OT:Hawks Owner Levensen to sell team after 2012 racist email

[Ari_Emanuel]

The email was released. You can definitely see how white fans are portrayed as more valuable than black fans

1
4. Regarding game ops, i need to start with some background. for the first couple of years we owned the team, i didn't much focus on game ops. then one day a light bulb went off. when digging into why our season ticket base is so small, i was told it is because we can't get 35-55 white males and corporations to buy season tixs and they are the primary demo for season tickets around the league. when i pushed further, folks generally shrugged their shoulders. then i start looking around our arena during games and notice the following:

-- it's 70 pct black

-- the cheerleaders are black

-- the music is hip hop

-- at the bars it's 90 pct black

-- there are few fathers and sons at the games

-- we are doing after game concerts to attract more fans and the concerts are either hip hop or gospel.

Then i start looking around at other arenas. It is completely different. Even DC with its affluent black community never has more than 15 pct black audience.

Before we bought the hawks and for those couple years immediately after in an effort to make the arena look full (at the nba's urging) thousands and thousands of tickets were being giving away, predominantly in the black community, adding to the overwhelming black audience.

My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent black fans to build a signficant season ticket base. Please dont get me wrong. There was nothing threatening going on in the arean back then. i never felt uncomfortable, but i think southern whites simply were not comfortable being in an arena or at a bar where they were in the minority. On fan sites i would read comments about how dangerous it is around philips yet in our 9 years, i don't know of a mugging or even a pick pocket incident. This was just racist garbage. When I hear some people saying the arena is in the wrong place I think it is code for there are too many blacks at the games.

I have been open with our executive team about these concerns. I have told them I want some white cheerleaders and while i don't care what the color of the artist is, i want the music to be music familiar to a 40 year old white guy if that's our season tixs demo. i have also balked when every fan picked out of crowd to shoot shots in some time out contest is black. I have even bitched that the kiss cam is too black.

Gradually things have changed. My unscientific guess is that our crowd is 40 pct black now, still four to five times all other teams. And my further guess is that 40 pct still feels like 70 pet to some whites at our games. Our bars are still overwhelmingly black.

This is obviously a sensitive topic, but sadly i think it is far and way the number one reason our season ticket base is so low.

And many of our black fans don't have the spendable income which explains why our f&b and merchandise sales are so low. At all white thrasher games sales were nearly triple what they are at hawks games (the extra intermission explains some of that but not all).

Regardless of what time a game starts, we have the latest arriving crowd in the league. It often looks and sounds empty when the team takes the floor.

In the past two years, we have created a section of rowdy college students that has been a big plus. And we do a lot of very clever stuff during time outs to entertain the crowd. Our kiss cam is better done than any in the league.

We have all the same halftime acts that other arenas have but i question whether they make sense. people are on their cell phones during half time. i wonder if flashing on the scoreboard "$2 off on hot dogs during halftime tonight" just as the half ends would be a better use of our halftime dollars and make the fans happier.

We do all the usual giveways and the fans are usually their loudest when our spirit crew takes the floor to give away t-shirts. It pisses me off that they will yell louder for a t-shirt then for our players.

Our player intro is flat. We manufacture a lot of noise but because of the late arriving crowd and the fact that a lot of blacks dont seem to go as crazy cheering (another one of my theories) as whites, it is not great. Even when we have just returned from winnng four straight on the road, i am one of the few people in the arena standing and cheering when our team takes the floor. Bob has kicked around ideas like having the starters coming down aisles rather than off the bench during intros. Sounds cool but may highlight all the empty seats at the start of games.

Not enough of our fans wear hawks jerseys to games. i have just begun to push for ideas like discount food lines for folks wearing jerseys, special entrances, etc. I think we need a committed and perhaps incentivized fan club. We need to realize atl is simply different than every other city. Just adopting nba best practices is not enough. we have to create our own.

I am rambling and could probably go on forever. If you have any specific areas you would like my thoughts on, let me know.

Best,

Bruce

ps -- I have cc'd todd and ed so they can chime in with additional or different thoughts.

