On White Privilege: Oftentimes the Truth is Offensive

"But it was not just slave traders or planters who benefitted from the slave trade." -- John Woolman

I'm not much of a sports fan unless we're talking about my daughter's softball team. I'm also not very business minded. But reading this email written by Bruce Levenson, controlling owner of the Atlanta Hawks, it's clear what's going on. Bruce Levenson is just trying to make money, and the racist tendencies of too many European Americans is messing with his bottom line.

This is the real bottom line, though: White privilege means that the preferences of European Americans are served before the preferences of African Americans even when African Americans are in the majority.  And that means more European American cheerleaders for the Atlanta Hawks. Read on, and you will understand.

Bruce Levenson believed that season ticket sales were in a slump because European Americans feel unsafe and uncomfortable when they are outnumbered by African Americans. About 70% of fans in attendance, he estimates, were African American until he instituted changes (including reducing the number of African American cheerleaders) to get that number down to about 40%:

My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent black fans to build a signficant season ticket base. Please dont get me wrong. There was nothing threatening going on in the arean back then. i never felt uncomfortable, but i think southern whites simply were not comfortable being in an arena or at a bar where they were in the minority. On fan sites i would read comments about how dangerous it is around philips yet in our 9 years, i don’t know of a mugging or even a pick pocket incident. This was just racist garbage. When I hear some people saying the arena is in the wrong place I think it is code for there are too many blacks at the games.

I have been open with our executive team about these concerns. I have told them I want some white cheerleaders and while i don’t care what the color of the artist is, i want the music to be music familiar to a 40 year old white guy if that’s our season tixs demo. i have also balked when every fan picked out of crowd to shoot shots in some time out contest is black. I have even bitched that the kiss cam is too black.

Gradually things have changed. My unscientific guess is that our crowd is 40 pct black now, still four to five times all other teams. And my further guess is that 40 pct still feels like 70 pet to some whites at our games. Our bars are still overwhelmingly black.

According to the 2010 census, African Americans were 54% of the population in that year, while European Americans were 33.3%. But Levenson seems to presume that his bottom line would improve if African American representation a Hawks games was more in line with DC's Washington Wizards:

Then i start looking around at other arenas. It is completely different. Even DC with its affluent black community never has more than 15 pct black audience.

DC, according to the 2010 census, was 50.7% African American and 38.5% European American. Levenson wondered why there are so many more African Americans at games in Atlanta, making European Americans uncomfortable by their very presence? A problem to be solved. By catering to the preferences of European Americans.

Again, Bruce Levenson was just trying to make money, and the racist tendencies of too many European Americans was making it hard. The solution? Shift the balance of offerings to better suit European Americans even though 70% of the fans at games are African American. Apparently, this is how an astute businessperson deals with racism: Encourage African Americans to take their money elsewhere by pointing the kiss cam (and every other cam) at European Americans during games and hiring more European American cheerleaders. Because European Americans prefer it. And even if Europeans make up only 30% of the attendees, their preferences are primary. It's about the bottom line.

But Levenson really blew it. In the interest of selling the fiction that this is post-racial America, business people are not supposed to clearly articulate their concerns about the negative effects of racism on their bottom line. Plausible deniability is the name of the game. Levenson broke  the plausible deniability rule, and as a consequence, he surrendered his franchise.

Oftentimes the truth is offensive.