Zo disgusted by Don talk
Pop on Trump: It’s all about race
Former NBA center Alonzo Mourning, never shy about being outspoken, says it is a good thing Donald Trump was not in the White House during Mourning’s playing days.
“To tell you the truth, it wouldn’t have been pretty,” Mourning said Monday.
Mourning said he found Trump’s social media posts directed at the NFL and NBA this past weekend “disgusting,” but the ex-Heat champion is in no way shocked.
“It doesn’t surprise me with some of the language that has come out of our leadership, the senseless, disgusting rhetoric. It’s been consistent. Nothing really surprises me now, what comes out of his mouth,” said Mourning, 24 hours after the weekend’s events, when many NFL players knelt during the national anthem Sunday, and after Trump blasted NBA star Steph Curry and rescinded the recent NBA Finals champion’s invite to the White House.
Mourning was one of several honorees at the “Great Sports Legends” dinner Monday night at the Hilton Hotel in midtown, the annual gala that raises money and awareness for The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, and its development arm, The Buoniconti Fund, named for Marc Buoniconti, the event’s namesake and the son of Hall of Fame Dolphin Nick.
But Mourning wasn’t the only bold-face name at the event to take aim at Trump. Abby Wambach, the retired former star forward with the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, called the NFL players’ actions Sunday “awesome” and “amazing,” and she said had she still been in uniform and playing Sunday, she would have followed the NFL’s lead.
“As a representative of our national team, I took great pride in representing this country, and I took great pride in standing every single national anthem. But if we had a game (Sunday), my knee would have been on that ground,” said Wambach. “I think the beauty of what the guys in the NFL did was that they turned something that could have been so divisive, remarks that our sitting President made, into this unifying moment in time.”
Mourning, now an executive with the Heat, said that in his mind, elected officials serve three primary functions: “to unite the country, to be public servants and to pass laws.”
“That’s what we put them there for, and I don’t see that happening right now. It’s unfortunate, it really is,” said Mourning. “I applaud the NFL and the NBA for standing together. I applaud the ownership of those teams for defending their players. What I don’t condone is the senseless, divisive rhetoric that comes from our leadership.”
Mourning added that Trump’s penchant for tweeting derogatory remarks is “quite childlike,” and Mourning said that discussing any angle of the Trump administration causes his stomach to turn.
Gregg Popovich, who has always acted as a moral compass in the NBA, says we need to have a frank conversation on race in the United States.
The long-time Spurs coach weighed in Monday during NBA Media Day on Sunday’s anthem protests in the NFL, which came in response to President Donald Trump ripping players who don’t stand for the song as a way to bring awareness to police brutality and racial inequality.
“Obviously, race is the elephant in the room and we all understand that,” said the 68-year-old Popovich, who graduated from the Air Force Academy and spent five years in the military. “Unless it is talked about constantly, it’s not going to get better. People get bored, ‘Oh, they’re talking about that again. They pulled the race card again. Why do we have to talk about that.’ Well, because it’s uncomfortable. There has to be an uncomfortable element in discourse for anything to change, whether it’s LGBT movement, or women’s suffrage, race — it doesn’t matter. People have to be made to feel uncomfortable.
“And especially white people. Because we are comfortable. We still have no clue what being born white means. And if you read some of the recent literature, you realize there really is no such thing as whiteness. We kind of made it up. That’s not my original thought, but it’s true.”
Popovich added: “It’s hard to sit down and decide that yes, it’s like you’re at the 50-meter mark in a 100-meter dash. You’ve got that kind of lead, yes, because you were born white. You have advantage that are systematically, culturally, psychologically rare. And they’ve been built up and cemented for hundreds of years. But many people can’t look at it that way, because it’s too difficult. It can’t be something that’s on their plate on a daily basis. People want to hold their position, people want their status quo, people don’t want to give that up. Until it’s given up, it’s not going to be fixed.”
Trump has denied that his remarks about the two leagues were race-related.
“It is about respect for our Country, Flag and National Anthem. NFL must respect this!” the president tweeted Monday morning.
Popovich also blasted Trump and his recent decision to rescind the Golden State Warriors’ visit to the White House.
“Our country is an embarrassment in the world,” Popovich said. “This is an individual that when people held arms during games, (thought) that they were doing it to honor the flag. That’s delusional. But it’s what we have to live with. You’ve got a choice: We can continue to bounce our heads off the walls with his conduct, or we can decide the institutions of our country are more important, people are more important, (the) decent America we all have and want is more important — get down to business at the grassroots level and do what we have to do.”