(AllHipHop News) Kobe Bryant wants to know all the facts before he shows any support for anyone. In a recent interview with The New Yorker, Kobe spoke on how African Americans’ support of Trayvon Martin was not “progress” if those people supported him without knowing all the facts.
On March 26th 2013, less than a month after Trayvon Martin was murdered by George Zimmerman, the Miami Heat players took a photo donning Black hoodies with the caption “#WeAreTrayvonMartin”. Even though the Heat’s head coach Erik Spolestra called it a “powerful move”,Kobe informed The New Yorker that it was indicative of a larger problem in the African American community and was not “progress”:
I won’t react to something just because I’m supposed to, because I’m an African-American. That argument doesn’t make any sense to me. So we want to advance as a society and a culture, but, say, if something happens to an African-American we immediately come to his defense? Yet you want to talk about how far we’ve progressed as a society? Well, we’ve progressed as a society, then don’t jump to somebody’s defense just because they’re African-American. You sit and you listen to the facts just like you would in any other situation, right? So I won’t assert myself.
While Kobe did not publicly show support for Trayvon Martin, he did show support on his personal Twitter account for the fallen 15 year old Hadiya Pendleton less than a month after she was murdered in late January of 2012. Ironically, he displayed this support on the day Trayvon Martin was murdered:
15 yr old who performed at inauguration was shot dead in Chicago. pls remember her name: Hadiya Pendleton http://t.co/u9Qt6Ma6mw RT
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) February 26, 2013
