Mark Cuban apologizes to Trayvon Martin’s family for his comments

Mark Cuban has been at the center of controversy over the last couple of days for his comments in an interview in which he said he would probably walk to the other side of the street if he saw a black kid wearing a hoodie late at night. He said he’d do the same if he saw a bald white guy covered in tattoos.

It was the “black kid with a hoodie” comment that raised the ire of many, because it brought to mind the Trayvon Martin incident. Martin was the black Florida teen wearing a hoodie who was shot and killed by George Zimmermann in 2012. Zimmerman was eventually charged in Martin’s death and a jury acquitted him.

“In hindsight I should have used different examples,” Cuban said on his Twitter account Thursday evening. “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.

“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.”