NBA star LeBron James recently admitted that, due to his upbringing, he initially viewed whites suspiciously, and did not want to be around white people until he learned to give them a chance.
James made his admission on HBO’s The Shop talk show saying that when he first began attending an exclusive, mostly white, private high school in Akron, Ohio, he was not very keen on having to talk to white people, according to TMZ.
In fact, James says that when he first started attending the school, he did not want to make any white friends among his classmates.
“Took me a while to adjust to it … I was like, I’m not f*cking with white people, that was my initial thought to white America,” James admitted.
The newly minted Los Angeles Laker admitted that his “institutionalized” upbringing in the black community taught him that whites did not want what was best for him.
“I’m going to this school to play ball, and that’s it,” James said of his introduction at 14 years of age to white people. “I don’t want nothing to do with white people, I don’t believe that they want anything to do with (me),” he said. “Me and my boys we going to high school together and we here to hoop.”
“It took me a little while to kind of adjust to it,” James added.
But, Maverick Carter, James’ business partner and friend, added that by the end of that first year, James’ friends from the hood and his new white friends from school were all enjoying each other’s company on a regular basis.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.