Michael Jordan wasn’t always the ‘larger than life’ figure that he is today. Prior to becoming a multi-billionaire, the Chicago Bulls legend was just like any other black man in the United States of America trying to work towards sustaining himself financially along with his family. He famously stayed away from politics after growing up and become a worldwide phenomenon.
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Back in his youth when he was a child and a teenager in North Carolina, nobody knew about him and who he was going to be. He was as an ordinary black teenager in the 1970s and as expected, he faced his fair share of racial prejudice.
Despite the fact that the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, it took time for the country as a whole to accept the fact that different races were allowed to congregate amongst each other. Even to this day there are parts of the United States that unfortunately find this concept to be bewildering, much to the chagrin of the rest of the world.
Michael Jordan on the time he threw soda at a girl
Michael Jordan lived and learned. Even in fame he was never the perfect human despite the marketing revolving around his ‘Be Like Mike’ advertisement campaign. Jordan in his youth needed to let his emotions flow to better understand how he can improve himself in those types of situations later on in life.
During an interview with Playboy in 1992, Jordan was asked about when was the first time he had faced any sort of racism. His answer was when he was still in school.
“I threw a soda at a girl for calling me a n***er. It was when Roots was on television. I was 15. It was a very tough year. I was really rebelling. I considered myself a racist at that time. Basically, I was against all white people,” said the eventual 6x NBA champion.
Michael Jordan eventually got over it
After the incident, Michael Jordan admits to taking a year to get over what had transpired. He knew what she had done was wrong and at first couldn’t understand why what he had done was also wrong. It took time for him to gather his emotions altogether and comprehend it all.
“The education came from my parents. You have to be able to say, OK, that happened back then. Now let’s take it from here and see what happens,” said MJ during the same ’92 Playboy interview.
