NBA's Kyle Korver talks white privilege and responsibility in Players' Tribune article

NBA veteran Kyle Korver wants to talk about his white privilege.

And in his first article for The Players' Tribune, the Utah Jazz forward does exactly that.

The one-time NBA All-Star and four-time NBA three-point percentage leader led the article by addressing an incident in which former Atlanta Hawks teammate Thabo Sefolosha had his leg broken by the New York Police Department.

In the article, Korver recounts immediately feeling suspicious: "Before I knew the full story, and before I’d even had the chance to talk to Thabo ... I sort of blamed Thabo," he said. 

Korver now feels ashamed of thinking that.

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His thoughts have turned again to his role as a white player in a predominantly black league in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook's heckling by a racist Utah Jazz fan. 

Discussions among teammates and Jazz team management follow the incident with Westbrook and remind Korver of how he felt after the incident with Sefolosha: not strictly culpable but somehow responsible. 

"There’s an elephant in the room that I’ve been thinking about a lot over these last few weeks," Korver said. "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.

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Korver reckons with the material reality of the NBA in an honest and self-critical way. He says he has come to realize that it's not enough to support NBA or WNBA players of color and leave it at that. The section ends with a vow to continue to listen as he continues to grapple with his place in a world burdened by systemic racism.

He goes on to make the defining statement of the article, stating the conclusion he has arrived at after a great deal of thought. 

Korver has claimed to have thought a great deal about "guilt" and "responsibility" and the role of those things — everything from racism in the NBA to health care and reparations.

He doesn't believe white people are guilty for the brutal history of slavery they are heirs to, but does believe they have some responsibility for the way that history has shaped the present. 

"It’s about responsibility," he said in the article. "It’s about understanding that when we’ve said the word 'equality' for generations, what we’ve really meant is equality for a certain group of people. It’s about understanding that when we’ve said the word 'inequality' for generations, what we’ve really meant is slavery, and its aftermath — which is still being felt to this day. It’s about understanding on a fundamental level that black people and white people, they still have it different in America. And that those differences come from an ugly history … not some random divide."

The article ends with a reminder that the NBA is currently made of and was largely built by black people, along with a vow from Korver to continue to "shut up" and listen as he continues to grow and find ways to affect positive change in the league and the world.