“LeBron James can never say he’s a friend of Minister Farrakhan”: Shannon Sharpe passionately explains how standards for white and black athletes are different

Responding to Tom Brady’s links with Donald Trump, Shannon Sharpe made some controversial comments citing LeBron James.

Tom Brady’s links to Donald Trump first came to the fore when the GOAT admitted that the future president was his friend – back in 2015. Brady said: “Donald is a good friend of mine. I have known him for a long time. I support all my friends. That is what I have to say. He’s a good friend of mine. He’s always been so supportive of me—for the last 15 years, since I judged a beauty pageant for him.”

“This was one of the very first things that I did that thought was really cool. That came along with winning the Super Bowl. He’s always invited me to play golf. I’ve always enjoyed his company.”

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Shannon Sharpe cites LeBron James and Louis Farrakhan to point out American hypocrisy

Shay Sharpe let us all know that he’s a follower of Louis Farrakhan last summer. It caused a great deal of controversy: it was one of the rare occasions when Skip completely took his case on live TV.

This hasn’t prevented Sharpe from using Farrakhan and LeBron James as his props for pointing out American hypocrisy: “For argument’s sake, let’s just say LeBron James says ‘My friend Minister Farrakhan’. How would America react? You see, blacks have always had to be very very quiet about who their friends are.”

“A prominent black athlete can never say ‘Minister Farrakhan is my friend’. They’ll try to cancel anybody with just the mere mention of Minister Farrakhan’s name. Because we like Tom Brady.”

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Shannon’s point essentially is that Tom Brady escapes criticism for being a known Donald Trump supporter because people like him – and he’s got white privilege going for him. The same cannot be said about a black athlete (like Allen Iverson, for example) speaking up as a fan of Farrakhan. Although there’s a clear difference between a real bigot and Anti-Semite like Louis Farrakhan and Donald Trump, his point is not without its merits.