With his 16th season in the NBA -- and perhaps his career -- coming to a close, Kyle Korver has seen plenty throughout his time in the league, particularly as it relates to race.
It wasn't until Monday, however, that the former Cleveland Cavaliers forward spoke up on the matter, doing so in an essay for The Players' Tribune titled "Privileged."
In the 2,600-plus-word essay, Korver on the incident in Utah -- where he now plays -- that involved a fan of the Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder All-Star Westbrook. He also admits guilt over his own ignorance over certain matters, such his former Atlanta Hawks teammate Thabo Sefolosha's 2015 arrest that resulted in a broken leg.
"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??" Korver wrote.
"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.
"Cringe."
Korver went on to discuss his team's reaction to the incident in which Westbrook got into it with a heckling Jazz fan, who the former MVP claimed had made a racially insensitive remark. For Korver, the moment conjured memories of his reaction to the arrest of Sefolosha -- who is now his teammate with the Jazz.
"This wasn’t the first time they’d taken part in conversations about race in their NBA careers, and it wasn’t the first time they’d had to address the hateful actions of others," Korver wrote. " And one big thing that got brought up a lot in the meeting was how incidents like this — they weren’t only about the people directly involved. This wasn’t only about Russ and some heckler. It was about more than that.
"It was about what it means just to exist right now — as a person of color in a mostly white space.
"It was about racism in America."
From there, Korver touches on a number of topics, including what it's like to be a white player in a predominantly black NBA and the efforts he's made to educate himself on the history of racism in America.
Perhaps the most noteworthy -- and shared -- part of his essay came as he wrote about the difference between "guilt" and "responsibility" as they relate to racism.
"Two concepts that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately are guilt and responsibility," he writes.
"When it comes to racism in America, I think that guilt and responsibility tend to be seen as more or less the same thing. But I’m beginning to understand how there’s a real difference.
"As white people, are we guilty for the sins of our forefathers? No, I don’t think so.
"But are we responsible for them? Yes, I believe we are.
"And 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."
You can read the entirety of Korver's essay here.
