{"id":17359,"date":"2015-09-03T16:17:22","date_gmt":"2015-09-03T16:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/colorlines.madeostudio.com\/article\/kareem-abdul-jabbar-donald-trumps-response-essay-bully-proves-my-point\/"},"modified":"2015-09-03T16:17:22","modified_gmt":"2015-09-03T16:17:22","slug":"kareem-abdul-jabbar-donald-trumps-response-essay-bully-proves-my-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/article\/kareem-abdul-jabbar-donald-trumps-response-essay-bully-proves-my-point\/","title":{"rendered":"Kareem Abdul-Jabbar On Donald Trump’s Response To Essay: ‘The Bully Proves My Point’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar On Donald Trump’s Response To Essay: ‘The Bully Proves My Point’<\/h3>\n

\n By Sameer Rao<\/span> Sep 03, 2015<\/span>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n

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When basketball legend and prolific bestselling author Kareem Abdul-Jabbar criticized Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in a comprehensive Washington Post<\/a> editorial yesterday, he perhaps didn\u2019t anticipate that Trump would come back swinging in a hand-written note. <\/p>\n

But the Republican leader did just that, posting a hand-written response<\/a> that embodied a lot of the language and vitriol that Trump used against Megyn Kelly and Jorge Ramos in previous months\u2014both journalists who carry their own tremendous issues, yet were not criticized on any logical grounds\u2014that said the following: <\/p>\n

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Dear Kareem,<\/p>\n

Now I know why the press always treated you so badly\u2014they couldn\u2019t stand you. The fact is that you don\u2019t have a clue about life and what has to be done to make America great again!<\/p>\n

Best wishes,<\/p>\n

Donald Trump<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Abdul-Jabbar swung back in another post, saying that Trump\u2019s note was the best support for his claims: <\/p>\n

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Trump\u2019s response to my piece is the best, though inelegant, support for my claims. Here again, he attacks a journalist who disagrees with him, not by disputing the points made, but by hurling schoolyard insults such as \u201cnobody likes you.\u201d Look behind the nasty invective and you find an assault on the Constitution in the effort to silence the press through intimidation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For Abdul-Jabbar\u2019s part, his original essay dealt primarily with Trump bullying journalists who dared to ask him difficult questions, while also comparing Trump\u2019s approach to that of Bernie Sanders. While Sanders\u2019 reasons for introducing a racial justice platform might be up for debate (Abdul-Jabbar said it had nothing to do with the two interruptions by Black Lives Matter activists, though many are inclined to disagree), the fact that he did address criticism instead of resolutely shutting it down as \u201cPC\u201d formed the general base of Abdul-Jabbar’s comparisons:<\/p>\n

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Trump\u2019s rationale for avoiding Kelly\u2019s debate question\u2014that neither he nor America has time for \u201cpolitical correctness\u201d\u2014taps into a popular boogeyman. The term \u201cpolitical correctness\u201d is so general that to most people it simply means a discomfort with changing times and attitudes, an attack on the traditions of how we were raised. (It\u2019s an emotional challenge every generation has had to go through.) What it really means is nothing more than sensitizing people to the fact that some old-fashioned words, attitudes and actions may be harmful or insulting to others. Naturally, people are angry about that because it makes them feel stupid or mean when they really aren\u2019t. But when times change, we need to change with them in areas that strengthen our society.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no longer \u201cpolitically correct\u201d to call African Americans \u201ccoloreds.\u201d Or to pat a woman on the butt at work and say, \u201cNice job, honey.\u201d Or to ask people their religion during a job interview. Or to deny a woman a job because she\u2019s not attractive enough to you. Or to assume a person\u2019s opinion is worth less because she is elderly. Or that physically challenged individuals shouldn\u2019t have easy access to buildings. If you don\u2019t have time for political correctness, you don\u2019t have time to be the caretaker of our rights under the Constitution.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(H\/t Washington<\/a> Post<\/a>) <\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n

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Tags<\/h3>\n <\/div>\n
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\n Archive<\/a>Bernie Sanders<\/a>Donald Trump<\/a>Jorge Ramos<\/a>Kareem Abdul-Jabbar<\/a>Media<\/a>Megan Kelly<\/a>Politics<\/a>The Washington Post<\/a>Vitriol<\/a> <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abdul-Jabbar hit back at Donald Trump after the presidential candidate attached the former’s critical Washington Post piece. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_gspb_post_css":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[16402,1926,4655,7776,7995,16416,9394,16418,14681,15618],"article-type":[],"topic-meta":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17359"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17359"},{"taxonomy":"article-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-type?post=17359"},{"taxonomy":"topic-meta","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic-meta?post=17359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}