Kamal Morgan
The journalist Gayle King has received backlash from her inter- view with for- mer WNBA star Lisa Leslie.
She brought up Kobe Bryant’s sexual assault allegation in 2003, for which he later apologized and assumed responsibility. Anger arose from people feeling it was terrible timing to talk about these allegations when Bryant was not even buried yet. There were also black people, especially black men, criticizing King and her longtime friend Oprah, who have been accused of tarnishing the legacies of black men. An example of this is last year’s interview with R. Kelly, who at the time also had a six- part documentary about his alleged sexual relationships with underage girls. One of these relationships was with late singer, Aaliyah, whom he married when she was just 15 years old. Many believed King and Oprah are demonizing black men, while not attacking other powerful and influential white men like Harvey Weinstein.
Celebrities, such as the rapper Snoop Dogg, stormed to Instagram to voice their opinions on the matter. Snoop Dogg chastised King’s decision to bring up Bryant’s past while his wife and children are still grieving, saying that she was tarnishing his reputation without going after people like Weinstein, but instead attacking the black community. He called her a “funky dog-head bitch” and told her to respect the “family” before “we come get you,” a very heated and emotional response which many agreed with. Bill Cosby, who is in prison, tweeted in support of Snoop Dogg’s rant.
The entire episode caused King to step away from the spotlight as threats to her life and other deroga- tory and misogynist criticism came her way. Others, such as the journalist Jelani Cobb, say we can disagree with- out “lapsing into misogyny, threats and ignorance.”
I was alarmed at the volume of hatred that spilled from the mouths of so many people. We idolize men like Bryant who have done so much for not just basketball, but popular culture. I am like many who took a paper, crunched it up and screamed his name at the top of my lungs with pride as I sunk it through a trash bin. I remember the jokes about how he was selfish with the ball in his hands and never passed. But, since we all envision ourselves as the best at what we do, why would we allow someone else the glory of our labor? Bryant was our hero, but he was just a man
When DJ Ebro asked the rapper Kodak Black about his assault allegation during an interview in 2018 on his show Hot97, it was deemed inappropriate, and Ebro was accused of working with the FBI. Kodak Black, another black man, could have defended himself, but others still felt it was wrong to bring up a topic be- cause it was insensitive during the interview.
If questioning the faults of men is wrong when they are dead, or even alive, then when is it the right time to talk about it? Black men scold black women who dare go against the black community, but when does culpability of one’s action ever take hold? If we want to protect Bryant’s daughters from his controversial past, then why are we not protecting our black sons from their inevitable futures? Ta-Nehisi Coates perfectly wrote an Instagram post about the situation: “Gayle King dared speak of a man as though he were one, and a lot of us fucking lost it.” Men are not gods in our temporal and cor- poreal bodies. No man is protected from the harm he has done to others. Bryant learned from it, and we, as black men, can learn from it too.