Sent from my iPad

Honestly, as a black man who also happens to be a business man, I really wasn't offended by this email. Obviously the whole subject matter can easily be interpreted as racist but where do you draw the line!? Mind you I only perused a few paragraphs so if there was anything in there that was actually malicious please flame away.

The guy is trying to fill the arena & is dealing with issues that are real but also happen to be hurtful to people. I don't know what else to say. Our society is complicated.

[Rapsalot]

I don't think it's that at all. He seems to be blaming white people being racist for people not wanting to buy. He's saying that there's a "black culture" going on in the Phillips Arena that's scaring white people away from their games, and that they should change that up so they can appeal to their white fans more and bring in more season ticket holders.

Agree he is finding an excuses for his management team's poor product on race relations. He may also be poorly informed that the Corporate folks that purchase many of the season tickets don't like the "black culture" when in fact they don't like the Hawks product. A "winning culture" with marketable players would solve this not a move from "black to white culture". Out of touch for sure malevolent maybe?

Really? Excuses for team's poor product? Marketable players? Is that why you think they have attendance issues?
The Hawks currently have the second longest playoff streak in the NBA ( 7 straight). Second to none other than Spurs. Spurs doesn't even have any marketable players.

They are inexplicably in bottom attendance every year despite doing relatively well. He is the owner so the guy is just thinking of all possible reasons why that might be to discuss with the GM

You only read the pull quote not my original about the real reason attendance is low not the flawed race angle from owner. Let's take spurs, no other pro sports, no other big time college football (dominance of South US). Less NaSCAR in that area of Tx, See original post from me. Tim Duncan and Tony Parker way more marketable than any player Hawks have had in 20 years. Also "winning culture". Not every year playoff one and done sweep sometimes. You can compare the spurs to Hawks but it is not a good one. Miami attendance not great and for sure empty purchased seats. Put a winner on the court and marketable players Wade + James and sell outs. Look at Pistons a city with 4 major sport with a winning culture in early 2000s sell outs. Now they give away tickets just like Hawks were doing.

[dagger]

Agree he is finding an excuses for his management team's poor product on race relations. He may also be poorly informed that the Corporate folks that purchase many of the season tickets don't like the "black culture" when in fact they don't like the Hawks product. A "winning culture" with marketable players would solve this not a move from "black to white culture". Out of touch for sure malevolent maybe?

From my personal knowledge of places like Atlanta and Memphis, which has a similar racial history and breakdown, race is a tough issue to deal with. You have no idea how big the divide is there.

Sorry Dagger: I have to disagree with you when most often I agree. It is and always has been a tough issue just like religious tolerance. I travel extensively in the south. To cities like Atlanta and Memphis but also rural places Brewton, AL, Macon, Ga, Calhoun, TN, Vicksburg, Ms, Monroe, La just to name a few. Is there a race divide in some folks hearts? Sure! Is it exaggerated by US media? Sure as well! You can find as much or more racism in south Philly as you can in Vicksburg if you look for the true sense of word/feeling. Have a good day.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Yes, there is racism in South Philly and on Boston's North Side. My experience, shaped by discussions with people in my organization from the north who moved into the south, is that they have been staggered by the know-your-place attitude of superiority of whites in states like Georgia and northern Mississippi. In places like South Philly, you have a lot of economic competition - poor whites vs poor blacks set the tone. In Boston, it was often poor black against poor Irish. In the deep south, it's poor white vs poor black but also well-to-do and rich whites co-opting the political structure. The gerrymandering of the south and western farm states to dumb down the voting power of blacks is epic. Go to Texas and see how the Republican dominated state legislature has carved out absurd districts to ensure than blacks vote in massively black/hispanic districts to project the majority of white dominated seats.

[dagger]

Agree he is finding an excuses for his management team's poor product on race relations. He may also be poorly informed that the Corporate folks that purchase many of the season tickets don't like the "black culture" when in fact they don't like the Hawks product. A "winning culture" with marketable players would solve this not a move from "black to white culture". Out of touch for sure malevolent maybe?

