The sports world has had relatively few representatives at this week’s Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, but those who have spoken on stage have largely come from basketball. Jason and Jarron Collins, friends of Chelsea Clinton from their time at Stanford, spoke on Monday in support of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy for president and LGBTQ Americans. Yet that short speech will not get nearly the same attention as what basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said on Thursday night.
The 69-year-old Hall of Famer, named a U.S. cultural ambassador by then-Secretary of State Clinton in 2012, opened his speech with a joke at Donald Trump’s expense and a reference to another all-time NBA great.
OK, so Trump voters who think that people who speak out for black rights divide the country definitely aren’t going to like this joke. But it seems pretty clear that a good portion of the Wells Fargo Center crowd loved it.
In truth, this line was not representative of Abdul-Jabbar’s speech. He did not reference basketball at any point, declining to go for a stupid joke about how Clinton will “slam dunk” on Trump in November. Instead, he introduced a video about Captain Humayun Khan, a Muslim-American soldier killed in the Iraq War in 2004.
However, both Kareem’s speech and the video were prelude to the big moment of the segment, a speech from Khan’s father Khzir. With his wife at his side, Khan spoke of his son’s sacrifices, his family’s patriotism, and Trump’s ignorance regarding his Islamophobia and hateful attitudes towards immigrants. The big moment came when Khan pulled out his copy of the constitution and declared that Trump had never truly sacrificed anything or anyone for his country:
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Father of fallen Muslim American soldier calls out Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/GRfk6n8jkv
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Whatever your opinion of Abdul-Jabbar’s opening joke, he succeeded in getting people to pay attention to Khan’s speech, one of the most memorable moments of either party’s convention this July.
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