Mark Cuban: ‘I’m absolutely, positively, 100 percent proud of everything that I said’
By Mike Dyce
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban made some candid and honest answers about prejudices in our country. It is important to note the difference between prejudices and racism.
“I also try not to be a hypocrite. I know I’m prejudiced. I know I’m bigoted in a lot of different ways,” he said. “I’ve said this before. 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 other side of the street. 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. 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.”
Unfortunately, that snippet about avoiding “a black kid in the hoodie” was used to paint a different picture of the comments and overall point Cuban was making. He took to Twitter to call out offending news outlets, including ESPN, for taking the quote out of context or not showing the interview in its entirety.
Given the response, he could understandably be discourage from being honest in the future. He doesn’t regret what he said.
“I have not gone through any drama. It hasn’t been people coming after me. Everybody has been incredibly supportive,” Cuban said, via the Dallas Morning News. “I have shown it to my family and talked about it with them. I’m proud of it. I’m absolutely, positively, 100 percent proud of everything that I said, other than I picked some poor examples. Just for the record, I reached out to the Martin family and sent them an email. They responded, so I feel good that I did that as well.”