MIAMI (AP) — Heat forward LeBron James says he isn’t affected by people sending him negative and often racially charged messages on Twitter.

James posted a message on Tuesday on the social networking site inviting “haters” to get their “2 mins of fame and light!” by posting something negative about him. About three hours later, James forwarded a negative message from someone who used a racial slur so it could be viewed by all 900,000 of his followers.

James said Wednesday that he retweeted the one message in particular so people could see how athletes can be magnets for remarks like those, adding that “everybody thinks it is a bed of roses and it’s really not.”

Hundreds of other negative messages were addressed to James as well, although it’s unclear how many of those he actually viewed.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.