Really? Excuses for team's poor product? Marketable players? Is that why you think they have attendance issues?
The Hawks currently have the second longest playoff streak in the NBA ( 7 straight). Second to none other than Spurs. Spurs doesn't even have any marketable players.

They are inexplicably in bottom attendance every year despite doing relatively well. He is the owner so the guy is just thinking of all possible reasons why that might be to discuss with the GM

You only read the pull quote not my original about the real reason attendance is low not the flawed race angle from owner. Let's take spurs, no other pro sports, no other big time college football (dominance of South US). Less NaSCAR in that area of Tx, See original post from me. Tim Duncan and Tony Parker way more marketable than any player Hawks have had in 20 years. Also "winning culture". Not every year playoff one and done sweep sometimes. You can compare the spurs to Hawks but it is not a good one. Miami attendance not great and for sure empty purchased seats. Put a winner on the court and marketable players Wade + James and sell outs. Look at Pistons a city with 4 major sport with a winning culture in early 2000s sell outs. Now they give away tickets just like Hawks were doing.

Nonsense. There are a lot of middling teams that do well. The Jazz were 12th in attendance last season. They have been bad since Sloan left. The Celtics were 14th in attendance and were as bad as expected. The Suns, on the other hand, had a fun, exciting team and finished 24th. By the way, the Heat pre-Lebron were 15th in 2010 with over 17,700 fans per game. Which is not exactly terrible for a team that was fifth in the East that year. The Hawks were third in the East that year. They were 18th in attendance, in a tier 1,200 per game below the 17th place Magic.

[track kingz]

I'd hate to be a dick but if I just saw that Sterling sold the clips for over 2 billion dollars I'd be sending out racist emails too.

lol


















yes, I know the emails were from before...

[Rapsalot]

Really? Excuses for team's poor product? Marketable players? Is that why you think they have attendance issues?
The Hawks currently have the second longest playoff streak in the NBA ( 7 straight). Second to none other than Spurs. Spurs doesn't even have any marketable players.

They are inexplicably in bottom attendance every year despite doing relatively well. He is the owner so the guy is just thinking of all possible reasons why that might be to discuss with the GM

You only read the pull quote not my original about the real reason attendance is low not the flawed race angle from owner. Let's take spurs, no other pro sports, no other big time college football (dominance of South US). Less NaSCAR in that area of Tx, See original post from me. Tim Duncan and Tony Parker way more marketable than any player Hawks have had in 20 years. Also "winning culture". Not every year playoff one and done sweep sometimes. You can compare the spurs to Hawks but it is not a good one. Miami attendance not great and for sure empty purchased seats. Put a winner on the court and marketable players Wade + James and sell outs. Look at Pistons a city with 4 major sport with a winning culture in early 2000s sell outs. Now they give away tickets just like Hawks were doing.

Nonsense. There are a lot of middling teams that do well. The Jazz were 12th in attendance last season. They have been bad since Sloan left. The Celtics were 14th in attendance and were as bad as expected. The Suns, on the other hand, had a fun, exciting team and finished 24th. By the way, the Heat pre-Lebron were 15th in 2010 with over 17,700 fans per game. Which is not exactly terrible for a team that was fifth in the East that year. The Hawks were third in the East that year. They were 18th in attendance, in a tier 1,200 per game below the 17th place Magic.

Back at you nonsense. Hawks attendance increased 50-100% D Wilkins years going to playoffs to compete with Boston and Bulls. My original idea ATL is not a great fan base and lots of things to do in town. See Hockey teams failing too. Jazz only pro team not market compatible with multi major sports and college football. Celtics history like Leafs sellout even though they are challenged. Suns nice team now but takes a could of good years after team is bad for a while. Heat pre LeBron 17,700 purchased or actual? Some place do seat purchased and I can believe that I went to a few games after Wade Shaq half full but announced 16,800 something I was like yea right? I've been to more bulls games when they sellout it was packed in the lean years not so much but number only dipped 2500?

[Danchan]

Honestly, as a black man who also happens to be a business man, I really wasn't offended by this email. Obviously the whole subject matter can easily be interpreted as racist but where do you draw the line!? Mind you I only perused a few paragraphs so if there was anything in there that was actually malicious please flame away.

