Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban to White People: ‘We Are the Ones That Need to Change’

Dallas Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban has a message for white people when it comes to race relations in America.

In a Tuesday tweet, Cuban insisted that it is “white people” who “need to change.”

“Dear White People,” he tweeted, “We are the ones that need to change. This is not one man’s story. This is almost every black man’s story. Which is why the problem is ours. We need to find OUR way to change what we do. There is no quick fix. It’s a moral imperative.”

Cuban added that treating people equally is not enough.

“I used to think treating people equally meant treating them the same. Like it was a math equation. I was wrong. I’m learning that treating people equally means treating them with equal amounts of respect, for who they are and what they have experienced,” he wrote.

In the first tweet, Cuban linked to an op written for the college newspaper, Emerson Today, by Emerson College President M. Lee Pelton.

In his op-ed, the college chief called the death of Minneapolis man George Floyd a “legalized lynching.”

“I didn’t sleep Friday night. Instead, I spent the night, like a moth drawn to a flame, looking again and again at the video of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a Minneapolis white police officer. It was a legalized lynching. I also intently watched the fiery protests in American cities,” Pelton wrote in his op-ed.

Pelton angrily added that “Black Americans are invisible to most of white America.” And insisted that, “The persistent structural racism that under girds American society and permits the police and others to kill black people is pernicious and ubiquitous.”

He closed his letter proudly proclaiming that he has “no words of comfort” for America because “they would absolve so many from coming to terms with their own silent complicity in the world in which we live.”

America is irrevocably racist, he said.

“This is not a black problem,” he exclaimed as he ended his piece, “but a structural issue built on white supremacy and centuries of racism. It’s your problem. And until you understand that, we are doomed to relive this week’s tragic events over and over again. What changes will you make in your own life? Begin with answering that question, and maybe, just maybe we will get somewhere.”

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