Former Sixers player Kyle Korver’s Players’ Tribune essay examines white privilege and racist fans

Utah Jazz veteran and former Sixers guard Kyle Korver isn’t a name that comes up often when discussing the NBA.

But on Monday morning, Korver’s name was plastered all over social media thanks to a column he penned for the Players’ Tribune about white privilege and racism in America, viewed from the perspective of being a white man in a diverse league where minorities account for roughly 75 percent of players.

In the nearly 2,700-word column, Korver opened up about the 2015 arrest of Thabo Sefolosha, a teammate and friend whose leg was broken outside a nightclub while being arrested by New York City police. The incident ended Sefolosha’s season, but Sefolosha ultimately prevailed in court and settled with the city over officers’ use of force against him.

“It was an act of police brutality, and I believe it could happen to anyone,” Sefolosha said of the incident in GQ in 2015. “Now I’m a lot more aware of everything that goes on. I’ve been, I don’t want to say disillusioned, but brought back to earth in a harsh way.”

The incident also left a mark on Korver, who recalled that his initial response to the incident was to question why Sefolosha was at the club in the first place while the team had back-to-back games.

“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 wrote.

Korver said he’s been thinking a lot about the incident involving Sefolosha recently after two Jazz fans were permanently banned from attending games after tossing racial taunts at Oklahoma City Thunder star Russell Westbrook during a game on March 12.

“There’s an elephant in the room that I’ve been thinking about a lot over these last few weeks. It’s the fact that, demographically, if we’re being honest: I have more in common with the fans in the crowd at your average NBA game than I have with the players on the court,” Korver wrote.

Korver said he’s finally come to the conclusion that being white offers him the choice whether to be involved in the conversation about the double standard in society involving white and black Americans, a privilege the many minority players in the NBA and WNBA simply aren’t afforded.

“How can I — as a white man, part of this systemic problem — become part of the solution when it comes to racism in my workplace? In my community? In this country?” Korver asked. “I know that, as a white man, I have to hold my fellow white men accountable. We all have to hold each other accountable. And we all have to be accountable — period.”

Korver’s essay was widely shared across social media, and praised by many notable individuals, including his former Cleveland Cavaliers teammate LeBron James.

Also taking to Twitter to praise Korver’s essay was Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins, an outspoken advocate for criminal justice reform who protested racial injustice by raising his fist in the air while the national anthem played ahead of NFL games.

Korver was initially drafted by the New Jersey Nets during the 2003 draft, but was immediately traded to the Sixers, where he played four full seasons before being traded to the Jazz midway through the 2007-08 season. Korver has also played for the Cavaliers, the Chicago Bulls, and the Atlanta Hawks during the course of his 16-season career.