When Bulls legend Michael Jordan admitted to being racist at one point in his life against White people, and why that was the case
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Michael Jordan is quite the influential figure, isn’t he?
Anybody that’s ever watched basketball knows his name. Heck, even a lot of the masses that haven’t watched a dribble know this man’s name.
With such an influential person comes, well, influence. There will be countless people all across the globe looking up to that person’s example, trying to be more like him. And all this means is, that MJ has to try to be the best example he could possibly be for these people. Something he has strived to do for basically all his life.
With that point in mind, the story we’re bringing to you here is quite the shocking one. In fact, after reading this piece, you may never see Jordan in quite the same way again.
Let’s get into it, shall we?
Michael Jordan once admitted he was racist towards all white people, and how the Ku Klux Klan had a lot to do with it
In case you may not be aware, Michael Jordan grew up in North Carolina. Heck, it is the biggest reason why he even chose to become the owner of the Charlotte Hornets.
Why is this important? Well, it was a massive reason behind why Jordan had a very negative perception of every Caucasian person on the face of the planet.
Roland Lazenby, the author of ‘Michael Jordan: The Life’, had this to say on the matter.
“I’ve been to North Carolina hundreds of times and enjoy it tremendously, but North Carolina was a state that had more Klan members than the rest of the Southern states combined,” the author said. “As I started looking at newspapers back in this era when I was putting together [Michael’s great-grandfather] Dawson Jordan’s life, the Klan was like a chamber of commerce. It bought the uniforms for ball teams, it put Bibles in all the schools. It may well have ended up being a chamber of commerce if not for all the violence it was perpetrating, too. A lot of the context just wasn’t possible to put it in a basketball book. A lot of it ended up being cut.”
Even Michael Jordan himself commented on this fact, saying this to Lazenby.
“I considered myself a racist at the time”
Jordan even spoke of a time when he threw his soda onto a Caucasian woman while growing up because she shouted at him with a slur starting with the letter ‘n’.
It’s always been evident that Michael Jordan’s life has never been easy. But, this story really does add a deep, deep layer to it.