That's what you call proof?
So is their a poll showing how many NBA fans dont bother with these polls? Is there a poll showing how many of those non-caring fans are black? So all them whites didn't hate the black man until he switched sides, but deep down it's cause of his pigment that they have this animosity? This is what your getting at? K Meth
Let's compare this to your "proof," i.e. "race has nothing to do with it cuz I know Black guys who hate Lebron James, too! SO THERE! What a JOKE!"
There's a racial disparity here and not only were you unaware of it, but you have no way of explaining it, either. So, instead, you just deny the whole thing. Nice work.
Your questions show that you lack a fundamental understanding of how opinion polling works. Q Scores may not be "the all seeing eye," but nor are they voluntary web polls. You're dealing with large samples drawn so as to be representative, so the self-selection bias doesn't apply. If you want to present a critique of their sampling methodology, be my guest, but simply saying, "they didn't ask EVERYONE" isn't going to cut it.
Racism in today's society often operates within the subconscious. I don't expect many people to say, straight up, that they resent LeBron James because he refused to demonstrate due deference and "know his place," much less that such sentiments have been influenced by racism. All they know is that, now, they just plain don't like the guy. If you ask why LeBron, in particular, is treated this way compared to other athletes, or why they hated Steve Francis for doing exactly what Eli Manning received virtually no backlash for doing, they'll often have difficulty attempting to explain what, for them, was a simply a "gut feeling."
These are prejudices. It's like asking someone to logically explain why they hate gay men or why they tend to have lower opinions of women in authority positions.
^ That first article Method Man posted seems to point more to the fact that when a problem arises, some black people will defend other black people regardless "guilt" or "innocence." It refers to this as "black protectionism."
Couldn't you say it is this phenomenon that accounts for the survey results just as easily as you could say it's due to racism?
The point of the link was simply to offer a citation for the poll results, so people didn't think I just plucked them out of thin air (again, nobody else seems to feel any need to substantiate their opinions, but that's to be expected.) The data are subject to interpretation, of course, but there's no reason to believe that the so-called "White" response to LeBron James is the "correct" one and that ONLY people of color have been influenced by race. Even if we're to take the "Black protectionism" article at full face value, it's nonetheless a
reaction to racism. We've seen this sort of lynch mob mentality attack one celebrity after another, and so it's no surprise that, for some, the tendency is to defend a Michael Vick, for example, against his oft-hypocritical detractors.
Racism is a factor. CLEARLY, we see that with this whole "ghetto basketball" stereotype. How often was LeBron James accused of playing "ghetto basketball" for the Cavaliers? Instead, everyone played up how he "made his teammates better" through his passing ability.
I'd argue that LeBron James became "ghetto," to some people, when he rejected the "worker bee" mentality. His game on the court hasn't changed. Really, his personality isn't any different, either. So, what suddenly made him "ghetto?" What does "ghetto"
mean in this context?