text: Mark Cuban found himself on the sidelines of controversy last month, when the NBA banned Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life over racist comments. Now in a video interview with Inc., Cuban weighs in on what he does to combat the bigotry and racism he comes across as a manager and an owner. 
   
   That’s an internal battle as well, he acknowledges: "If I see a black kid in a hoodie and it’s late at night, I’m walking to the other side of the street. And if on that side of the street, there’s a guy that has tattoos all over his face--white guy, bald head, tattoos everywhere--I’m walking back to the other side of the street," he says. 
   
   “I know that I’m not perfect,” he adds. “While we all have our prejudices and bigotries, we have to learn that it’s an issue that we have to control, that it’s part of my responsibility as an entrepreneur to try to solve it, not just to kick the problem down the road.” 
   
   Last month, the often-outspoken Cuban condemned Sterling's comments as "abhorrent" and "obviously racist." He initially opposed calls to ban Sterling from the NBA, saying it would be a "very slippery slope" if the league forced an owner to sell the team. ||||| It's not the first time and probably won't be the last. 
   
   Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is not shy about voicing his opinion - even when it comes to sensitive subjects. His comments about having his own prejudices and being a bigot in some ways, made during Inc. Magazine’s GROWCO 2014 conference, sparked a lot of national reaction on social media Thursday. 
   
   Here's a sampling: 
   
   The Daily Beast: But here’s what I know: the only way to address Cuban’s biases, and the views of millions of others who think like him, is to create a space where those views can be heard. Conversely, the way we get the Donald Sterlings of tomorrow is by shutting up the Mark Cubans of today. If the misguided views that each of us hold about other groups are allowed to fester in the dark, they will become more caustic, bitter. 
   
   The Smoking Section: I can’t help but think this is just a well thought out attempt to push NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s buttons. This is strictly hypothesis but Cuban is too smart so just get caught up in the middle of an interview saying something semi-racist. I bet Cuban is sitting back and enjoying how uncomfortable he’s probably made Silver today. 
   
   Washington Post: Is Cuban right? Is everyone a little bit racist? Anthony G. Greenwald, professor of psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle: "He’s not alone. People who regard themselves as fair and unbiased nevertheless can engage in judgments and actions that are biased in ways that they don’t even recognize. What’s unusual about Mark Cuban in this case is that he recognizes it." 
   
   Mediaite: Don Lemon and Marc Lamont Hill had very different reactions to Cuban. “I don’t understand the controversy really,” Lemon said. “I think he was very honest. And I think we cannot have it both ways where we say we have to talk about race, we have to talk about race. And the moment someone like Mark Cuban, who is known not to be a racist, who doesn’t have racist history, is honest about race, we want to shut him up.” “I’ll still call him racist, though,” Hill chimed in. 
   
   Orlando Sentinel: What’s the world coming to when you can’t even be honest and forthright about societal issues without being barbecued by the racial riot patrol? Because Cuban had the gall to state the truth — that he is sometimes fearful of tatted-up white skinheads and young black men wearing gangsta hoodies — he has ludicrously been labeled a racist by some. I wonder if the people who call Cuban a racist would say Jesse Jackson is also a racist? 
   
   Fox News Radio: He (Cuban) has tried to defend himself, but it is of little use. Once you admit to expressing fear of a black kid in a hoodie, you are George Zimmerman, the kid is Trayvon Martin, and the case is closed. Who wants to suffer the consequences now facing Mark Cuban because he thought an honest conversation on race was what the country wanted and needed. 
   
   Atlanta Falcons defensive end Osi Umenyiora on Twitter: Guess what Mark Cuban? If i see a black man wearing a hoodie in the middle of the night, I'm crossing the street also! We all have prejudices. That's just being honest. It's how we address them that seperates us. 
   
   Boston.com: Taken out of context, the quote about Cuban crossing the street would seem to put him at risk of suffering the same backlash Sterling did. Watch the entire interview, however, and it becomes clear Cuban is trying to articulate the internal battle with bigotry we all face. By admitting his feelings, albeit in a slightly awkward way, Cuban is trying to start a conversation on the issues at play here. It's jarring, yes, but probably also necessary. 
   
   Sports.yahoo.com: By calling out his own misguided thoughts though, Cuban offered an example that others, undoubtedly, have also engaged. Perhaps it allows them to see the mistake the way he has. Either way, this is a far better country when people are capable of acknowledging the areas they need to grow and try to speak openly and honestly about it, than one in which they are absurdly too afraid to say even innocent, descriptive words, even in private conversations about positive topics. 
   
   Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times: Cuban’s words drift far too close to Donald Sterling for comfort. By acknowledging a fear of a “black kid in a hoodie … late at night,” Cuban is admitting he would be wary of many of his own players and fans simply because of their skin color and wardrobe. He is essentially saying he would be fearful of honor students walking to their cars on a chilly Dallas night if they were black and wearing sweat shirts. 
   
   Foxsports.com: God love Mark Cuban for being an NBA owner who didn't see the ongoing Donald Sterling mushroom cloud and think, "You know what, maybe I'll avoid talking about race today in a business interview. Maybe it's not the right time to talk about who I cross the street to avoid. Maybe it's not the right time to admit that I sometimes judge people based on what they look like." Nope, Mark Cuban saw all this controversy and thought, "Now's the perfect time for me to talk about race in America today." 
   
   Former NFL punter Chris Kluwe in a video on foxsports.com: "To Mark Cuban I say, thank you for saying what we all know. But use a little bit more context next time. Hopefully people will understand that this is a quote that has to be taken in context because we know Mark Cuban isn't a bigot. We know Mark Cuban isn't prejudiced and the point he's making is a good one: We all have that little voice. We all need to understand that acting on that little voice is what defines us as people. So remember, don't act on that little voice. It leads to bad things." 
   
   ESPN host Stephen A. Smith: "I took no issue whatsoever with what Mark Cuban said ... not only because he was forthright, very candid and honest ... but also he happens to be correct." 
   
   
   
   Businessinsider.com: Mark Cuban's controversial interview during Inc.'s GrowCo conference has led to a lot of intense debate on race and prejudice and whether Cuban's remarks went too far. But the comments also suggest the NBA may have a bigger problem than just dealing with Cuban's remarks. Cuban's comments may be an indication that NBA owners are not unified behind commissioner Adam Silver's efforts to oust Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. 
   
   NewYorker.com: Most of the attention has been paid to Cuban’s candid discussion of his own prejudices—and of his examples of people he crosses the street to avoid. But it is worth considering what Cuban says, a moment earlier in the interview, about the progress that has been made by minority communities in America: "We’ve come a long way, and with that progress comes a price." The word that stands out here is “price,” as if by working toward a more inclusive and tolerant society we have lost something important. But just what might that be? The right for people to lean on archaic religious arguments to excuse modern injustices toward gay people? Or for Donald Sterling to reserve the right to go on living in some combination of the eighteen-fifties and the nineteen-fifties? Perhaps some people are allowed to say less today, but many people are finally free to say more. ||||| Add a location to your Tweets 
   
   When you tweet with a location, Twitter stores that location. You can switch location on/off before each Tweet and always have the option to delete your location history. Learn more ||||| Story highlights Mark Cuban: Everyone has some form of prejudice 
   
   He says he's made uneasy by black kids in hoodies, bald white guys with tattoos 
   
   The analogy is a poor one, CNN commentator LZ Granderson says 
   
   Cuban apologizes to Trayvon Martin's family for using hoodie reference 
   
   Mark Cuban is known for making pointed statements. Usually they are directed at the NBA brass or referees. Or contestants on the TV show "Shark Tank." 
   
   On Wednesday, he made a few remarks about bigotry that in light of the Donald Sterling scandal caused a bit of an uproar. 
   
   In an interview with Inc. magazine at a business conference in Nashville, Tennessee, the Dallas Mavericks owner and billionaire entrepreneur talked about his own bigotry. 
   
