RE: OT: Kobe Bryant Death
Look, I sympathize with the notion that we shouldn't just ignore Kobe's Colorado incident just because he's dead and was really good at basketball. Too often female victims fall into obscurity while their male aggressors are revered and remembered long after. Yet, Kobe was interesting to us because we truly did watch his entire maturation in real time. He was 17! when he came into the league and we saw it all unfold. There's really no pussyfooting around it; Kobe almost certainly did something wrong in Colorado and it's not our place to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it wasn't as bad as the victim claimed. But we also have the freedom to not assume the worst, either. We should be careful never to let the victim's memory go forgotten.
Kobe stayed in the spotlight long after that. He won more championships, he started a beautiful family, he solidi fed his legacy NOT as a top 5, or even top 10, player of all time, but as one of the NBA's biggest cultural icons. The bridge from Jordan to Lebron. The mamba mentality. And every kid my age yelling "Kobe!" when shooting paper into the trash or launching fade aways on the court. He had a reputation as somewhat of an ******* early on. Later in his career, he seemed to embrace life after basketball and many around the league revered him for 1. solidifying the value of unapologetic, make no friends, win at all costs workmanship along the way 2. Finally acknowledging that life perpetuates long after basketball ends, and that his legacy could just as easily be defined by his family, his daughter's basketball team, his media sponsorships, his oscar, and so on...
In the final few weeks Kobe was in the headlines quite a bit. He recently claimed that 3 WNBA players could play in the NBA. He was graceful when Lebron passed him on the scoring list. And there was a meme circulating online of Kobe sitting courtisde with his daughter Gianna and having a heartwarming discussion about basketball.
It's tragic, yet terribly fitting that he died with one of the people he loved most (Gianna), on his way to do one of the things that he loved most (coach basketball). Even if you can never forgive Kobe for what happened in Colorado you can muster the sympathy to feel sorry for his 13-year old daughter and the other 7 people who died in the crash. For the rest of us, and myself included, I think it's fair to remember how Kobe evolved over the last 15 years and judge everything in context of the family and life he had only just begun.
This isn't a plea to forgive sexual abusers or erase the legacy of victims. And it's not an argument as to why Kobe should be forgiven. It's simply acknowledging that life is far too complex to condense into a single lesson. Yesterday was a tough day for a lot of people, so yes, the whole edgy "I never liked him" s*** could have probably waited for awhile.
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