The guy is trying to fill the arena & is dealing with issues that are real but also happen to be hurtful to people. I don't know what else to say. Our society is complicated.

that's because you are the 10%

[PapeSowish]

Agree he is finding an excuses for his management team's poor product on race relations. He may also be poorly informed that the Corporate folks that purchase many of the season tickets don't like the "black culture" when in fact they don't like the Hawks product. A "winning culture" with marketable players would solve this not a move from "black to white culture". Out of touch for sure malevolent maybe?

From my personal knowledge of places like Atlanta and Memphis, which has a similar racial history and breakdown, race is a tough issue to deal with. You have no idea how big the divide is there.

Sorry Dagger: I have to disagree with you when most often I agree. It is and always has been a tough issue just like religious tolerance. I travel extensively in the south. To cities like Atlanta and Memphis but also rural places Brewton, AL, Macon, Ga, Calhoun, TN, Vicksburg, Ms, Monroe, La just to name a few. Is there a race divide in some folks hearts? Sure! Is it exaggerated by US media? Sure as well! You can find as much or more racism in south Philly as you can in Vicksburg if you look for the true sense of word/feeling. Have a good day.

I'd like to add to this as a person of color who grew up in the South not far from the ATL.

I also spent some of my life in NYC, South FL, and Western Massachusetts. I encountered more racism and segregation in just a few years in those places than I ever did while growing up around Georgia, NC, and SC. I also realized a lot of my white friends up North had no problem disparaging Southern folks for their rampant racism when certain race-related topics came up, yet were COMPLETELY blind to the racism around them. It showed me that centralizing racism to "the South" is detrimental to the people who are frequently victims of racism. Racism thrives ALL over North America. People of marginalized ethnicities know this best but I feel like some white folks don't wanna be taken out of their comfort zone and realize it's in their own backyard as well.

I think a subtle example from a societal POV is when a well-know person from the South is outed as a racist, it's usually because "that's the way they were raised", "it's their hateful nature", etc yet any other region and you'll start hearing about how they're mentally ill (Tom Cruise) or they're senile (Sterling) as relevance to their behavior.

As far as Levensen goes, it doesn't really offend me the way Sterling's words did but something about his ramblings seem off-base and awkward, regardless of his intentions. I know he's a businessman and his job is to sell tickets but I think the "too black" angle isn't the answer, especially attacking it in that manner which is probably why he knows he should step down. Memphis is a place with similar racial demographics in their city and arena but they seem to be doing pretty well from an outside perspective. I'd like to see a comparison of the two by the numbers though.

[beanbag]

I can't believe more people don't see how racist this email is. It seems as though a lot of you are focusing on the fact that the owner 'acknowledges' that the white people being scared of black people is racist and then say 'well he is just pointing out how racist his white fan base is'.

Yes and no.

He certainly does point out how racist his white fan base is......but the entire point of his email is to cater to that racist white fan base at the expense of the black fan base. The email could have been much shorter and gotten the same point across. It could have simply read 'Our white fans are scared of our black fans....we need to get rid of the black fans and replace them with more white fans'. If that isn't the epitome of racism then I don't know what is. The fact that 'he is trying to make money' doesn't make it any less racist.

[Harold_and_Kumar]

It's like people don't realize that words have a lasting impact and shape the way people view others and society. Said once, to one person, sure what he said isn't the worst thing to ever be said but as soon as a sentiment spreads that African Americans aren't good fathers (or whatever the stereotype is) it becomes a pejorative truth (much as it has in this email despite contrary evidence). Then people start making decisions on these preconceived notions and it fosters a divide between the two groups. Add a number of these up and we see what happens.

It seems to most this isn't a big deal because "he's just trying to make some money and run a business" as if he's the mom and pop at the corner store lol. It just makes you think what people will do for money or riches to the point where it trumps decency and personal ethics. If someone is being racist for the purposes of making money, it isn't so bad. He can point out all the problems with one race at work because "that's just business" and then go home and be completely neutral; that seems so hypocritical to me (not that he's the only person doing this).

