Atlanta Hawks owner will sell team because of Racist email

For the second time this summer, an NBA team will be sold because of offensive, racially insensitive comments.

Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver made the announcement Sunday morning. The focus here is on a 2012 email in which Levenson indicated that white fans are more valuable than black fans. Levenson, in announcing hs decision to sell, apologized and said he was “truly embarrassed by my words in that email.”

“Over the past several years, I’ve spent a lot of time grappling with low attendance at our games and the need for the Hawks to attract more season ticket holders and corporate sponsors,” Levenson wrote in a statement released by the team. “Over that time, I’ve talked with team executives about the need for the Hawks to build a more diverse fan base that includes more suburban whites, and I shared my thoughts on why our efforts to bridge Atlanta’s racial sports divide seemed to be failing.

“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.

“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.