Despite the tremendous accomplishments of Kevin Durant early on in his National Basketball Association (NBA) career, it seems that some people will attempt to try to destroy him anyway. After doing a random Google and YouTube search on Kevin Durant, one can find a significant amount of negative coverage of his struggles with acne. Kevin Durant is an outstanding African-American male basketball player who does not deserve to be the subject of such hateful attacks. I have seen too many blogs, websites, messageboards, and etc. that are trying to exploit this great African-American male athlete (and genuinely nice guy). This is another attempt to demonize and exploit the African-American male body. The purpose of this article is to provide a counter-narrative to the mean-spirited coverage of Kevin Durant’s acne.

Kevin Durant’s acne is conspicuous. There has to be less ostensible phenomena and more important issues that people can discuss than Kevin Durant’s acne. With so many critical quandaries we face in the world, a number of people have found Kevin Durant’s acne to be worthy of covering. If people were really looking to cover something substantive about him, they would cover the fact that he is a rookie and won the NBA scoring title and the fact that he has led his team to a 2-2 series tie with the defending NBA world champions, the Los Angeles Lakers. He also shutdown Kobe Bryant in the 4^th quarter of Game 3 of the current playoff series against the Los Angeles Lakers. This young star should be commended for his immediate impact in the NBA and for establishing himself already as one of the best players in the NBA.

How has Kevin Durant’s acne hindered him from accomplishing so much in the NBA at a young age? The easy answer to this query is it has not hindered his basketball performance at all. Although it has not hampered his play on the basketball court, we do not know how it has affected him personally, especially in the quiet moments of his life when he is surfing the internet. It cannot be a good feeling to surf the internet and see such egregious coverage of one’s acne problems. The same people who try to exploit Durant’s acne problems for a quick laugh would not like others to take advantage of their problems for a simple laugh.  It would be easier for me to accept this negative coverage of Kevin Durant if he was an arrogant player, but he is a tremendously humble basketball player.

To those bloggers, messageboard authors, website creators, and YouTube contributors who have attempted to exploit Kevin Durant’s acne problems, I simply think you all are simple and mean-spirited people. Before you say something about somebody, start thinking about the full ramifications of your comments. Kevin Durant knows that he has acne problems—he has to live with this reality daily. He does not need to be reminded each time he surfs the internet. When will we reach a day when we love one another much more than we do right now?

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison