FanHouse Darfur

A year after getting blasted by everyone under the sun for refusing to sign a letter by Ira Newble condemning China for its role in the Darfur genocide, LeBron James is finally willing to talk about the situation. Even if he's not really saying anything.

On Friday, James agreed to an interview with ESPN for Outside the Lines, and agreed to talk about the Darfur situation, defended his reputation, and stressed the importance of the situation, all without actually saying anything negative about China. He did stress that the situation is "about human rights" and that he does support Newble, even if he's not signing the letter yet. He was careful to indicate that he wanted the Olympic participants to come up with a group decision regarding the situation, which sounds an awful lot like cover.

But at the same point. James doesn't have to come out, political guns firing at China. All he has to do is raise the awareness of the issue and all he has to do in order to accomplish that is raise the subject matter. As long as he spurs the conversation with his massive public profile, he's succeeding in the really important fight. Letting people know about one of the worst atrocities in human history that continues to go on under our noses.

If you recall, Darfur has been a pretty hot topic in the NBA for a while now: first there was Ira Newble starting a petition on the Cavs to help out, then there was LeBron James and Damon Jones declining to sign the petition, and then more recently Tracy McGrady visiting the refugee camps and then starting the T-Mac Alliance to raise money for refugees. No word on whether or not he actually spoke with Kobe Bryant about it, but judging by this Public Service Announcement for AID Still Required that landed on Youtube today, there's a pretty decent chance.



Good for Kobe. The cynical part of me wants to look too harshly at his 180 degree publicity spins over the past few years and question this, but all skepticism aside, we need more athletes to speak out for the causes that inspire any sort of emotional response out of them; the big corporate images that people like LeBron are so wanton to protect oftentimes make us lose sight of that secretly fine line that separates athletes from the rest of the normal population.

We first talked about Tracy McGrady's activism regarding Darfur this past September, and he's still doing his part to raise awareness. With the Rockets in Orlando for a game against the Magic on Friday, McGrady spent part of Thursday afternoon at his former high school in nearby Auburndale, FL to officially launch a new humanitarian project. From the Lakeland Ledger:

Included in McGrady's presentation will be a pledge of $75,000 to build a school in the Djabal Camp in eastern Chad, an area of north Africa visited by McGrady last summer. The money will also help train teachers and provide a year's worth of school materials, clothing and other essentials for students.

McGrady has formed the T-Mac Alliance, which will work with other charitable groups to raise funds in support of education for Sudanese refugees.

Auburndale High School will also be named a sister school to the one being built. The 400 students in attendance also saw footage from "Not a Game," McGrady's soon-to-be-completed documentary about his visit to Darfur this past summer. In addition to the school, McGrady is also soliciting support from the league and other NBA stars to raise millions of dollars to provide relief to refugees from Darfur. Regardless of what you think about McGrady as a player, it's refreshing to see a superstar use his position and resources for something other more than just selling more sneakers. (Cough, LeBron, cough)