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Jesse Jackson Rips Dan Gilbert For “Slave Master Mentality”

It was clear Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert lingered in the spotlight a bit too long with his post-LeBron comments, but apparently no controversial situation involving a white person and black person is complete until the Rev. Jesse Jackson brings in his own brand of overheated rhetoric.

Unsurprisingly, Jackson found a way to invoke slavery into the debate, something that seems a little…much, considering he’s talking about basketball. But why should that stop him from incendiary comments?

“He speaks as an owner of LeBron and not the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers. His feelings of betrayal personify a slave master mentality. He sees LeBron as a runaway slave. This is an owner employee relationship — between business partners — and LeBron honored his contract.”

Why couldn’t Gilbert’s feelings of betrayal personify…a guy who’s really upset because the entire reason his organization was relevant is now gone? Yes, he went completely overboard in his response, but so did Jackson by invoking slavery in a calculated way to bring attention to himself (and, as usual, it worked).

While we wouldn’t quite say Jackson’s latest rant makes Gilbert a sympathetic figure – Gilbert still looks crazy – it does make Jackson looks like a complete opportunist. He used a serious, shameful historical issue to drum up outrage about a fabulously wealthy basketball player: yes, it’s safe to say this is the most inappropriate invocation of slavery we’ve seen since this.

H/T HuffPo

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