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All-In [28802]
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Hawks owner selling his shares of the team...
Sep 9, 2014, 1:59 PM
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Now the GM is in hot water over saying something about Luol Deng "having a little bit of African in him," meaning that he was "he’s like a guy who would have a nice store out front but sell you counterfeit stuff out of the back" and that he's "a two- faced liar and a cheat."
I read through the email that the owner wrote and is selling his shares over, and while I can see how it would be offensive, I wasn't sure who it was more offensive to: southern whites, or black people. The implication was that southern whites didn't want to come to Hawks games because they viewed the games as "too black." You could look at that and think that owner was just talking about his own racist views, or you could look at that and interpret it as the owner objectively observing something about racist southern whites. But what if it were actually true that the Hawks aren't attracting enough southern white people to buy their season tickets, and that only being attractive to the black population isn't enough to support their ticket sales? Is what he said then only offensive because of how he said it (I don't remember if the way he said things was inflammatory, but it didn't seem like it)? Or can you simply not observe and say things like that if you want to be associated with the NBA?
I think it's more likely than not that it's just a problem with the Atlanta market. Atlanta fans haven't been great about supporting the Braves, and I would guess their attendance at basketball (and hockey, when they had a team) is lower than you'd expect for the quality of the team, too.
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CU Medallion [66054]
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believe it or not
Sep 9, 2014, 2:01 PM
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they are still in the NBA
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All-In [26968]
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I don't really have a problem with him trying to figure out
Sep 9, 2014, 2:02 PM
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ways to draw in a white demographic. People do this all the time, except you can't say you do it if it involves white people.
MLB has an enormous initiative specifically to draw in African American participants. If what the Hawks owner was saying is racist, then so is that.
Ferry's comments about Deng? Yeah, that's pretty messed up.
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Lot o points [180996]
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Ferry was just reading someone else's comments about Deng.
Sep 9, 2014, 5:34 PM
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Even dumber.
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Rock Defender [53]
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I read it a few times too and my takeaway was that
Sep 9, 2014, 2:03 PM
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it's like hipster now to nail a white guy to the wall when race is spoken of.
He seemed to be talking about possible explanations, didn't seem to be writing in a way that reflected his own views. Or at least not conclusive what his views are.
I thought the Danny F one was worse. Then he said he was just quoting others. For me, either hang Danny F or find out who said that and hang them.
Hard for race to be talked about without someone labeling someone else a racist anymore.
IMO both potentially were worse than D Sterling in certain respects....D-Ster was taped against the law in a pvt convo whereas these fools sent emails on the job.
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Oculus Spirit [79429]
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From what I have read and heard, it sounds to me as if
Sep 9, 2014, 2:05 PM
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he was just making observations about demographics from a business perspective, and really not being that racist. If anything, he was being racist towards white people, but we have to get in a tizzy over anything race related these days, so why not this?
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110%er [6169]
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Legend [17753]
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Levenson seems way to eager to fall on his sword. I suspect
Sep 9, 2014, 6:08 PM
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this is allowing him to sell his stake in the team in a certain way/at a certain speed, so he has chosen this route.
Otherwise it makes no sense.
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