This week, I gave a speech at the University of Kentucky. The topic was race and sports, which is something that continues to rattle this poor university. While the school is very good at finding high-quality black basketball and football players, they don't seem to be as energized about finding solid black professors and independent administrators. Their struggle is no different from many universities across America, as race and sports are as closely linked as ketchup and mustard. The view of the black male as a one-dimensional entertainment commodity with a weak moral foundation, lagging intellectual capacity and poor decision-making skills is something that permeates our collective psyche.

During our panel discussion at U. of Kentucky, I thought about LeBron James and "The Decision." If you don't recall, LeBron is the gigantic, hyper-athletic, highly phenomenal athletic specimen that people often confuse with Jesus. When James played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, billboards around the city referred to him as some kind of religious figure, as if the city was witnessing daily miracles on the basketball court. It was all a bit much, but that's the nature of entertainment.

One notable miracle about James' career thus far is that he spent so many years in Cleveland. Yes, Cleveland is a great town, but the rest of us couldn't help but wonder if James belonged on a bigger stage. Out of loyalty to his home state, though, James stayed with the Cavs and toiled to make them better than they've been in quite some time. He even came close to bringing home a title.

The fact that James even considered playing for another team was fundamentally offensive to many Cavs fans who seemed to feel that they owned him. His decision to speak openly about the move offended fans even more. Before you knew it, the golden boy who'd been so loyal to his team for so many years had been turned into a symbol of everything wrong with professional sports. LeBron James was no longer a psuedo-religious figure, he was just another self-centered black athlete.

I found it interesting that in their decision to vilify James for a choice he had the right to make, the media didn't notice that he gave all the proceeds from his "Decision" broadcast to charity. It would seem that an arrogant athlete would keep the money in his own pocket, so the fact that James gave it to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America says that he is probably not as selfish as some might want to believe.

Second, if James were the arrogant jerk he's been made to be in the media, he would have probably left Cleveland long ago. Many athletes with the talent of LeBron James would choose to be in major media markets, where the exposure and endorsement money can be so much greater. I strongly suspect that Nike wanted James out of Cleveland years ago. I would also argue that James' commitment to Cleveland is a sign that he represents all that we want our children to become.

The public fate of LeBron James cannot be disconnected from the way the media and our world views the African-American male athlete. Nearly every other month, the public makes a self-righteous and condescending judgment on some athlete that clearly disconnects from reality. Even if the athlete is a law-abiding, responsible citizen (as LeBron James is), the public may decide that he is somehow "too big for his britches," ungrateful, or just a bad human being. This was most certainly the case when the public chose to attack Terrell Owens, in spite of the fact that he broke no laws and never did anything wrong.

The same paternalism shows itself in how college athletes are analyzed. When I speak around the nation about establishing labor rights for college athletes, I hear many arguments that are uniquely applied to black athletes. Some say the players would only waste the money they'd receive if they were compensated, that they don't deserve more than the other students, and that they should be happy to get a scholarship.

Many of these arguments are almost never applied to head coaches, who earn millions of dollars from the labor of athletes, many of them being black. Additionally, sports that are dominated by black males (football and basketball) are treated very differently from sports dominated by white athletes (golf, tennis, baseball).

In basketball and football, there are quite a few restrictions on the labor rights of athletes, reducing their opportunities to become professional until they reach a certain age. In the other sports, far fewer limitations exist. In other words, our nation has formed a habit of owning black athletes as if they are commodities or livestock.

The tradition of owning athletes showed itself quite clearly in the reactions of Cavs fans to LeBron's decision to take another job. The owner of the Cavs, Dan Gilbert, started the attack with a public assault on James' character, saying that he would not want his children to be like LeBron when they grow up.

Today, there are still sports writers speculating on whether James will ever be able to repair his public image. There are even black commentators who somehow believe that this disaster was all LeBron's doing. All of these critics are not only incorrect, they are falling in to the traps of racism that have tainted our perception of the black male athlete since slavery. LeBron is not a bad person, he's not a demon and he's not a prima donna; he's simply a hard working, incredibly talented kid who decided to take another job. Now let's get off his back and let him play basketball.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action Resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.