LOS ANGELES (WJW) — Akron’s own LeBron James has received plenty of backlash over his now-deleted tweet following the police-involved shooting of Columbus teen Ma’Khia Bryant, with the Los Angeles Police Department even recently asking the NBA to investigate the situation (as seen in the video above).
But now, James is trying to steer the conversation in a new direction, taking to Twitter once more yesterday to say the story needs to be about the teen girl and not about his tweets.
In the new post, James linked to a Vox article about Bryant not being the perfect victim and how, as the 16-year-old was reportedly wielding a knife, there is a lot of “victim blaming” in this situation.
“People will say ‘I’m really sad this whole scenario happened, but had she not had that knife …’ That becomes the ‘but,’ the qualifier, the caveat. And too often we have a caveat when it comes to defending, protecting, and caring for Black girls,” Treva Lindsey, an Ohio State University African American women’s history professor, told that outlet.
Bryant was shot four times by a Columbus officer Nicholas Reardon.
The basketballer’s now-gone tweet showed a photo of the officer involved in the shooting with a statement that said “YOU’RE NEXT #ACCOUNTABILITY.”
The shooting incident remains under investigation.
James also posted this on Twitter yesterday: