Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is slamming LeBron James‘ use of his social media platform after the NBA star posted a meme about COVID-19.
On Friday, the Los Angeles Lakers forward, 36, shared a meme on social media that showed a cartoon illustration of three Spidermen pointing at each other. Each superhero had a label — one being the “flu,” another read “COVID,” while the last figure was marked “cold.”
“🤷🏾♂️ Help me out folks,” James captioned the post, which prompted criticism from commenters — who suggested that the post implies the three illnesses are the same.
In a lengthy essay, Abdul-Jabbar, 74, condemned James’ meme, calling it an “uninformed” post that “puts lives and livelihoods at risk.”
“To directly address LeBron’s confusion, no one thinks colds and the flu aren’t serious,” he said. “Experts agree that COVID-19 is at least 10 times more lethal than the flu. As for the common cold, death is extremely rare.”
The NBA legend also claimed James’ post was “a blow to his worthy legacy,” and doesn’t help with vaccine hesitancy considering the athlete has such a large following.
“With 106 million Instagram followers, making such a post is automatically politically impactful because he questions the validity of the efforts to get the country vaccinated,” Abdul-Jabbar wrote. “As is evident by some of the comments that cheer LeBron’s post, he’s given support to those not getting vaccinated, which makes the situation for all of us worse by postponing our health and economic recovery.”
In September, James shared that he received the vaccination for himself and his family, but said it’s “not my job” to encourage others to do the same.