[Don Lemon, Cnn Anchor:] We're going to get more on our developing news now. We have been told by a source familiar with the situation that Donald Sterling's wife, Shelly, is in talks with the NBA to sell the Los Angeles Clippers but some candid comments made by another NBA owner really causing an uproar now. During an interview with "Inc." magazine, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban talked about his own bigotry, and that's what he says, everybody's bigoted, saying everyone has prejudices in one way or another. But some say his reference to a black teenager in a hoodie, that that really crossed the line. Cuban later apologized to the family of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, but stood by the context of his answers. Last night, he tweeted a link to a second interview he gave, one he calls, quote, "an interview on race that you probably haven't seen."
[Mark Cuban, Owner, Dallas Mavericks:] My uncle was the superintendant of the D.C. school districts in the '60s. I remember us sitting down and it being very clear to me that we way we think in this family that everybody is equal, that if you go back and look at the history of people who were being repressed, it's never been for a good reason and it's never acceptable. And of everything and anything that you possibly can do, treating anybody differently for race, religion or any other reason, is wrong. But that doesn't mean you're not going to have those thoughts from time to time. We all succumb to those thoughts. And you have to realize that we have thoughts that are wrong. And my point in saying this is I do. I will go to the other side of the street. But to me, that makes me a hypocrite, in some respects, by trying to hold somebody else to a different standard.
[Lemon:] Let's bring in cultural critic and writer there she is Michaela Angela Davis, lighting up your screen. That was a second interview that we had not seen. Why tweet this second interview out.
[Michaela Angela Davis, Cultural Critic & Writer:] I think he wanted to give context. All along I was encouraged by his clunky, ironic
[Lemon:] You were.
[Davis:] insensitive remarks because I think it was an honest attempt to have dialogue about the complexities of race and bigotry and oppression.
[Lemon:] I thought we were going to disagree.
[Davis:] You said it was ridiculous. I don't think the push back is ridiculous.
[Lemon:] No, I don't think the push back. But I think it's the controversy. Of course, you can push back.
[Davis:] Right.
[Lemon:] But I think the controversy is ridiculous because you can't have it both ways where we say we have to have this dialogue. We need to have this dialogue about race and we want someone who has no history of racism, has an honest dialogue. Then we say we want to shut them up. We shouldn't do that.
[Davis:] But, Don, we have to make a difference between what's honest critic and chatter. So there's a lot of chatter online about, oh, I'm tired of talking about race. We quiet that and have the patience and vision when this is an opening for discourse and I think that he has given us an opening for discourse. He was honest and willing to make mistakes. And I think that is really critical in moving this ball down the court.
[Lemon:] What great about him is he's also willing to take the criticism and respond to it.
[Davis:] Yeah. And also I had to go on Twitter and apologized because he apologized. We're still so raw and in so much pain about Trayvon Martin, that when we heard the hoodie reference, it gave a lot of pain. There are no scabs on our wounds. But he apologized and that's healthy.
[Lemon:] The hoodie thing and I was one of the first journalists to bring the Trayvon Martin to a national stage, one of. Everyone feels terribly for them. But every time someone mentions a conversation like a hoodie, is it always Trayvon Martin
[Davis:] When you say "a black boy in a hoodie," this was so painful and so real, so very much like it Emmitt Till, that is the iconography. It's so much in popular culture. You have to be aware of the new iconography around pain and racism. I think we need to find a little expand our narratives outside of the stereotypes that we have been given beyond the hoodie. It hurts too much right now. Too soon.
[Lemon:] Point taken. Too soon. Point taken. So when originally he said I'm a little bit worried about the slippery slope of taking someone's team away, then he got new information and changed his mind. He said, I got new information, I changed my mind on that. Then when you talk about the iconography, he didn't realize it in the initial comments. And then he realized it and apologized. That's a mature adult.
[Davis:] Yes. That's how we evolve.
[Lemon:] Because most people say
[Davis:] That's how we evolve. He said you have to control your bigotry. I think you have to learn and grow and be willing to recover. There's a madness in racism and bigotry. And he made a distinction between bigotry, racism and prejudice. What we saw with Donald Sterling was racist, not just bigotry and biased.
[Lemon:] Donald Sterling was saying I'm not racist. I'm not a racist person. He doesn't realize
[Davis:] And that's adding insult to ignorance.
[Lemon:] So what Mark Cuban is doing is opening himself up to the possibility that he does have biases, right?
[Davis:] Right.
[Lemon:] Then willing to learn. Most people would say I'm not a racist. I M tired of you talking about it, Don Lemon, I'm not a racist, blah, blah, blah, everything is not about racism.
[Davis:] I do think that most of us have some sort of vice. But those people who said they are tired of talking about race, I think our ancestors were tired of slavery. Our grandparents were tired of Jim Crow. Our parents were tired of the civil rights movement. I'm tired of black boys dying and black girls getting their faces blown off. If you're tired, get out of the way so people who are can do the greater work of being more equal.
[Lemon:] OK. So the question has been whether Mark Cuban is a racist. I don't think his comments were racist.
[Davis:] Prejudice and bigoted.
[Lemon:] I think they were prejudice. I don't know about
[Davis:] He was admitting prejudice, which I think is the most helpful thing that we can do. We have to stop being cowards about what we have been taught so that we can grow.
[Lemon:] I really don't think bigoted, either.
[Davis:] I think he said well, he called himself a bigot. There you go. But I think he was showing that we have biases and prejudices, which most people do on some level.
[Lemon:] Great talk. I thought we were going to disagree. We didn't.
[Davis:] No. We can We can do that on that women thing? That is about being cute.
[Lemon:] Oh!
[Davis:] Yes.
[Lemon:] That was another you didn't get what I was saying. You didn't understand.
[Davis:] But you had a panel of feminists. Are you crazy?
[Lemon:] No, I'm not. I'm not crazy. I was making their point. Here is what I was saying.
[Davis:] What were you saying?
[Lemon:] When you're in this business, this business is about television business, we were talking about Jill Abramson being fired at "The New York Times" and about equal pay. I don't believe that equal pay in every circumstance, I think experience counts. Part of this business is about looks. Part of it is about looks. If a let's just say someone with a haircut and a nice body comes out of college and is hired as a legal analyst they should not get paid what Sunny Hostin gets paid.
[Davis:] They will not get what Sunny's job.
[Lemon:] That's not true. That's not true.
[Davis:] Oh, Don.
[Lemon:] Have you watched television?
[Davis:] I am on there right now with a big 'ol afro.
[Lemon:] Thank you, Michaela.
[Michelle Knight, Kidnapping Victim:] You have absolutely no clue what she went through to say things and say that she was lying or she is doing this.
[Lemon:] Hear more of her heartbreaking response next.