Before I get jumped all over, I understand he wasn't 5 sterlings on the scale, but he's still a 1 sterling and to me that's akin to "Naw, I don't beat my wife 5 days a week that's lunacy, I just beat her once."

To the reverse racism guy, open your eyes mate. The legislation to make people equal under the law has worked to a degree but has fostered this weird colour-blindness where people are allowed to forget that despite one day making people equal under the law, it doesn't reverse the multiple years of family connections, income, homes, etc. spread throughout a family. I don't know the numbers off the top of my head so I'll approximate but a white (could also be non-immigrant) American family with a $20,000 income has more wealth on average than an African American family with $60,000 annual income. Just because someone is equal under the law doesn't make them equal - we need to take into account opportunity and access. I haven't even hit on reversing the mistrust and shame that can't be reversed in one day or even one generation.

To me it's like deciding to start a 100m race. Sure now we've let everyone into the race, but we've started some people at 90m, some at 50m and some at the starting blocks but are nonetheless pretending it's equal and fair.

[Ari_Emanuel]

Honestly, as a black man who also happens to be a business man, I really wasn't offended by this email. Obviously the whole subject matter can easily be interpreted as racist but where do you draw the line!? Mind you I only perused a few paragraphs so if there was anything in there that was actually malicious please flame away.

The guy is trying to fill the arena & is dealing with issues that are real but also happen to be hurtful to people. I don't know what else to say. Our society is complicated.

that's because you are the 10%

You might be right... but I'm the 10% of the black population, I'm not in the 10% of the total population.

I want to correct myself - when I said "businessman", I meant "business professional". I am not wealthy (yet at least).

[Ari_Emanuel]

It's like people don't realize that words have a lasting impact and shape the way people view others and society. Said once, to once person, sure what he said isn't the worst thing to ever be said but as soon as a sentiment spreads that African Americans aren't good fathers (or whatever the stereotype is) it becomes a pejorative truth (much as it has in this email despite contrary evidence). Then people starting making decisions on these preconceived notions and it fosters a divide between the two groups. Add a number of these up and we see what happens.

It seems to most this isn't a big deal because "he's just trying to make some money and run a business" as if he's the mom and pop at the corner store lol. It just makes you think what people will do for money or riches to the point where it trumps decency and personal ethics. If someone is being racist for the purposes of making money, it isn't so bad. He can point out all the problems with one race at work because "that's just business" and then go home and be completely neutral; that seems so hypocritical to me (not that he's the only person doing this).

Before I get jumped all over, I understand he wasn't 5 sterlings on the scale, but he's still a 1 sterling and to me that's akin to "Naw, I don't beat my wife 5 days a week that's lunacy, I just beat her once."

To the reverse racism guy, open your eyes mate. The legislation to make people equal under the law has worked to a degree but has fostered this weird colour-blindness where people are allowed to forget that despite one day making people equal under the law, it doesn't reverse the multiple years of family connections, income, homes, etc. spread throughout a family. I don't know the numbers off the top of my head so I'll approximate but a white (could also be non-immigrant) American family with a $20,000 income has more wealth on average than an African American family with $60,000 annual income. Just because someone is equal under the law doesn't make them equal - we need to take into account opportunity and access. I haven't even hit on reversing the mistrust and shame that can't be reversed in one day or even one generation.

To me it's like deciding to start a 100m race. Sure now we've let everyone into the race, but we've started some people at 90m, some at 50m and some at the starting blocks but are nonetheless pretending it's equal and fair.

Are you black? If not I really appreciate your understanding of the issue.

[IMAN5]

You know the Hawks are bad when the owner is willing to self destruct just to get out.

[MEDIC]

Honestly, as a black man who also happens to be a business man, I really wasn't offended by this email. Obviously the whole subject matter can easily be interpreted as racist but where do you draw the line!? Mind you I only perused a few paragraphs so if there was anything in there that was actually malicious please flame away.

The guy is trying to fill the arena & is dealing with issues that are real but also happen to be hurtful to people. I don't know what else to say. Our society is complicated.

that's because you are the 10%

Why does this matter?

