Mark Cuban is one of the more vocal owners in all of the NBA, and he has never been shy to share his opinion on things outside of the sport.
Seeing the currant climate in this country, the Dallas Mavericks owner is speaking out again and just wants white people to talk more about race and privilege in a way that moves the conversation forward.
Cuban spoke about the topic at an invitation-only event called “Courageous Conversation” organized by the Mavericks outside their stadium, according to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon.
“I need all of us to really open up and talk to each other, even when it’s difficult,” Cuban said during his brief speech at the beginning of the event. “Even when it’s not something we’re comfortable with, particularly those of you who look like me, the white people. Because it’s hard to discuss race when you’re white.
“The reality is, to be brutally honest, when people talk about white privilege, we get defensive. We all have this mechanism that I call manufactured equivalency to try to protect ourselves. We’ll say, ‘I have a lot of black friends.’ We’ll say, ‘I grew up in a mixed community, so I’m not like that. I can’t possibly be someone who takes advantage of white privilege,’ and manufacture this equivalency.
“It’s incumbent on us to stop doing that, because that doesn’t move us forward when we do that. That’s part of having a courageous conversation.”
The topic of privilege and the unequal treatment of black Americans has reached a fevered pitch after the horrible video of George Floyd being murdered by a Minneapolis cop as he kept his knee on his neck for eight minutes.
Alongside some of his team’s players, Cuban previously made an appearance at a vigil outside Dallas Police headquarters.