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   "If I see a black kid in a hoodie and it's late at night, I'm walking to the other side of the street," he said. "And if on that side of the street, there's a guy that has tattoos all over his face -- white guy, bald head, tattoos everywhere -- I'm walking back to the other side of the street." 
   
   Cuban said everyone has prejudices "in one way or the other." 
   
   The Mavericks owner issued a five-part tweet Thursday afternoon in which he apologized to Trayvon Martin 's parents for the hoodie reference, but stood by the context of his answers and called for more tolerance. 
   
   Martin, a Florida teenager, was wearing a hoodie when he was killed by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman in 2012. The case sparked a heated nationwide discussion about race as well as a debate over Florida's "stand your ground" law. 
   
   Cuban wrote: "I think that helping people improve their lives, helping people engage with people they may fear or may not understand, and helping people realize that while we all may have our prejudices and bigotries, we have to learn that it's an issue that we have to control, that it's part of my responsibility as an entrepreneur to try to solve it." 
   
   CNN commentator and ESPN senior writer LZ Granderson said he thought Cuban was trying to have a nuanced conversation but didn't do it very well. 
   
   Granderson said he was disturbed that Cuban equated the hoodie stereotype -- something he said has led to unjust treatment of African-Americans and even killings -- to the stereotype of the tattooed white man. 
   
   "One has history and the other doesn't or the same sort of emotional response," Granderson said. 
   
   Cuban is one of 30 NBA owners who'll decide whether racist remarks made by Sterling are damaging enough to terminate his ownership rights to the Los Angeles Clippers. Cuban told business owners during a Q&A session that he knows how he will vote but wasn't ready to announce his decision. 
   
   Granderson still expects Cuban to vote against Sterling on June 3 when the NBA Board of Governors meets to decide the fate of the Clippers franchise. 
   
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   "If you listen to the entire interview, he certainly made it sound as if he's going to vote Sterling out, but not without some regret," Granderson said. "And he voiced that regret, which is we all have bigotry." 
   
   In his interview Cuban said when he runs into bigotry in his organizations, he tries to find solutions. 
   
   It does society no good to respond to someone's racism or bigotry by telling them to "go take their attitude somewhere else," he said. 
   
   It's better to work with them and teach them why their views are wrong. 
   
   When Cuban was asked how you keep bigotry out of the NBA, where he has been an owner since 2000, he told the conference audience: "You can't keep that ugliness out of the league. There's no law against stupid. I learned that a long time ago." ||||| When Mark Cuban took the stage Wednesday at Inc.'s GrowCo conference in Nashville in front of 900-some attendees, Inc. president and editor-in-chief Eric Schurenberg re-confirmed an agreement the two had made before the interview: It was going to be a no-holds-barred conversation. More than an hour later, after Cuban had touched on everything from what the Sharks of Shark Tank are really like off camera and why he thinks of himself as a bigot, it's clear no such agreement was necessary. 
   
   In case you missed the streamed interview live with the outspoken uber-entrepreneur, here are some of the highlights. 
   
   On whether he was destined to be a billionaire 
   
   "Oh, hell no. I make sure I don't pinch myself so I don't wake up. All the time I say to myself, why me? Some things are random." 
   
   On his first entrepreneurial venture 
   
   Cuban is best known for his tech companies, but his first business was decidedly low tech. As a junior in college--and at the age of 20--he took his student loan money and bought a nearby campus bar. It quickly became the hottest spot in the area because it was notorious for not really checking IDs. Everything went swimmingly until the bar held a wet T-shirt contest. When the local newspapers covered the event, they eventually ID'd one of the contestants as a 16-year-old girl. "But she was on probation for prostitution! That got us closed down," Cuban said. 
   
   On how he made his billions 
   
   Cuban's first big startup success was an early software company called Micro Solutions, which he started for $500 and sold seven years later for $6 million. "I learned to party like a rock star," Cuban says. (That's when he traded his lifetime airline pass and bought a private plane for $41 million--still the record for the largest purchase ever online.) 
   
