If Los Angeles was a cauldron of anger following Donald Sterling's leaked racist tirades, Atlanta is sweet tea — brewed hot at first, but cooling quickly after another NBA team owner's racially charged words.
Atlanta Hawks controlling owner Bruce Levenson outed himself last week, copping to a 2012 memo in which he speculated, among other things, that "the black crowd scared away the whites," resulting in a lackluster season ticket base.
Condemnation of the inflammatory remarks came fast. Outraged sports fans fumed about Levenson being another Donald Sterling, the former L.A. Clippers owner who in April was banned from the NBA for life for his disparaging comments about blacks at Clippers games.
This week, New York Knicks superstar Carmelo Anthony warned no free agents would want to play in Atlanta due to Levenson's comments. The Rev. Al Sharpton also chimed in, imploring the NBA to carefully vet its team owners. Levenson has since apologized and announced he would sell his stake in the franchise.
Unlike in the Sterling case, however, there have been few calls to boycott Hawks games. And though the anger over Levenson's remarks seemed to spread quickly, opinions in sports bars and outside Atlanta's Phillips Arena, home of the Hawks, are more nuanced.
"I see [Levenson's note] as a business email," said Chris Barrol, tucking into a hamburger and tater tots at the downtown Hudson Grille sports bar. "It seemed like the tone of the Donald Sterling recording was coming from a place of racism."
Writing in an op-ed in Time, NBA legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar defended Levenson's comments to an extent as part of an honest dialogue on race and pro sports.
"Bruce Levenson is no Donald Sterling," Jabbar concluded. "Nor is his email racist. In fact, his worst crime is misguided white guilt."
Atlanta-based rapper Killer Mike expressed similar sentiments in a series of tweets.
Christian Wright, a 20-year-old student relaxing in Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park, wondered whether Levenson's note should be taken as more than his personal, poorly worded musings about how to fill a sports stadium in America.
"I don't know if it was racist," Wright said. "It's all about the tone, but I don't know if there was a right tone to get that email across without it being offensive."
In the two-year-old memo, Levenson offers his observations from what he perceives to be a fan perspective. He estimates from a glance around the arena that about 70 per cent of the patrons are black, comments that most of the music is hip hop or gospel, suggests adding more white cheerleaders, and admits "I have even bitched that the kiss cam is too black."
Levenson adds: "My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent black fans to build a significant season ticket base."
While he dismisses online comments that Phillips Arena is "dangerous" as "just racist garbage," Levenson says he interprets remarks about the arena being in the "wrong place" as "code for there are too many blacks at the games."
Brandon West, a music industry executive who read the full text of Levenson's email and wrote about the controversy for the hip-hop website GlobalGrind.com, said anyone should be able to see the Hawks owner wasn't trying to align himself with racist opinions.
"He said it in his email. He didn't believe any of those things. But he was asking very realistic business questions," West said.
That's possibly how Levenson has so far managed to escape the same kind of criticism levelled at Sterling, who was recorded in 2013 telling a female friend he did not want her publicly "associating with black people" or bringing them to Clippers games.
"With Donald Sterling, it had more of a racist tilt to it because it was social, interpersonal perspective. He didn't want a woman dating black men," said Bryant Marks, an associate professor of psychology at Atlanta's Morehouse College, which is predominantly black.
"The thing about Levenson is he's trying to make a business argument, and that I think give him, for some people reduces their angst."
Aside from what he believes to be implied stereotypes about African-Americans arriving late to games and not having the financial means to spend big at concession stands, what troubled Marks was the team owner's characterization of southern whites.
"Is the black presence on the kiss cam really enough to scare a Hawks fan away from taking their son to see a basketball game? I mean, I don't think he's giving white people enough credit," he said.
"What possible empirical basis does he have for any of this? Will we find out if he actually gathered data?"
Meanwhile, in Atlanta, the whole Levenson affair is beginning to assume an almost conspiratorial tone, with some locals even suggesting the Hawks co-owner may have intentionally released the email so he could rid himself of the burden of owning the mediocre-performing franchise.
Although the Hawks made last season's playoffs, sportswriters note that the lack of marquee players has made it difficult for fans to connect with the team.
"[Levenson's] self-imposed action to come forward and remove himself is pretty significant," said Rick Van Haveren, a sports psychologist from the northern Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta. "It's surprising, and there might be more to this story than what the public knows."
Marks suggests team owners look inward to something far more basic in order to fill seats at Phillips Arena, rather than focus on adding white cheerleaders or toning down the hip hop at games.
"I challenge you to talk to 10-20 random Atlantans here. Can they name three players on the Hawks?" he said. "Let's try winning. That's the strongest remedy. All that other stuff is window dressing."
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