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Jazz guard Kyle Korver pens impassioned essay on white privilege in America

Utah Jazz guard Kyle Korver is in his 16th NBA season. (Getty Images)

Utah Jazz guard Kyle Korver found himself on the fringes of two of the more racially charged incidents associated with the NBA in recent memory, and his resulting emotional response was complicated. The 38-year-old Creighton University product did a remarkable job capturing those feelings and what to do about them in an impassioned essay on white privilege in the United States for The Players’ Tribune.

Korver was an Atlanta Hawks teammate of Thabo Sefolosha when the veteran wing suffered a season-ending injury upon being tackled outside a nightclub by a group of New York Police Department officers in April 2015. And he was on the home team when Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook was on the receiving end of “excessive and derogatory verbal abuse” from a Jazz fan last month.

Sefolosha and Korver are now teammates in Utah, and that led to a whole lot of self-reflection from Korver about his immediate responses to those events and how they were shaped by his status as a white man in a league that is 75 percent black. The conclusions he came to form a hard lesson in racism for white American men:

“ ... I guess I’ve come to realize that when we talk about solutions to systemic racism — police reform, workplace diversity, affirmative action, better access to healthcare, even reparations? It’s not about guilt. It’s not about pointing fingers, or passing blame.

“It’s about responsibility. It’s about understanding that when we’ve said the word “equality,” for generations, what we’ve really meant is equality for a certain group of people. It’s about understanding that when we’ve said the word “inequality,” for generations, what we’ve really meant is slavery, and its aftermath — which is still being felt to this day. It’s about understanding on a fundamental level that black people and white people, they still have it different in America. And that those differences come from an ugly history….. not some random divide.

“And it’s about understanding that Black Lives Matter, and movements like it, matter, because — well, let’s face it: I probably would’ve been safe on the street that one night in New York. And Thabo wasn’t. And I was safe on the court that one night in Utah. And Russell wasn’t.”

Korver’s lesson learned from Sefolosha

Sefolosha was charged with resisting arrest, obstruction of governmental administration and disorderly conduct for his alleged role in a dispute with police following the stabbing of then-Indiana Pacers forward Chris Copeland at 1 Oak nightclub in Manhattan four years ago. He was acquitted of all charges six months later and subsequently filed a $50 million civil police brutality lawsuit against New York City, maintaining that “the injury was caused by police” who profiled “a black man in a hoodie.” The city ultimately settled with Sefolosha for $4 million.

And what was Korver’s initial reaction on the night Sefolosha broke his leg — an injury that impacted the playoff chances of a top-seeded 60-win Hawks team?

“On the morning I found out that Thabo had been arrested, want to know what my first thought was? About my friend and teammate? My first thought was: What was Thabo doing out at a club on a back-to-back??

“Yeah. Not, How’s he doing? Not, What happened during the arrest?? Not, Something seems off with this story. Nothing like that. Before I knew the full story, and before I’d even had the chance to talk to Thabo ... I sort of blamed Thabo.

“I thought, Well, if I’d been in Thabo’s shoes, out at a club late at night, the police wouldn’t have arrested me. Not unless I was doing something wrong.”

Raise your hand if you had a similar response then, and raise it again if you feel the same way Korver does now: “Cringe.” This is the recognition of white privilege.

Korver’s lesson learned from Westbrook

Four years later, Korver was in uniform for the Jazz when a fan in Utah — a former Utah Highway Patrol Sergeant, no less — shouted what Westbrook interpreted as “completely disrespectful and “racial” language at the former MVP on March 11.

Korver’s reaction, before exploring the exchange with a fan whose past included a racist directive at Westbrook: “You know Russ. He gets into it with the crowd a lot.”

The Jazz held a closed-door meeting the following day, and, according to Korver, his teammates shared similar stories about “feeling degraded in ways that went beyond acceptable heckling,” family members fearing for their safety and likening the atmosphere at Vivint Smart Home Arena to “a zoo” on the night in question.

The organization’s response was a lifetime ban for the fan and a heartfelt pregame plea to the Utah crowd from Jazz owner Gail Miller to treat opponents with dignity.

This satisfied most people in, as Korver put it, “a mostly white space.” Platitudes calm the storm until white Americans can sweep another forgotten injustice under the rug, all while black Americans are reminded what still lies beneath the surface.

Korver again:

“What I’m realizing is, no matter how passionately I commit to being an ally, and no matter how unwavering my support is for NBA and WNBA players of color ... I’m still in this conversation from the privileged perspective of opting in to it. Which of course means that on the flip side, I could just as easily opt out of it. Every day, I’m given that choice — I’m granted that privilege — based on the color of my skin.

“In other words, I can say every right thing in the world: I can voice my solidarity with Russ after what happened in Utah. I can evolve my position on what happened to Thabo in New York. I can be that weird dude in Get Out bragging about how he’d have voted for Obama a third term. I can condemn every racist heckler I’ve ever known.

“But I can also fade into the crowd, and my face can blend in with the faces of those hecklers, any time I want.”

Korver outlines his plan for action

And that’s not right. None of this is right or just. And it only seems to be getting worse at a time when divisiveness is fostered at the highest levels. So, what can we do about it? Korver has clearly thought long and hard about that question. There are no easy answers, but the Jazz guard does well to at least find a starting point:

“I have to continue to educate myself on the history of racism in America.

“I have to listen. I’ll say it again, because it’s that important. I have to listen.

“I have to support leaders who see racial justice as fundamental — as something that’s at the heart of nearly every major issue in our country today. And I have to support policies that do the same.

“I have to do my best to recognize when to get out of the way — in order to amplify the voices of marginalized groups that so often get lost.

“But maybe more than anything?

“I know that, as a white man, I have to hold my fellow white men accountable.

[...]

“First, by identifying that less visible, less obvious behavior as what it is: racism.

“And then second, by denouncing that racism — actively, and at every level.

“That’s the bare minimum of where we have to get to, I think, if we’re going to consider the NBA — or any workplace — as anything close to part of the solution in 2019.”

Korver concludes by sending a message to anyone who might hold him up as their great white hope: “Know I believe that. ... Know that about me. Know that I believe this matters.” And he leaves us with a final parting shot — one aimed at Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham and her ilk: “Time for me to shut up and listen.”

Read Korver’s entire essay. It’s well worth your time, especially if you are the sort of person who might be more willing to listen to this athlete than the many others who may not look like him but have been imploring us to start here for decades now.

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Ben Rohrbach is a staff writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach

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