KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR
(Lew Alcindor)
Actually during this period, automation and other forms of technological unemployment have been far more responsible for the loss of good jobs in America than offshoring which has been far more responsible than competition from immigrants.
He had been born and brought up as a Roman Catholic but converted to Islam. The Catholic Church was for much of European History, the Government or a co-equal of Government in terms of power. As such it primary not only represented the power structure was the power structure and tended to always support the status quo. In America, the Catholic Church was also in a complicated situation. There was extensive anti-Catholic bigotry and sentiment in early America some of which still exists. The South with its poorer level of education and its protestant fundamentalist bent was the source of a disproportionate level of anti Catholicism. The Catholic hierarchy chose not to make a moral issue out of slavery and stayed away from abolitionist coalitions in order to curry favor and have Catholics seen in a favorable light by slave owning southerners who were the power elite. Like the Pope choosing not to combat Hitler given all the German Catholics, the Church generally supported slavery.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is an American former professional basketball player who played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers. During his career as a center, Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), a record 19-time NBA All-Star, a 15-time All-NBA selection, and an 11-time NBA All-Defensive Team member. A member of six NBA championship teams as a player and two more as an assistant coach, Abdul-Jabbar twice was voted NBA Finals MVP. In 1996, he was honored as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. NBA coach Pat Riley and players Isiah Thomas and Julius Erving have called him the greatest basketball player of all time.
