Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson to sell team after racist email
Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson is selling his stake in the NBA team after self-reporting a racially insensitive email he sent about the team's fanbase.
"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." [ESPN]
"If you're angry about what I wrote, you should be," he added.
In 2012, Levenson wrote in an email to co-owner and general manager Danny Ferry that the team was not catering enough to white fans, and that the "black crowd scared away the whites."
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