   But Cuban hit it even bigger with Audio Net, a startup that figured out how to stream audio online before the internet really even had audio or video. It involved encoding an eight-hour VCR tape and streaming replays of radio casts to see if anyone really cared. It turns out people did care--a lot. "It was like the YouTube of the start of the internet. Soon they had deals with radio stations and sports teams. In 1999, at the height of the internet bubble, Cuban sold the company to Yahoo for $5.7 billion. 
   
   On why bought the Mavericks when it was a losing franchise 
   
   When Cuban picked up the Dallas Mavericks, they had been voted the worst team in the league. But Cuban, a self-professed "basketball junkie," was a season ticket holder. He went to the first game of the 1999-2000 season and it didn't sell out. "We were undefeated--it was the first game of the season. That's the time to be excited." But fans were not. 
   
   So Cuban bought the team and immediately set out to change the culture. "I had to explain to the team and to the NBA what business we were in," he says. "It's not the basketball business. It's the business of creating experiences and memories." 
   
   On whether the NBA was right to ban Clippers owner Donald Sterling for his racist remarks 
   
   "I think [NBA commissioner] Adam [Silver] had to do it. There's a lot at stake for the NBA--it has to be a leader in the culture... but it's a slippery slope. 
   
   
   
   "You can't keep that ugliness out of the league. There's no law against stupid--I learned that a long time ago," Cuban said. 
   
   Cuban also admitted that prejudice is something everyone has to fight. "I know I'm bigoted in a lot of different ways. If I see a black kid in a hoodie and it's late at night, I'm walking to the other side of the street. And if on that side of the street, there's a guy that has tattoos all over his face--white guy, bald head, tattoos everywhere--I'm walking back to the other side of the street," he says. "No one has pure thoughts... but it's about recognizing when you have thoughts that aren't right." (For an exclusive interview where Cuban elaborates, check out this Inc. video.) 
   
   On what he would do about patent laws 
   
   "I'd get rid of software patents altogether." 
   
   On what he's like as a boss 
   
   "I'm a dick. Ha. Not really... I micromanage you until I trust you. It a back and forth continually... If I send you 30 emails I expect quick responses and direct action. Then we'll go to weekly reports. And I want the bad news first. I want to read, 'God dammit, we lost this sale.' I want to know the setbacks so that I can help you." 
   
   On what the Sharks are really like off camera 
   
   "People expect them to be the same off camera. Kevin is a jerk on camera, but he's an even bigger jerk off camera. He has his own way of doing business... There's a lot of tension on air... After 10 hour days and 10 days of shooting, you really feel like you want to knock this motherf*cker out." 
   
   On his weaknesses
target: – Here's a sign that your disquisition on race didn't go very well: You wind up apologizing to Trayvon Martin's family. That's the position Mark Cuban found himself in yesterday, after a perhaps-too-candid talk at Inc. magazine's GrowCo conference the day prior. Asked about the Donald Sterling controversy, the Dallas Mavericks owner said he was worried about being a hypocrite. The money quote, which he said in roughly these terms at the conference and reiterated in this video interview with Inc.: "I know I'm bigoted in a lot of different ways. If I see a black kid in a hoodie and it's late at night, I'm walking to the other side of the street. And if on that side of the street, there's a guy that has tattoos all over his face—white guy, bald head, tattoos everywhere—I'm walking back to the other side of the street." "I'm a bigot," Cuban said at the conference. "I think we're all bigots." Then he predicted, "I'm sure that'll be all over the place," and, lo, that prophesy came true. Critics and supporters have been vigorously decrying and defending Cuban's remarks (there's a good sample at the Dallas Morning News). Many, including ESPN commentator Bomani Jones and CNN commentator LZ Granderson, jumped on Cuban for making a false equivalency between black men in hoodies and white men with tattoos. "One has history and the other doesn't, or the same sort of emotional response," Granderson said. Later Cuban conceded that point at least, in a series of tweets: "In hindsight I should have used different examples. I didn't consider the Trayvon Martin family, and I apologize to them for that. Beyond apologizing to the Martin family, I stand by the words and substance of the interview."