Mark Cuban and the Meaning of Racism
By Phil Daniels
Last night, I went to bed agitated after reading a column by Bleacher Report’s Jim Cavan that curiously argued Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said something “kind of racist.” The current version of that piece can be found here—I emphasize “current” because after immediate backlash, Bleacher Report began substantively editing the piece on the fly, as of yet offering no record of post-published modifications but for a change of headline notification.
This morning, I woke up literally flabbergasted at various takes regarding Mark Cuban’s comments. While the public at large seems to have to largely defended Cuban, many members of the media and readers alike have apparently doubled down on the “Mark Cuban said something racist” card. This in turn snowballed into accusations that Mark Cuban is not just a person who said something racist but also is an actual racist.
His allegedly racist comments? At Inc. Magazine’s GROWCO 2014 conference, Cuban said in relevant part:
"I know I’m bigoted in a lot of different ways. 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… No one has pure thoughts… but it’s about recognizing when you have thoughts that aren’t right."
I’ve read that quotation in context and out of context several times. I have also listened to the actual audio from the conference a couple of times. And I cannot for the life of me comprehend how anyone could assert in good faith that what Mark Cuban said was racist.
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We have all heard the metonym “the pen is mightier than the sword” adapted from Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1839 play Richelieu: Or the Conspiracy. Piggybacking off of that adage, I can think of something that is figuratively more powerful than an M16 Rifle: the dictionary.
Tricky homonyms aside, the brilliance of language is that individual words each have nuanced, particularized meanings. If the pen is mightier than the sword, and if the dictionary is more powerful than the M16, then the thesaurus is on par with the Nerf Gun. Just because two words have meanings that are similar does not mean that such words should be used interchangeably. “Vile” does not literally mean “repugnant.” “Pollyannaish”does not literally mean “optimistic.” And “racism” does not literally mean “prejudice.”
There are a lot of different dictionaries to choose from. This is not high school, so let’s not use Webster’s. And this is also not college, so let’s not pull out the Oxford English Dictionary. Instead, let’s use Dictionary dot com—the preferred online dictionary stemming from Google searches due presumably to clever search engine optimization and savvy meta data usage.
“Prejudice” is defined as “an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.”
“Racism,” meanwhile, is defined as “a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually by involving the idea that one’s race is superior and has the right to rule others.”
If you want to argue that racism and prejudice mean different things to different people, fine. That’s totally fair. But when alleging that someone is a racist—a de facto and proverbial scarlet letter in 21st century America—you simply cannot be playing games with definitions. There has to be some semblance of standardization, and what better source of standardized terms than the top results of a simple Google search?
Mark Cuban admitted to having prejudices that he acknowledged “aren’t right.” He then previously stated that he would cross the street when encountered by either a black kid in a hoodie late at night or a bald white guy with tattoos all over his face and body. What Cuban was going for when making those statements is rather obvious: the unfortunate realities of functional prejudice in modern society, and how to institute social change moving forward.
Lately, it’s 72 degrees in Dallas at night—not necessarily the weather where one would be needing a hood covering one’s head. If, in the middle of the night, Cuban saw a black person wearing a hood walking toward him, he would acknowledge his prejudice but still cross the street. Better safe than sorry. Or mitigating risk for the business consultancy crowd.
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Similarly, Cuban is walking down that same street. He sees a walking caricature of a Skin Head. Bald. Face tattoos. A tatted up body. Why risk it? Cuban is crossing that street to supposed safety.
In the above hypotheticals, the hooded black kid in the middle of the night might just enjoy wearing the hood of his sweatshirt. He might be walking to his grandmother’s house. But he also might be vaguely up to no good. Choosing to act on the former despite the possibility of the latter is a calculated decision fueled by prejudice—by definition an unfavorable opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge. It is not, however, racism—by definition some semblance of racial superiority.
The same can be said for the aforementioned Skin Head hypothetical. The bald white guy with tattoos everywhere might just be a prominent tattoo artist walking to his studio. Or it might be Chris “Birdman” Andersen in twenty years if he happens to lose his hair or opt for a change in style. But it also might be a dangerous member of society a normal person would rationally want to stay away from.
Donald Sterling is a racist because he seems to genuinely believe in a totemic racial hierarchy. Mark Cuban is prejudiced because he candidly acknowledges making judgments about stereotypical members of various races without evidence.
Donald Sterling is awful because he refuses to acknowledge or even apologize for his racist conduct. Mark Cuban, however, is commendable because he publicly acknowledged the unfortunate realities of his own personal prejudices and actively opines for change.
It is 2014, and our cell phones double as mobile dictionaries. Let’s stop confusing these two very different concepts.