As some of you may know, last week a huge controversy erupted surrounding Dallas Mavericks forward Josh Howard. Back in July, he played in fellow NBA star Allen Iverson's charity flag football game. During the National Anthem Howard said, "The Star-Spangled Banner is going on. I don’t even celebrate that shit. I’m black." He then went on to make a comment referencing Barack Obama followed by another expletive. This incident was filmed using a cell phone camera and was then uploaded to You Tube.As a result of Josh Howard's foolish comments, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was besieged with hate mails directed at Howard. Not only did Cuban post a sampling of the emails on his blog (Blog Maverick), he included the names and email addresses of the people who sent the offensive messages. However, on the next day (Sept. 19th), he deleted the post and wrote a follow up explaining why he did. You can read that post here. Although I didn't get a chance to read the offensive emails before Cuban deleted them, I did find a couple of them here. A sports radio station that I listen to did a segment on the topic last Friday in which one of the hosts read some of the offensive emails. You can listen to them by first clicking here and then clicking the "Listen" button under the heading "Cuban Reacts to Hate Mail 9/19". Just to warn you, some of the emails the host read were extremely disgusting.
Although I can understand Cuban's change of heart, I wouldn't have had a problem if he decided not to delete the post. If people want to be racist jackasses, they deserve to be exposed. It's not like Cuban hacked into someone else's computer and posted the messages/email addresses. The perpetrators chose to contact him.
8 comments:
It's wrong topublish hate mail, regardless of circumstance.
Newspapers and magazines often publish incendiary mail.
Um, but they don't publish the exact address, snail or email.
I totally understand why Cuban did it, and maybe if he hadn't posted the addresses. Publishers need to keep addresses as sources in case someone denies what they said...or it is called out...but not published.
Last week Oprah read one of her hate mails. I think it was incredibly important she did. She has been promoting a Children's Protection Act...and after she announced it she got hate mail and frigtening mail from pedophiles. She did read one of them out loud...and it made me feel like being more activist about the situation and donating money for funds.
I would like to know why Mister Anchovy says it is wrong...I think becaus ehe probably has a lot more experience in this situation than I do.
In general...I think publishing hate mail might incite more hate. But keeping it secret might also allow people to feel that kind of hate is enabled by denial?
I am sorry I don't have a final answer for you at this moment Malcolm...maybe after a few others post comments I can get some more thinking on the subject.
I promise I will be thinking about it this week.
Malcolm, I agree with you. If these people want to express their beliefs in an e-mail and send it to Mr. Cuban unsolicited, I see no problem with Cuban's posting them online or doing anything with them. What's wrong with that?
I guess it's acceptable to have an offensive opinion and to even express it when non one asked for it. What's not acceptable, I'm assuming, is to have someone "out" you for your opinion. Ridiculous. If people don't want someone to know their opinions then people should keep their mouths shut.
Yes, they totally should! It's this new idea I have called personal responsibility. I'm hoping it catches on!
I happened to have read Cuban's blog (and the comments) before he took it down and replaced it...and believe me, the comments were much worse than the ones published in the article you linked here.
I think that Josh was stupid and ignorant for his comments, but it was downright shameful what some people wrote because of this incident...two wrongs don't make a right.
I absolutely saw Cuban's point in posting the hate mail, and agreed with his mindset in doing so (which is weird because I think he's a prick), but it is one thing to call for Josh to apologize, it is quite another to attack him the way he was attacked.
I'm with the rock chick, I think Mark was well within his rights to publish all parts of the hate mail. I too understand why he took it down but he didn't have to.
Hmmm. I agree with you and the others that think it was okay to publish the emails...but if it were me I would have left the names of the people off.
Mark Cuban saw an opportunity, as he always does, to make the story about himself and therefore get some publicity. His original comments were something like, "We will go over some PR training with all of the players" which showed Josh Howard's mistake for what it was... a stupid inexperienced mistake. Cuban could have backed his guy, right or wrong, and played the angle that Howard is a young, rich , dumbass who did not mean any harm. Now it's blown up and Cuban gets some more coverage, and a chance to play the victim card.
I absolutely agree. I think he should've left the addresses online. Folks say waay too much stuff that they're never accountable for publicly.
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