J.R. Smith Gave The Perfect Response When Explaining Why He Doesn't Speak Publicly On Social Issues

Uproxx- Smith would like to speak out, as his friends LeBron and Carmelo have recently, about police violence against African-Americans. But he worries about how he’d be interpreted. “I can’t say what I want and how I want,” he told me. “Because it’s me. When I try to explain myself or express myself, it seems to come off the wrong way. Like, when I was in New York, four or five years ago, the anniversary of September 11th comes up and I make an Instagram post for all the people who died, to celebrate their lives.” 

The post read, “Celebrate the deaths of the people in 9/11!” “I was trying to say, We shouldn’t mourn as much. We should celebrate their legacies,” Smith explained. “Don’t get me wrong: it’s terrible what happened. The families going through it still—it’s horrible. But we should celebrate. That’s what I said. And the way it was interpreted by the New York Post was ‘Yay! They knocked down the towers!’ ”

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Hey, it's not unimportant to be self aware. I think the African American community would agree that Floyd Mayweather could benefit from taking some pointers from J.R. Smith and embracing his inability to formulate thoughts that are fit for the public's consumption. Obviously - as usual - this isn't what J.R. meant to say, but the entirety of that quote loosely translates to "I dunno how to use words good" which makes it one of more honest things that has ever come from its source's mouth.

Poor bastard has so many awesome opinions running around in his brain, but he doesn't have the competence to put them together in a way that doesn't come off as mildly illiterate. He wants to make his stance on police brutality known, but he's scared he can't do so without somehow undermining the cause completely. J.R. Smith may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but he's got the wattage to understand that it's better to let people think you're an idiot than to open your mouth and prove them right. Considering that there people that openly support either of our current Presidential candidates, J.R. Smith might just land himself somewhere in the 30th percentile  if we ranked every person in this country on their perceived intelligence. Not too bad for someone who once implied that we should bust out the balloons and bake a cake for the victims of the most fatal terrorist attack this nation has ever seen.