Mark Cuban talks about comments on Inside The NBA (Video)
By Mike Dyce
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban made some controversial comments that were taken out of context and misconstrued.
“I also try not to be a hypocrite. I know I’m prejudiced. I know I’m bigoted in a lot of different ways,” Cuban said in an interview. “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.”
That snippet about avoiding “a black kid in the hoodie” was used to paint a different picture of the comments, ignoring the point of Cuban’s overall message. Despite all the backlash, some bad and some positive, Cuban defended his comments and said he doesn’t regret it, adding that he did apologize to the family of Trayvon Martin for the hoodie image he used.
“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.”
Cuban continued to discuss his comments on TNT’s Inside The NBA during the pre-game show. You can watch that interview in its entirety below.
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