Mark Cuban doesn’t think Donald Sterling should be kicked out of the NBA.
I am not saying that as a fact, I am giving an educated opinion based on his own statements.
“What Donald said was wrong. It was abhorrent,” Cuban said. “There’s no place for racism in the NBA, any business I’m associated with. But at the same time, that’s a decision I make. I think you’ve got to be very, very careful when you start making blanket statements about what people say and think, as opposed to what they do. It’s a very, very slippery slope.”
“How many people are bigoted in one way or the other in this league?” Cuban asked. “I don’t know. But you find one, all of a sudden you say well, you can’t play favorites being racist against African-Americans. Where do you draw the line?”
“But that has nothing to do with the rules that we have to live by,” Cuban said. “There’s a lot of things I don’t agree with that by letter and rule of law has to happen anyway. When you live in a country of laws, you want to support the laws.”
When Cuban was criticized for those comments, he came at the situation from a different angle.
When I was in college a Professor once taught me about how you can make a point without actually saying it directly by using a form of misdirection. You say something inflammatory about yourself, or that has nothing to do with the topic at hand, and people will focus on that while your bigger message is being implanted in their brain.
It is like the movie “Inception”.
Mark Cuban points out an obvious fact with colorful descriptions and we all end up talking about black guys in hoodies and white guys with tats. Meanwhile our brain is saying subconsciously to us…
“Hey, we aren’t perfect, if our skeletons got out of the closet it might look like a cemetery, maybe we been too hard on Sterling”
This is all true. I am big proponent of not being a hypocrite, I hate hypocrisy and people who throw stones from glass houses, so I would agree with Cuban about Sterling except for……..
This isn’t someone who just walked across the street because he was threatened by a black man or white guy with a shaved head. This isn’t someone who just couldn’t keep his sidechick in check. This is a man with 50+ years of treating minorities like sh*t and subhumans.
Do I think private conversations should be made public? Absolutely not, but am I sad that Donald Sterling got caught, not in the least. Donald Sterling has done far worse things than being mad his mistress was hugged up with Magic Johnson. If it took a crazy mistress to bring those things to light, so be it.
That is my problem with Mark Cuban. If the slippery slope means finding out owners of professional sports franchises treat minorities and people like subhumans, then I hope they all fall down that mountain. If Mark Cuban feels the need to protect those owners, then don’t insult our intelligence or deflect our attention away from your true beliefs.
If you think Sterling shouldn’t be ousted, say it with your chest. If you feel you have enough bigotry and prejudice in your heart that would make it OK to give Sterling a slap on the wrist, then just say that. Don’t put the blame on society. Just because Willie thinks all white cops are corrupt, or James thinks all black guys are thugs, it doesn’t excuse Donald Sterling’s 50 years of behavior.
Maybe Mark Cuban is feeling guilty, or maybe he knows other owners who are like Sterling. Maybe his conscious knows that a lot of owners feel the exact way as Sterling does about certain issues and it is bothering him. I understand that, and I can see how that could cause a conflict, but if you aren’t going to out your reasons then we can’t help you. He either needs to get it off his chest or stop trying to play mind games. I couldn’t care less if he wants Sterling to go or stay, but I do care when you try to play people for fools.
Mark Cuban is a very intelligent person and he knows he can’t go too far with this, but this isn’t about our prejudices, this is about Donald Sterling. Don’t try to make us feel guilty for wanting to get rid of someone who has a proven history of racial discrimination because you feel uncomfortable about it. Because if we don’t, that is the real slippery slope.