A few days ago Bruce Levenson, owner of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, put his team up for sale. He felt that an email he had sent to his staff more than two years ago was racially charged, and was a possible catalyst for controversy involving himself and his team’s reputation.

This is not unprecedented, but it was only until recently that this became the case. A few months ago the former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling, was forced out of ownership after an intense legal battle over a racist phone call made to his girlfriend. He claimed he didn’t want her associating with any black people on Instagram, claiming it is not racist because it is culturally ingrained throughout the world that blacks and whites should not associate due to blacks’ traditional subservience. He evidenced black Jews’ treatment in Israel as proof that it happens elsewhere, and claims that because he can’t change a culture by himself he has the right to live in it.

THIS is racist. There is no denying that he is claiming another race is below his own. It is entirely understandable that he was forced out, and would honestly be unfathomable that he wouldn’t be forced out in a league that is 78 percent black.

Levenson’s email was not racist, but was instead an observation of empirically proven racial tendencies and a criticism of racism still prevalent in modern society. The gist of the email was that the Hawks were the only team with a black majority audience. He claimed they needed to alleviate this, and instead do everything they can to draw in enough whites to make them the majority audience. This would at first glance rightfully appear racist, but he follows by providing reasons which provide justification to his statements.

The Hawks are in the bottom five in league attendance. They have the lowest merchandise sales in the league. Levenson attributes this to two facts that most do not want to recognize, but are very apparent even in today’s world.

First, that minorities make less money than whites. More whites would mean more season ticket holders (leading to higher attendance on its own), more merchandise sales, and increased individual tickets.

Second, and more controversial, is that some races do not feel comfortable with other races until after extended exposure. Humans strive for safety and security in their lives. Safety in their food supply, water supply, their shelter, etc. Very important to this is the safety they feel in their environment. Normality establishes comfort in where you are, and therefore a happier standard of living. So for a white, black, Asian, Latino, Indian, or other ethnicity, a child often will feel better surrounded by their same race. They are raised surrounded by their own race, and as they are typically home-bound with limited access to other people until around four, they do not have extensive exposure to other ethnicities.

Therefore, being placed in a room full of people unlike you’d ever seen before would render you unsure of what to do. At that point anything you may know about these people is probably based on stereotype. This can obviously be solved over time, as eventually extended exposure to other races renders them no different from yourself once you understand the humanity we all have in ourselves. This is especially prevalent in Atlanta which is incredibly segregated between a white north and black south as a result of a white flight to the suburbs similar to Detroit’s in the 1960s. This means most suburban middle class white families have had limited exposure to other races, while most information they have about black people is rooted in the concepts of poverty and crime sometimes associated with African-American population.

This inevitably dissuades the larger, more affluent (whites make $25,000 more per capita annually than blacks, an injustice on its own and a telling indicator of how far we have to go) whites from going to games they don’t feel comfortable at.

This is not politically correct. Neither Levenson’s letter, nor this opinion article. But it is correct, evidenced by societal issues rooted in our consciousness and proved by statistics indicating a still segregated society. Yet we can’t talk about that.

I was once talking to an Indian friend about arranged marriage in the United States. She claimed it is still a major issue, and that it is often avoided in conversation because it is a cultural stigma. If I were to go up to a group of Indians as a white man and ask what we should do to fix their issues of arranged marriage, I would be chastised for coming to conclusions based on ignorant stereotypes and reaching assumptions that do not affect every Indian. However I can assume through experience that if an Indian were to approach a group of fellow Indians and bring up the situation, they would assume the approaching Indian to be experienced in knowledge and acknowledge that it could affect them, making it worth talking about.

This is all a double-turn, one which makes the very idea of political correctness something which imbeds racism. The idea that certain topics are taboo in regards to the theory that they are stereotypes only stagnates a society. Because races often find it fit to impose this on other races and believe that their own race has the right to discuss such topics, they essentially eliminate all options of fixing the problem on a wider scale. They prevent operations with other races, essentially claiming their own issues as above that of other races and not worth sharing, or else feeling offended that other races would generalize and prioritize their problems over the good things they’ve done.

Some people may find this article controversial because we find it hard to approach these topics. Whereas it is wrong to stereotype and make assumptions, it helps to gain perspective. Being able to recognize and respond to the most imminent social issues requires stepping beyond racial borders, and enabling an active response by the entirety of the community requires the ability to approach topics which some would consider cringe-worthy.

This is why people like Levenson are not such a bad thing. They understand the steps it takes to find a solution to an issue in regards to race. They understand how things work and that it is ingrained in society. People have faults, and changing them at their core sometimes requires we go beyond what makes us comfortable.