Stephen A. Smith saw three white Lakers and exposed a glaring liberal double standard

Sometimes I like what television personality, podcast host and sports analyst Stephen A. Smith has to say. Other times, I just shake my head and ask, "What?" This is one of those times.

The man recently looked at the Los Angeles Lakers’ roster in the post-LeBron James era and saw that its top three players are White. He decided that their skin color was newsworthy. "This ain't golf," he said. "This ain't baseball. It ain't even soccer." He spoke as if basketball has some sort of pigmentation requirement for getting on the court. He acted as if the gatekeepers messed up by letting three White dudes onto the court.

Let’s call this what it is: racism. I’m not being anything but factual. This man looked at three other men and decided the most important thing about them was their skin color. This man also took it upon himself to decide that basketball belongs to Black people. If this isn’t racism, then what is it?

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All of this is absurd. Race is absurd. Under segregation, White men kept Black people out of all the top leagues because of the color of their skin. Now Stephen A. Smith wants to step into those shoes?

Somewhere along the way, we decided there are two sets of rules. Point out that a team has a lot of great Black players, and it's seen as something to be proud of, something to be celebrated as progress. But if you point out that a team has a lot of great White players, suddenly it’s suspicious. It’s something that needs explaining.

The best players in the NBA didn't get there because of their race. They got there because they outworked everybody else on the planet who wanted the same thing. Michael Jordan didn't wake up every morning and work on his blackness. His blackness didn’t make him the greatest player to ever walk this earth. It was his talent, his skill, his perseverance, his killer instinct. He trained his jump shot. He trained his footwork. He trained his mind to want it more than the guy across from him.

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Same with Larry Bird. He didn't make the Hall of Fame because he was White. His White skin didn’t give him privilege. It didn’t add air to his jump or guide the ball into the basket. See how absurd this notion of race is? He made it because he could see angles on a basketball court that other men couldn't. Talent doesn't check a box. It shows up, or it doesn't.

When Stephen A. Smith frames three great players as some kind of anomaly because of their skin color, he's not being bold or honest. He’s showcasing the worst in us. Tribalism. Racism. Division. Entitlement. Yeah, I said it. Smith is teaching us that we should be entitled because we are Black. We are entitled to basketball because we are Black. And this is coming out of the mouth of a man whom I admire. Smith has built a media empire and is banking millions a year. People love him. And yet he betrays all that hard work by teaching our children that Black people are entitled to the NBA court because they are, well, Black. What a horrible message to send to our kids.

And here’s the hypocrisy in all of this. If the roles were reversed and, say, Dick Vitale complained that the Golden State Warriors were too White, who would be among the most outraged? Stephen A. Smith. He’s playing both sides, and that is not right. You cannot condemn racism against your own group while excusing it against another. You touch racism, and you lose all moral authority.

The only answer is to treat each player as an individual. Those three Lakers who happen to be White are among the best players in the league and absolute ballers. The Lakers hired them because they want to win. They’d hire purple dudes as long as they could win.

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I've spent my life around people from every background you can imagine, and I've never once seen greatness ask permission from someone's skin color. I've seen it ask for discipline. I've seen it ask for sacrifice. I've seen it ask a man to get up before the sun for 10 years straight while nobody was watching and nobody was clapping. That's the price. Race is irrelevant.

We are better than this. Our children deserve better than this. And basketball — a game built by men and women of every background who simply wanted to be the best at what they loved — deserves better than being reduced to a scoreboard for somebody's grievance.

Talent is colorblind. It's time our commentary caught up.

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