What do Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and all the rest have in common? None of them is Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
The man is over seven feet tall; his sky hook was unstoppable; in Airplane! he gave far-and-away the greatest movie performance by a professional athlete; and, for my money, he possesses the clearest, humblest, most human voice in the media today. If you have not read his columns for TIME and others, I suggest you start now. The man is at once sly, pragmatic, and, above all, compassionate. And he is an African American Muslim.
I couldn’t stand him when he played for the Lakers. My parents were Celtic fans. Anti-Showtime bias seeped into my young brain like pesticides into good soil. But Kareem was not Showtime. He didn’t have a million no-look passes and a million dollar smile. He didn’t have pomade-drenched hair and Italian suits. No, his game was measured, fluid, and unstoppable. Today, his voice is the same.
He recaptured my attention only recently with two of his responses to current events. The first was to the tragic deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and the ensuing protests (http://time.com/3132635/ferguson-coming-race-war-class-warfare/). The second was to the attack on Charlie Hebdo (http://time.com/3662152/kareem-abdul-jabbar-paris-charlie-hebdo-terrorist-attacks-are-not-about-religion/). I hear the voice of a man unafraid to call “bullshit” on anyone, unafraid to hold the right people accountable, and unafraid to believe good people can learn to understand, respect, and collaborate with one another.
Obama drives me nuts. I grew tired of his sanctimony on day one. Although his administration made some halfhearted attempts to slap band aids on the issues of economic and criminal justice inequities, he’s done little to nothing to address the root causes. I don’t know what the solutions are. That’s a little above my pay grade. Still, I believe these are the two most important domestic issues facing the U.S. And Kareem Abdul Jabbar is the man to tackle them!
What about foreign policy? Most agree that currently the greatest threat to the international community is the spread of radical Islam. The West makes pleas to pragmatic, compassionate Muslims to rise up and reclaim their faith, as if that were as simple as removing a burka, sitting down in a classroom, and saying “please don’t shoot me.” No, compassionate Muslims need real economic and political power on their side. What better than if one of their own were the elected leader of the most powerful western nation? Who better than Kareem Abdul Jabbar?
I doubt Kareem would ever run for president. If he did, I doubt he’d win. But hey, we elected a black man; we elected an actor; we elected a developmentally challenged fratboy; why not an ex-professional athlete? He looks better on camera than John Runyan. Anyway, I’m writing Kareem Abdul Jabbar in on my ballot in 2016. You should too. You can thank me later for four years of “Roger Roger” jokes at presidential news conferences.
giantmooserocks 