold.
On Monday, NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar took issue with James' post in an article on his Substack. He wrote, in part:
"LeBron James is not only one of the greatest basketball players ever, he’s committed to being a leader in the African American community in the fight against inequality. But his Thursday Instagram meme showing three cartoon Spider-Men pointing at each other—one labeled 'covid,' one labeled 'flu,' one labeled 'cold'—with his message: 'Help me out folks' was a blow to his worthy legacy."
Abdul-Jabbar wasn't done there:
"To directly address LeBron’s confusion, no one thinks colds and the flu aren’t serious. In the 2019-2020 flu season, 400,000 people were hospitalized and 22,000 people died. In 2020, 385,428 people died of COVID-19, while so far in 2021, 423,558 have died in the U.S., for a total of 808,986 deaths. Experts agree that COVID-19 is at least 10 times more lethal than the flu. As for the common cold, death is extremely rare."
Abdul-Jabbar made several other points in his article.
He noted that "about 97.9 out of every 100,000 African Americans had died from COVID-19, a third higher than that for Latinos (64.7 per 100,000), and more than double than that for whites (46.6 per 100,000) and Asians (40.4 per 100,000)" and that vaccine hesitancy within the Black community can be attributed, at least in part, to memes like the one James shared.
He added that one way to overcome that hesitancy was for prominent Black figures like James to promote vaccination.
And Abdul-Jabbar wrote to the people who are "confident" that the symptoms of the omicron variant may not be as harsh as previous variants, the primary concern is still passing the coronavirus onto people who are more susceptible to serious illness, such as the elderly or the people with compromised immune systems.
So while professional athletes like James, in peak physical shape, might end up with mild symptoms or be entirely asymptomatic if they come down with the omicron variant, the fear is still that they could pass it on if they aren't vigilant in self-isolation, masking, etc.
And getting vaccinated will help save lives. As Abdul-Jabbar wrote, "The crucial statistic here is this: 98-99 percent of Americans dying of COVID-19 are unvaccinated."
The central point Abdul-Jabbar seems to be making to James is that a person of his stature has a responsibility to present facts when it comes to situations as serious as a pandemic, not memes.
Or as he wrote: "While LeBron is a necessary and dynamic voice critical of police brutality against the Black community, he needs to be the same necessary and dynamic advocate with vaccines, which could save thousands of Black lives right now. The racism is just as real—and just as lethal—in both cases."
