Cuban: I’d cross the street to get away from a black kid in a hoodie
By
David K. Li
May 22, 2014 | 11:17am
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Photo: Reuters
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Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, addressing the pending NBA vote to oust racist Los Angeles Clippers boss Donald Sterling, confessed that he himself is so “prejudiced” that he would cross the street to avoid “a black kid in a hoodie at night.”
The outspoken hoops executive dropped his racially charged bomb just two days after the NBA formally began the process to boot Sterling, who was caught on tape telling an ex-girlfriend not to bring black friends to Clippers games.
“If I see a black kid in a hoodie at night on the same side of the street, I’m probably going to walk to the other side of the street,” Cuban said at the GrowCo business conference in Dallas on Wednesday.
As if to balance that stunning statement, Cuban said a white person looking like a skinhead would also force him to the other side of the road.
“If I see a white guy with a shaved head and lots of tattoos, I’m going back to the other side of the street,” the basketball team owner and star of the ABC business reality show “Shark Tank” continued.
“If I see anybody that looks threatening, and I try not to, but part of me takes into account race and gender and image,” he said. “I’m prejudiced. Other than for safety issues, I try to always catch my prejudices and be very self-aware.”
Cuban called himself a “hypocrite” for supporting Sterling’s ouster even as he admitted his own biases.
After it was revealed that Sterling chastised gal pal V. Stiviano for having too many black friends and told her to not bring African-Americans to games, Cuban was one of the first owners to caution against immediate action.
Cuban said it would be a “slippery slope” to force Sterling out of his ownership of the Clippers based on taped private chats.
But after NBA Commissioner Adam Silver suspended Sterling for life and launched a move to force him out of Clippers ownership, Cuban came over to the league’s side.
“I also try not to be a hypocrite,” he said. “I know I’m prejudiced. I know I’m bigoted in a lot of different ways.”
Ultimately, Sterling has to go because he’s bad for business, Cuban said. “There is a lot at stake as a whole for the NBA as a business,” Cuban said.
He stood by his statements on Thursday and even thanked ESPN for playing the entire tape of his talk to the GrowCo conference.
Reps for the NAACP, the NBA and its players union did not return messages seeking comment on Cuban.
Cuban on Thursday got into a Twitter spat with sportswriter Bomani Jones, a co-host of ESPN’s daytime talk show “Highly Questionable.”
Jones, who is black, tweeted that Cuban is getting off easy for his incendiary remarks: “We have done a good job of turning Cuban into the honest man who just wants to talk, and the rest are thirsty racists. Bravo.”
Cuban shot back in tweets: “You’re trying to make this about a hoodie. You know damn well its not. It’s about whatever makes You feel threatened . . . The point was that before we can help others deal w racism we have to be honest about ourselves.”
He later apologized to the family of Trayvon Martin, the innocent black Florida teen slain as he walked through a community in a hoodie, but tweeted that otherwise, “I stand by the words and substance of the interview.”
nypost.com/2014/05/22/bigoted-cuban-thinks-hes-a-hypocrite-for-condemning-sterling/
kicking that knowledge.Good point
