Mark Cuban has a message for all white people: “We are the ones that need to change.”
The billionaire took to Twitter this week against a cultural backdrop of George Floyd protests and called for a collective psychological transformation among the population.
“Dear White People,” the Dallas Mavericks owner wrote Monday while sharing an address by Emerson College President Marvin Lee Pelton. “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.”
Mr. Pelton’s piece titled “America is on Fire” addressed the death of Mr. Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who was killed when four police officers knelt on his body during an arrest.
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was arrested and faces charges of second-degree murder (originally a third-degree charge) and manslaughter for the incident, which went viral on social media.
Former peers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao also face charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter.
Mr. Pelton, however, said that it is time for Americans to confront “a brutal white power structure” that turns men like Mr. Floyd “invisible” to society.
“Floyd has a history,” the college president wrote. “And so do I. … In my lifetime, I have been called the n-word by white people in every state and every city that I have ever lived in. … I have been pulled over driving while black more times than I can remember. I have been spit on by a white parking lot attendant. I was stopped 20 feet from my house by two white police officers in their cruiser, the searing heat of their spotlights on the back of my neck, guns drawn on either side of my car because I looked like a black man who was alleged to have stolen something from a convenience store.”
The piece concludes: “The most important question is: What are you going to do? At an appropriate time, I will gather the community to talk about what I have written and what we might be able to do together to address racism in America, beginning first of all with an honest appraisal of who we are and what we stand for.”
Dear White People: 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 https://t.co/V6VVAlvpB7
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) June 2, 2020
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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