LeBron James speaks out on the Drew Brees comment and Fox News

LeBron James and Drew Brees do not see eye to eye.

Drew Brees caused a media firestorm while massive protests continued all over America in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. Brees talked about kneeling during the National Anthem. LeBron James spoke out along with many others denouncing the remarks. Lake Show Life continues its series to shine the light of the Los Angeles Lakers players using their platform for change.

Don’t look now, Drew Brees has given some insight on how the world may change as we know it. Certain behaviors and practices (Past and present!) are being closely monitored and exposed on all platforms for people to see. What was accepted as “understood” with a shrug is now being protested all over the world. It’s amazing how these incidents have brought systematic racism to the forefront.

• Last week, a video surfaces of George Floyd, an African-American man, being detained with a kneeling tactic used by a Minneapolis police officer for close to nine minutes while under arrest.
• At the time, none of the four officers were arrested.
• After protests began in Minneapolis in response to the incident. Derek Chauvin was arrested on charges of third-degree murder and manslaughter. The other three officers were still not charged.
• The protests spread from coast to coast and got worse over the weekend.
• Recently, Chauvin’s charges were upgraded to second-degree murder and the other three officers were charged with aiding and abetting.

While the disruptive protests continue across the nation in response to the death of George Floyd, numerous players around the NBA (Past and present)have shown support led by LeBron James. He has used his platform almost to perfection spreading awareness via social media that some of the protests have been non-violent while calling out numerous media outlets for not doing enough to cover the peace instead of focusing on the chaos and spreading narratives.

But while the world should have been focused on the mourning of George Floyd on June 4th, 2020, the sports world was faced with yet another distraction from Drew Brees.

Much of the attention was pointed towards Brees’ ill-timed comments that lacked sensitivity of the “Black Lives Matter” movement moving the conversation to an old 2016 narrative.

That narrative? Kneeling during the national anthem and his opinion of disrespecting the flag. His words courtesy of Yahoo Finance. 

"“I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country. Let me just tell what I see or what I feel when the national anthem is played and when I look at the flag of the United States. I envision my two grandfathers, who fought for this country during World War II, one in the Army and one in the Marine Corp. Both risking their lives to protect our country and to try to make our country and this world a better place. So every time I stand with my hand over my heart looking at that flag and singing the national anthem, that’s what I think about. And in many cases, that brings me to tears, thinking about all that has been sacrificed. Not just those in the military, but for that matter, those throughout the civil rights movements of the ‘60s, and all that has been endured by so many people up until this point. And is everything right with our country right now? No, it is not. We still have a long way to go. But I think what you do by standing there and showing respect to the flag with your hand over your heart, is it shows unity. It shows that we are all in this together, we can all do better and that we are all part of the solution.”"

Well, it didn’t take long for the backlash to come from LeBron James and numerous athletes admonishing Drew Brees’ statements and it’s context.

LeBron James wasn’t the only one to speak out, many took to social media to express their outrage embedded in the list below (Warning: Some of the embedded videos have strong language!).

• NFL Hall of Famer, Ed Reed spoke out on the subject.
• As did Brees teammate, New Orleans Saints safety, Malcolm Jenkins. 
• Stephen Jackson, who is the strongest supporter of the Floyd family weighed in.
• Turner Sports’ Ernie Johnson was the most eloquent of all.

It’s amazing how this one statement gave the sports a mental rewind to 2016 when Colin Kaepernick first took a knee to protest police brutality and social injustice. Now after Kaepernick lost his career in his fight, now his message has even more power.

Kaepernick now is considered ahead of everyone pointing out a major problem in the country. While bodies continue to pile up, the NFL and others used different versions of Drew Brees’ statement to stymie the message.

In short, Kaepernick’s message was justified.

For the record, Drew Brees did apologize about 24 hours after the interview aired. Some accepted the apology publicly, most panned the apology as crisis control. But this incident shines the light on a potential problem that happened four years ago.

One thing is clear however. LeBron James is using his platform not only to provide awareness  to the “Black Lives Matter” movement, but is showing hypocrisy in the media. 

Lake Show Life starts this discussion looking back at a Fox News personality that changed the narrative of athletes speaking out like Drew Brees did of what’s going on internationally now.