KAREEM: LEVENSON EMAIL NOT RACIST

NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar doesn’t view the email that brought down Atlanta Hawks majority owner Bruce Levenson as racist.

Writing in Time, the league’s all-time leading scorer says Levenson’s decision to walk away from the franchise is simply a case of “misguided white guilt”:

The only problem is that Atlanta Hawks controlling owner Bruce Levenson is no Donald Sterling. Nor is his email racist. In fact, his worst crime is misguided white guilt.

I read Levenson’s email. Here’s what I concluded: Levenson is a businessman asking reasonable questions about how to put customers in seats. In the email, addressed to Hawks president Danny Ferry, Levenson wonders whether (according to his observations) the emphasis on hip-hop and gospel music and the fact that the cheerleaders are black, the bars are filled with 90% blacks, kiss cams focus on black fans and time-out contestants are always black has an effect on keeping away white fans.

Seems reasonable to ask those questions.

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