Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has lived a life of transformational experiences. From a shy tall boy, he rose to become one of the globally known greatest basketball players of all time. In search of his identity, he converted from Christianity to Islam. After his retirement from the sport, he became a documentary maker. Now he is a known writer on some of the topical subjects affecting the American society.
All these experiences coincided or perhaps sprang from America’s own times of tumult in many spheres of national life – political, race and societal.
His latest “Becoming Kareem – Growing Up On and Off the Court” is an autobiographical account of how Kareem acted and grew in life as he made use of the opportunity to play basketball and dealt with racial bias.
Some of the defining events of the modern America that left a lasting impact on African-American community – civil rights movement of the 1960s, the lightning ascendancy of Muhammad Ali to stardom and his global fame, emergence of prominent figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X – took place as Kareem, who was born in 1947, advanced in his life, profession and identity consciousness.
In Becoming Kareem, the author, who is also a cultural ambassador of the United States, candidly discusses and reflects upon factors that shaped his new identity.
He was particularly perturbed by the fact that the same people who professed to follow a religion would justify the historical injustices against the black people. While embracing Islam, he saw the religion as “part of my racial heritage.”
But there was bound to be a reaction to the development.
“Because of my fame as a professional basketball player and because so few Americans knew anything about Islam back in the ‘70s, there was a lot of angry backlash,” he writes, according to an excerpt exclusively shared with EW.
“People did not want me messing with their idea of who I was or what I represented to them. To many, by changing my religion and name, I was no longer the typical American kid playing a typical American sport, embodying typical American values.”
Kareem, who played for Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers also details some dimensions of his sporting career and love for jazz, particularly he was seen as a Muslim jazz enthusiast.
On Becoming Kareem comes out at a time when America again is witnessing some massive changes and challenges as a society and a country. The United States has, undoubtedly, come a long way from the civil rights era in terms of expanding equal access to economic opportunity, realizing political empowerment of the black community but Kareem’s look in the rear mirror could help understand some of the ongoing struggles in the society.
