Dallas Mavericks owner and billionaire businessman Mark Cuban drew attention on Thursday for his comments on bigotry in the NBA and admitting that he has prejudices himself. While he is standing by his overall message, he has apologized to the family of Trayvon Martin for one of the examples he used.
As previously reported Cuban was interviewed by Inc. Magazine for its GrowCo conference in Nashville on Wednesday. Cuban touched on race, as it has become a major topic in the NBA following Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s racist comments.
Cuban said that he has his own prejudices, explaining that no one has completely “pure” thoughts all the time.
“I know I'm prejudiced and I know I'm bigoted in a lot of different ways. If I see a black kid in a hoodie on my side of the street, I'll move to the other side of the street,” Cuban said. “If I see a white guy with a shaved head and tattoos, I'll move back to the other side of the street. None of us have pure thoughts; we all live in glass houses.”
While some may have agreed with the point he was trying to make, Cuban did realize that using “black kid in a hoodie” as an example was in poor taste. In a series of tweets, he apologized to the Martin family, whose 17-year-old son was killed in Florida in 2012 while wearing a hoodie.
“In hindsight I should have used different examples. I didn't consider the Trayvon Martin family, and I apologize to them for that,” he wrote. “Beyond apologizing to the Martin family, I stand by the words and substance of the interview.”
In three more tweets, he continued, “I think that helping people improve their lives, helping people engage with people they may fear or may not understand, and helping people realize that while we all may have our prejudices and bigotries, we have to learn that it's an issue that we have to control, that it's part of my responsibility as an entrepreneur to try to solve it.”
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has asked the franchise owners to vote on keeping or forcing Sterling out of the league. As the Associated Press notes, Cuban has not said which way he will vote. The vote is scheduled for June 3.