Mark Cuban feuds with Bomani Jones on Twitter about race comments

It was only a matter of time until someone responded to Mark Cuban’s candid comments about fear and race. That someone was journalist Bomani Jones. The forum? Sweet, sweet, twitter.

It started here with Cuban’s comments, which outlined his basic fears that he makes no apology for:

"If I see anybody that looks threatening, and I try not to, but part of me takes into account race and gender and image. I’m prejudiced. Other than for safety issues, I try to always catch my prejudices and be very self-aware."

It’s comforting that in this ultra-sensitive age, someone like Cuban can admit the true feelings that he has that likely everyone has to some degree in some situation. He’s not saying all people of one race should be scary to others. He’s saying what scares HIM. Either way, it’s 2014, and it was only inevitable that someone would respond. Fortunately, his dissenter had solid reasoning.

Here was the first exchange:

Again, this was the crux of Cuban’s argument. It’s not what makes him afraid, it’s the fact that something makes him afraid and he can’t help it. Much like none of us can truly quell our own fears and insecurities. The two weren’t done there though.

Go on…

From there, they basically kiss and make up. No one seemed particularly steamed, and Jones appreciated the candor of Cuban.

This discourse reveals two major things to me. 1) Mark Cuban thought his position out well before he said anything a couple days ago. The Sterling case has been a touchy issue, but Cuban clearly feels a certain way about it and he won’t back down. 2) Jones makes a great point about the triggers to our fear and the inherent racism behind them. Yes, it’s wonderful that someone can admit they approach the world with flawed preconceptions. That doesn’t make our own flaws any less admirable or any less of something that we should all be working on.

As long as this Donald Sterling fiasco rages on, we’ll have discourses like this. Instead of getting fired up by them, we should be examining them so that maybe we can learn something about how this issue affects others and how it affects ourselves. If we only accomplish that much, then this mess will have at least been for the better in some small way.