NBA Owner: "We All Have Prejudices One Way Or Another"

[Jack-Hammer]

All the controversy surrounding Donald Sterling's heated comments doesn't look like it's going away anytime soon. As expected, his comments have stirred up the age old discussions of racial prejudice and how it can be found in every walk of life. In the past several weeks, various other NBA team owners have commented or been the subject of interviews about Sterling and the potential of him being forced to sell the L.A. Clippers.

In a recent interview with Inc. Magazine while at a business conference in Nashville, Tennessee, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban made a few comments that've caused a few eyebrows to be raised and fingers to be wagged. As expected, the issue of Donald Sterling was brought up and Cuban mentioned some of his own bigotry:

"If I see a black kid in a hoodie and it's late at night, I'm walking to the other side of the street. And if on that side of the street, there's a guy that has tattoos all over his face -- white guy, bald head, tattoos everywhere -- I'm walking back to the other side of the street."

Some took exception over the comparison of the hoodie stereotype being compared to that of a white guy with a lot of tattoos. In a five part Tweet, Cuban apologized to Trayvon Martin's parents for any misconceptions that have come about. However, he stood by the context of the answers he gave and called for more tolerance. One of his Tweets stated:

"I think that helping people improve their lives, helping people engage with people they may fear or may not understand, and helping people realize that while we all may have our prejudices and bigotries, we have to learn that it's an issue that we have to control, that it's part of my responsibility as an entrepreneur to try to solve it. It does society no good to respond to someone's racism or bigotry by telling them to 'go take their attitude somewhere else'. It's better to work with them and teach them why their views are wrong."

When asked how he thought the NBA could keep racial bigotry out of the league, Cuban simply responded,

"You can't keep that ugliness out of the league. There's no law against stupid. I learned that a long time ago."

CNN contributor and senior writer for ESPN LZ Granderson feels that Cuban was genuinely trying to have a nuanced conversation, but that he went the wrong way about it. He said he was disturbed that Cuban would compare the two when you consider that the hoodie stereotype has led to the unjust treatment of African Americans, including deaths.

"One has history and the other doesn't or the same sort of emotional response."

He didn't throw Cuban under the bus, he just didn't necessarily agree with the comparison.

"If you listen to the entire interview, he certainly made it sound as if he's going to vote Sterling out, but not without some regret. And he voiced that regret, which is we all have bigotry."

Mark Cuban may not have said his opinion with the politically correct eloquence of a politician but, then again, it was plain spoken honesty. It wasn't necessarily a pleasant honesty, but it's not only an honesty that I believe is correct, it's an honesty that we need a lot more of. Was he suggesting that the hoodie stereotype and the heavily tattooed white guy are equal in terms of personal bigotry? Hell no. But the simple truth of it is, as unpleasant as it may be, is that we've probably all made some sort of snap judgment about someone based simply on physical appearance. Prejudice isn't exclusively reserved for skin color, religious beliefs or sexual orientation, but those are the ones you always hear about. At some point, we've all looked at someone without knowing anything about who they are and made a decision about them. And yeah, quite honestly, that's a form of prejudice.

I know it still goes on in high schools across the country, it certainly did when I was in school. Today, just as in the late 90s, you have various cliques in school that tend to associate with each other while tending to look down on others who aren't like them. You have the "jocks", "drama geeks", "goths", "emos", "freaks", "nerds", etc. and all of them judge each other in many cases without getting to know them. For instance, when you saw a guy in the cafeteria with arms like telephone poles and a chest as solid as a beer keg, many of us thought something like "Guy must pour steroids on his Wheaties every morning in place of milk" or "That guy's IQ falls somewhere between the length of his dick and thickness of his arms."

Cuban's comments may not have been "nuanced", as Granderson put it, but so the hell what? He said it in plain, no nonsense English. He wasn't defending his own personal bigotry, he stated that he has it and that we all do.

 

[LSN80]

I don't think that Cuban's remarks need defended. In fact, I applaud him for sharing them. If what he says causes even one person to take a look at their biases, beliefs, and areas of prejudice, then it was well worth him commenting. With regards to the Sterling issue, Cuban was vocal from the beginning that it's impossible to keep racial bigotry and biases out of the league. Moreso, it's not Cuban's responsibility to try and do so. His job is to sign the checks for his players, sit courtside and yell, and hold a few press conferences. He's not going to change the views of players/owners/employees held since long ago, nor should he have to. If he chooses to try, more power to him, but it's not his job. That goes to people like me.

As a psychologist, I work every day with people whose prejudice and bigotry inevitably come out. The biggest I deal with is misogyny, specifically discrimination and the sexual objectification of women. Men who see women as incapable and undeserving of promotions, or even pay equal to them. Men who believe that in bed, a woman's job is to ensure the male is pleasured. If the man has energy and the desire after, then the woman should be grateful that the man threw her a bone, by pleasuring her in some way. After all, isn't that what they make women's sex toys for? I wish this wasn't so, but this attitude is shared by about 50% of the men in a couple who come to me for counseling.

Cuban:

"If I see a black kid in a hoodie and it's late at night, I'm walking to the other side of the street. And if on that side of the street, there's a guy that has tattoos all over his face -- white guy, bald head, tattoos everywhere -- I'm walking back to the other side of the street."

But unlike Cuban, whose biases are situation specific, misogyny amongst those who practice it is universal.

