Thank You, Mark Cuban, for Speaking Up

the only way to address Cuban’s biases, and the views of millions of others who think like him, is to create a space where those views can be heard. Conversely, the way we get the Donald Sterlings of tomorrow is by shutting up the Mark Cubans of today. If the misguided views that each of us hold about other groups are allowed to fester in the dark, they will become more caustic, bitter. Eventually, they’ll explode into the light—maybe through a surreptitious recording, maybe a nasty outburst in a diner, or maybe in other, darker ways.

Mark Cuban: I’m glad you made your implicit biases explicit. If we ever have a chance to talk, I’ll tell you what I know about those young men in hoodies—they’re probably a lot more like you than you think. And yes, I’m going to talk a bit about history, like Ta-Nehisi Coates did this week, because you need to know that, too. Then you can tell me about those white guys in hidden boardrooms that sometimes scare the crap out of me. We’ll have a real conversation, not some phony PC charade where everyone lives in fear of a soundbite or a negative headline.

Because ultimately, that’s the only way we’ll figure this stuff out—this painful, hidden, hurtful stuff called race.