Roll over, Donald Sterling, make room for Bruce Levenson, the new NBA target of anti-racist outrage (and a second Jewish person blamed for this rare mischief in the American social milieu)
Atlanta Hawks co-owner Bruce Levenson says he is preemptively selling his controlling interest in the team, because of an email he says he wrote two years ago, in an attempt ”to bridge Atlanta’s racial sports divide, ” AP and Salon Magazine reported.
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Obviously, it didn’t do the job.
Levenson said he sent the email because he was concerned about low attendance on the part of suburban whites. The folks serving staff refers to as “the tippers.”
He says he later realized the email made it seem white fans were more important.
“In trying to address those issues, I wrote an e-mail two years ago that was inappropriate and offensive. I trivialized our fans by making clichéd assumptions about their interests (i.e. hip hop vs. country, white vs. black cheerleaders, etc.) and by stereotyping their perceptions of one another (i.e. that white fans might be afraid of our black fans). By focusing on race, I also sent the unintentional and hurtful message that our white fans are more valuable than our black fans.”
This could also have been the shrewdest attempt at getting rid of a low attendance team. Owner doesn’t want to sell his beloved team, but he has to, because he’s such an irrepressible bigot.
I mean, check out the Hawks attendance – it’s the third worst in the league. Even though it placed 8th in the Eastern conference, ahead of the Knicks, Cleveland, Philadelphua, Boston – it was third worst in the NBA in attendance. Their average for a home game: 14, 339. Their total attendance at home for the season: 587, 927.
Any Microsoft alumnus looking to pick up a loser NBA team for a billion, a billion five?
But this conspiracy thing could be a stretch. Maybe Levenson really is just a pussy?
Rule of thumb – if you get the urge in the middle of the night to write an email – try a stiff drink instead.
If you’re in AA and such, don’t write an email, write it instead on your C drive, using Notepad. And don’t save.
If you happen to save the text – wake up your wife and read it to her, instead of emailing anything. Let her talk you out of it.
Or unplug your computer, that’s good, too. Remove the batteries from your laptop, smash your iPad – because nothing good can possibly come out of an idea you had about bridging the racial divide. Honestly.
Levenson says he regrets the email he did send two years ago, to the team’s co-owners and general manager Danny Ferry, which was ”inappropriate and offensive.”
Sure, in the cool light of day anything you wrote in the middle of the night should have this effect.
Levenson says he voluntarily reported the email to the NBA. That’s realistic. You know they’ll find out, sooner or later. We all have jilted girlfriends and boyfriends who know our passwords.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Sunday the league will work with the Hawks ownership group and CEO Steve Koonin, who now will oversee all team operations, according to the AP.
Levinson statement ended with this:
“If you’re angry about what I wrote, you should be. I’m angry at myself, too. It was inflammatory nonsense. We all may have subtle biases and preconceptions when it comes to race, but my role as a leader is to challenge them, not to validate or accommodate those who might hold them.”