- All women lack the same intelligence that God gifted men with.
-Women can't handle the pressure of leadership positions at work, church, or at home.
-Women are around for a man's sexual gratification. Outside of that and producing children, they hold little value.

These are beliefs I hear on almost a daily basis, and they can be far more dangerous then those of a Donald Sterling or a Mark Cuban. Where the biases of Sterling and Cuban cause them to avoid such people, as a rule, the prejudices held by certain men against women often lead to confrontation. The best case scenario is verbal abuse, but it often goes the way of the physical. The original belief often stems from childhood, where fathers often perpetuate these ways of thinking by how they treat their wives. These beliefs are further carried into high school and college. This is where girls who simply dress a certain way, have certain body types, and walk a certain way are believed to be "****s" and "****es."

Not to defend this, but by the time a young male has reached the point where he's 'ready' for a serious relationship, what chance does it have to succeed? These beliefs have been engrained in him since childhood, and when he sees a woman act differently, he doesn't know how to treat her. As is the case with breaking any stereotype or prejudice, it takes long, hard introspection and a willingness to be open to more then one possibility regarding a type of person for change to occur.

And when those long, hard looks aren't taken, it can produce anything from a man who can't hold a relationship, to a rapist. A man who is unable to assert his dominance and superiority over a woman in any other way, so he rapes.

I mentioned above that it's not Cuban's responsibility to try and keep bigotry and misogyny(which is rampant in professional sports) and the like out of the NBA, and Cuban himself has mentioned his belief that it's a "lost cause." Combine athletic superiority, which leads to power, and the money that these one-percenters have, and an owner has little power to influence change in that group. Where does his influence lie, then?

Cuban:

"We have to learn that it's an issue that we have to control, that it's part of my responsibility as an entrepreneur to try to solve it. It does society no good to respond to someone's racism or bigotry by telling them to 'go take their attitude somewhere else'. It's better to work with them and teach them why their views are wrong."

It's with the rest of us, those who are malleable. Cuban's right-as an entrepreneur, he has a great responsibility and opportunity to try and teach people how these viewpoints are wrong. He's someone who's "made it", so when people see success, they're far more likely to listen. Even moreso, when someone like Cuban is honest and shares his own biases and prejudices, it allows others to open up about their own as well. Be it race or gender relations, Cuban has the ability to influence change, sometimes simply because he's in a position of power.

As for LZ Granderson's response to Cuban:

"One has history(Blacks in hoodies) and the other doesn't(white, heavily tattoed man) or the same sort of emotional response."

Granderson's issue with Cuban is that he was comparing the two, which I didn't pick up on. If anything, Cuban was saying that he would rather chance the encounter with the black man in a hoodie then he would the white man who is heavily tattooed.

But moreso, what Cuban is doing is sharing the ways he has demonstrated prejudice and bias. And for him to be able to influence change-which he said was his responsibility-identification of ways in which one has shown or demonstrated prejudice is paramount. There was no comparison being made here, Cuban was simply identifying two ways in which he has/does demonstrate(d) prejudice. The topic makes me think of a Brad Paisley song, Accidental Racist, which he recorded with LLCoolJ.

[YOUTUBE]KSurzeGvPrQ?t=27s[/YOUTUBE]

The key part of the song is here, I believe:

I try to put myself in your shoes, and that's a good place to begin
But it ain't like I can walk a mile, in someone else's skin
Cause I'm a white man coming to you from the Southland
Trying to understand what it's like not to be

To me, this is the next step to combating prejudice. Once we've identified our own, as Cuban did, it's paramount we try to understand what it's like to be on the other end of said prejudice. Once again, Granderson has it wrong here, I believe. It seems like that's exactly what Cuban is trying to do. Identify where his prejudice lies and where it came from, and understanding others what it's like to be those people. If anything, Cuban was showing more prejudice towards heavily tattooed whites then blacks wearing hoodies. He said as much when he said he'ld cross back to the side of the road with the black man wearing a hoodie.

I'll take Cuban's brand of honesty over the sugar-coated, watered down kind we generally see from people in his position. His 'unpleasant honesty' is the kind that stirs discussion, and often, self-examination.

The ugliest truth is better then the prettiest of lies, after all.

 

[Mighty NorCal]

What NO ONE got is when you see those clothing or tattoo styles, you are seeing cultures represented. A hoody and saggy pants represents a culture, a bald head and a ton of tattoos represents a culture, a buisness suit and proper English represents a culture. Each culture carries with it certain positive and negative connotations, which would make you avoid or embrace the person wearing them. The only reason we identify race with theae cultures is because one makes up the majority of these cultures. Not the other way around.

You could flip it around and have a white dude dressed in the hoody and same outfit from the example, and the black guy being bald with a bunch of tats, and you will get the same result as what mr Cuban said. Both sets of clothing represent cultures of violence/burglary/hatred/low income. We just associate skin color to which culture we predominantly see them in. IE we see more black people in the "hood" style culture, and more whites in the skinhead culture. But there are plenty of both on each side, and if you switched the outfits, no one would be thinking about skin color when they walked to the other side of the street, they would be thinking of their safety, based on how the perceived threat was dressed. Subliminally, the comparison has very little to do with actual race. The way you present yourself represents which culture you ascribe to in the eyes of many, that is the the big picture here.

Of course all of us will be prejudiced against various cultures, and for good reason...Self preservation. This has not changed in all of history, and will continue to be a part of human civilization into the future. We could all become one "mud race" and there would still be negative views of certain cultures and people who represent said cultures.