[theonlyeastcoastrapsfan]

I can't believe more people don't see how racist this email is. It seems as though a lot of you are focusing on the fact that the owner 'acknowledges' that the white people being scared of black people is racist and then say 'well he is just pointing out how racist his white fan base is'.

Yes and no.

He certainly does point out how racist his white fan base is......but the entire point of his email is to cater to that racist white fan base at the expense of the black fan base. The email could have been much shorter and gotten the same point across. It could have simply read 'Our white fans are scared of our black fans....we need to get rid of the black fans and replace them with more white fans'. If that isn't the epitome of racism then I don't know what is. The fact that 'he is trying to make money' doesn't make it any less racist.

Not saying it's not racist, but to target one segment over another as a targeted demographic is so, so common. I mean had he not been so wordy, and had he just said, "market research shows we need to be doing more to reach out whatever demographic" his email would have had essentially the same meaning and effect and been seen as routine. TV marketing routinely go after 18-35 year old males because they are a target demographic that spends a lot of money. You don't think they break down which races spend that money too? ANd even it were to show to appeal to black crowd because they spend more, it would still be just as rascist or nonracist. There are demographic decisions involved in picking Faith Hill, Carrie Underwood, or Superbowl halftime entertainment? Or even when NBA picks the music for the all star game, you don't think demographics are considered.

Now, the underlying assumptions he made when explaining himself are what are head turning and invite the scrutiny, and when you look harder at it does more than says we need to court this demographic, and tends to move toward discouraging the other demographic. More specifically it really fails as it's end up stirrping down demographics to simply black and white. And that's when it goes from a fairly routine practise of demographic targeting, and becomes an inflammatory racist email.

I guess I'm just saying if targeting to reach a certain audience over another for financial reasons starts getting looked at all over with a lens for racism, there's gonna be a lot of marketing people in trouble. The email was stupid, but what he was getting at, probably very common. Not saying that makes it any better.

[Harold_and_Kumar]

It's like people don't realize that words have a lasting impact and shape the way people view others and society. Said once, to once person, sure what he said isn't the worst thing to ever be said but as soon as a sentiment spreads that African Americans aren't good fathers (or whatever the stereotype is) it becomes a pejorative truth (much as it has in this email despite contrary evidence). Then people starting making decisions on these preconceived notions and it fosters a divide between the two groups. Add a number of these up and we see what happens.

It seems to most this isn't a big deal because "he's just trying to make some money and run a business" as if he's the mom and pop at the corner store lol. It just makes you think what people will do for money or riches to the point where it trumps decency and personal ethics. If someone is being racist for the purposes of making money, it isn't so bad. He can point out all the problems with one race at work because "that's just business" and then go home and be completely neutral; that seems so hypocritical to me (not that he's the only person doing this).

Before I get jumped all over, I understand he wasn't 5 sterlings on the scale, but he's still a 1 sterling and to me that's akin to "Naw, I don't beat my wife 5 days a week that's lunacy, I just beat her once."

To the reverse racism guy, open your eyes mate. The legislation to make people equal under the law has worked to a degree but has fostered this weird colour-blindness where people are allowed to forget that despite one day making people equal under the law, it doesn't reverse the multiple years of family connections, income, homes, etc. spread throughout a family. I don't know the numbers off the top of my head so I'll approximate but a white (could also be non-immigrant) American family with a $20,000 income has more wealth on average than an African American family with $60,000 annual income. Just because someone is equal under the law doesn't make them equal - we need to take into account opportunity and access. I haven't even hit on reversing the mistrust and shame that can't be reversed in one day or even one generation.

To me it's like deciding to start a 100m race. Sure now we've let everyone into the race, but we've started some people at 90m, some at 50m and some at the starting blocks but are nonetheless pretending it's equal and fair.

Are you black? If not I really appreciate your understanding of the issue.

No, but I appreciate your appreciation lol. All it takes is giving a **** about other people and trying to see the world through someone else's eyes.

[RedX]

lmao, this is honestly hilarious. Makes the NBA look stupid.

