(AllHipHop News) If you have known about Kobe Bean Bryant for more than a day you should have already predicted that he would respond to Jim Brown’s disparaging remarks about the NBA legend’s understanding of culture and leadership. Speaking with the media following a practice last week Thursday (December 12th), Kobe Bryant countered Jim Brown’s criticism.
While on The Arsenio Hall Show Brown chided Kobe for his treatment of former teammates and attributed Kobe’s seven years spent in Italy between the ages of six and 13 as reasons for his inability to understand how to “quite fit what’s happening in America.” According to Kobe, he was shocked by the comments but places a positive spin on the incident.
I mean, I’ve never even met him, so it came out of left field but I do think it’s a great opportunity to have these conversations, to have this discussion.
While Kobe admits that these type of incidents is “a good place to start to have a good conversation” about “perception of racial quality” he does believe Brown may be too old to reason with:
He and I, there’s no reason for us to have a conversation. We’re completely on opposite sides of the spectrum. I’m an old dog, but he’s a much older dog so he’s probably a lot more set in his ways than I am.
In 1967, Brown organized a summit in support of Muhammed Ali’s stance on anti-war stance and invited such Black athletes as Bill Russel, Kareem Abdul-Jabar and many others. Brown stated if he “had to call that summit all over, there’d be some athletes I wouldn’t call. Kobe would be one of them.” Kobe directly addressed this statement on his personal Twitter account prior to addressing the media:
A “Global” African American is an inferior shade to “American” African Americans?? #hmm.. that doesn’t sound very #Mandela or #DrKing sir
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) December 12, 2013