Kobe Bryant took to Twitter on Thursday to fire back at Jim Brown after the legendary NFL player and civil rights activist slighted him on The Arsenio Hall Show this week.
Bryant is African American but spent several years as a kid living in Italy, where his father played after his NBA career ended. Bryant speaks fluent Italian and his upbringing in Europe was the crux of Brown's criticism.
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Brown was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1971, but is also well-known for his activism. When Hall asked him about Bryant, Brown said, in part, "He is somewhat confused about culture, because he was brought up in another country so it doesn't quite fit what's happening in America."
Back in 1967, Brown helped organize a summit in Cleveland where himself and other prominent African American athletes such as Bill Russell and Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) met with Muhammad Ali when the boxer drew controversy for opposing the Vietnam War and refusing to be drafted into the U.S. Army. Brown and other athletes eventually gave Ali their public support.
Keep that context in mind when considering Brown's next Hall Show quote about Bryant.
"There was some athletes we didn't call," Brown said. "So if I had to call that summit all over again, there would be some athletes I wouldn't call and Kobe would be one of them."
Bryant, unsurprisingly, was nonplussed by Brown's analysis. Here's his Thursday response, in which he references recently deceased Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr.
A "Global" African American is an inferior shade to "American" African Americans?? #hmm.. that doesn't sound very #Mandela or #DrKing sir
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) December 12, 2013
Here's full video of Brown's comments:

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