I fully understand and support NBA's actions against Sterling, but this was an email 2 (almost 3) years back that no one had a problem with until now? Come on.

[gcsw]

I can't believe more people don't see how racist this email is. It seems as though a lot of you are focusing on the fact that the owner 'acknowledges' that the white people being scared of black people is racist and then say 'well he is just pointing out how racist his white fan base is'.

Yes and no.

He certainly does point out how racist his white fan base is......but the entire point of his email is to cater to that racist white fan base at the expense of the black fan base. The email could have been much shorter and gotten the same point across. It could have simply read 'Our white fans are scared of our black fans....we need to get rid of the black fans and replace them with more white fans'. If that isn't the epitome of racism then I don't know what is. The fact that 'he is trying to make money' doesn't make it any less racist.

He never said to get rid of black fans. His goal is to increase attendance. If attendance was high will all black fans, this email would never have existed in the first place. He did want to attract more white fans. And people like you see that as racism.

This is no different from corporations everywhere that want to hire minorities to create diversity. Isn't that racism??? Hiring someone based on color... I'm nor white nor black. I'm minority myself. If a place is predominantly black or minority, there shouldn't be any reason why the corporation cannot attract more white people to make it diverse. But when that happens, it's immediately regarded as racism.

Some people will find the email offensive but this was not meant to be public. It was a private email between owner and president to brainstorm on ideas on how to increase attendance(NOT to get rid of black fans)

[beanbag]

Not saying it's not racist, but to target one segment over another as a targeted demographic is so, so common. I mean had he not been so wordy, and had he just said, "market research shows we need to be doing more to reach out whatever demographic" his email would have had essentially the same meaning and effect and been seen as routine. TV marketing routinely go after 18-35 year old males because they are a target demographic that spends a lot of money. You don't think they break down which races spend that money too? ANd even it were to show to appeal to black crowd because they spend more, it would still be just as rascist or nonracist. There are demographic decisions involved in picking Faith Hill, Carrie Underwood, or Superbowl halftime entertainment? Or even when NBA picks the music for the all star game, you don't think demographics are considered.

Now, the underlying assumptions he made when explaining himself are what are head turning and invite the scrutiny, and when you look harder at it does more than says we need to court this demographic, and tends to move toward discouraging the other demographic. More specifically it really fails as it's end up stirrping down demographics to simply black and white. And that's when it goes from a fairly routine practise of demographic targeting, and becomes an inflammatory racist email.

I guess I'm just saying if targeting to reach a certain audience over another for financial reasons starts getting looked at all over with a lens for racism, there's gonna be a lot of marketing people in trouble. The email was stupid, but what he was getting at, probably very common. Not saying that makes it any better.

We're basically saying the same thing, I mean I can't argue it doesn't make business sense (that opens up a whole new can of worms regarding systemic racism), but it's racist nonetheless. I was merely commenting on those who argue it's not racist, I'm not commenting on how common practice it is, nor how much economic sense it may make.

[beanbag]

He never said to get rid of black fans. His goal is to increase attendance. If attendance was high will all black fans, this email would never have existed in the first place. He did want to attract more white fans. And people like you see that as racism.

The problem here is that the conclusion he is pointing towards is to increase the white fan base by catering to them by accommodating their wants. He may not explicitly say he wants to diminish the black fan base, but he did explicitly suggest that because the black fan base was so high that it was scaring off the white fan base....So essentially he is saying that the way to bring in more fans (white fans specifically as that is what his email says he wants) is to decrease the amount of black fans by not catering to them as much. It's not 'I hate blacks' racism, but it is racism nonetheless.

This is no different from corporations everywhere that want to hire minorities to create diversity. Isn't that racism??? Hiring someone based on color... I'm nor white nor black. I'm minority myself. If a place is predominantly black or minority, there shouldn't be any reason why the corporation cannot attract more white people to make it diverse. But when that happens, it's immediately regarded as racism.

It is different, affirmative action hiring is there to try and reverse years of institutionalized racism that we understand placed black Americans at a social disadvantage. I, for one, think that's fair.