LeBron James Reveals Racist Tweets directed at Him

During an interview with CNN's Soledad O'Brien last month, LeBron James was asked whether he felt race was a factor in the backlash he's received since signing with the Miami Heat.

"I think so at times. It's always, you know, a race factor," he replied.

That short answer sparked a lot of discussion, including a great deal of criticism, from fans and media members alike. After all, playing the "race card" seemed like a cop-out, especially for those whose criticism of James was directed at the manner in which he revealed his decision -- a self-aggrandizing television special -- than his actual decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Complicating matters was the fact that James refused to clarify his comments the next day. "I'm not going to go back on my words,'' James said. "People are looking too far into it. I said what I had to say and I'll continue to move on.''

On Tuesday, James may have unintentionally offered some long-awaited context to his answer, retweeting an offensive and racist message directed to him on Twitter -- an edited screenshot of which can be seen below.

The RyanOutrich account from which the offensive tweet has since been deleted, but a search engine cache of RyanOutrich's Twitter page (warning: the page contains offensive language and may not be safe for work), which indicates the user is from Strongsville, a town 30 minutes south of Cleveland, Ohio, shows that the tweet cited above was just one of a barrage of racist -- and overtly threatening -- tweets directed at James. Included in the rant was this: "U have til the end of the day to RT me and if u dont....tomorrow u will not wake up happy...or al i ve".

James followed his retweet with a message of his own: "U see world how people feel! Just use it as extra motivation in whatever u do best! No one can stop your dreams from becoming reality!"
After Miami's practice on Wednesday, James further explained why he shared the message. "I just want you guys to see it also," James said, as cited by Brian Windhorst. "To see what type of words that are said toward me and towards us as professional athletes. Everybody thinks it is a bed of roses and it's not."

Even though James didn't connect his decision to share the racist tweet with his response on CNN, it's likely that this isn't the first time someone has directed such venom in his direction. Twitter's "@replies" are publicly viewable, but usually only when directly searching for them, which makes it easy to overlook the volume of hateful messages James, or any prominent athlete, may receive.

James is often perceived to be insulated from outside criticism, perhaps oblivious to the more nuanced objections to his actions. But Twitter offers a direct, unfiltered connection to the general public. So regardless of whether you agree with the notion that race has influenced the mainstream media's reaction to James' decision to sign with Miami, it's impossible to deny that James hasn't been exposed to blatant racism via social media.

http://nba.fanhouse.com/2010/10/20/lebron-james-reveals-racist-tweets-directed-at-him/

The LeBron James free agency signing over the summer created a lot of controversy to say the least. There were many different opinions among fans across the country on his decision to sign in Miami alongside Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. In the negative response he received from doing so he was convinced it was mostly due to race. Fans responded and tweeted comments that were very stereotypical towards the African American race. We discussed this topic very deeply in class because it was a huge issue in sports in the mid-1900s and still is somewhat today. We defined many words that relate to this issue such as race and discrimination which also tie into Lebron’s controversy. I believe he placed this upon himself and it doesn’t have to do so much with race as the media made it seem like. By not letting Cleveland know he would be leaving made many fans outraged his incident by calling him selfish and many other words that are more harmful to him. Also, I believe by making such a big deal of the signing by televising it on ESPN and covering it so much contributed to the fans and media being upset with him. Like we talked about in class, I don’t believe race in sport is as big of an issue as it once was, but we do “group” athletes among race. It isn’t really fair and it may have been a completely different situation if this was a white athlete. When asked whether he felt race was a factor in the backlash he’s received since signing with the Miami Heat he said, “I think so at times. It’s always, you know, a race factor. This issue directly relates to Chapter 9 in the text titled: Race and Ethnicity. Racial Ideology in the United States emerged in the 17^th and 18^th centuries through slavery. Racial discrimination continued in our country and was showed in sports greatly throughout the 1900s. It still goes on to an extent today and the text states that there is a challenge of escaping racial ideology in sports. Because of this and also the poor way LeBron James went about his free agent signing is why he received such negative attention.