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Basketball Fan
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Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Posts: 24759
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 Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2019 4:45 pm Post subject: Sonya Curry: Former Hornets owner George Shinn cautioned players against interracial marriage |
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I'm sure this happened a lot more than we know but this is the first I'm hearing about it publically.
https://nba.nbcsports.com/2019/02/19/sonya-curry-former-hornets-owner-george-shinn-cautioned-players-against-interracial-marriage/
| Quote: | Sonya Curry: Former Hornets owner George Shinn cautioned players against interracial marriage
All-Star Weekend in Charlotte was a wonderful celebration of North Carolina’s enthusiasm for basketball.
At center stage: The Curry family.
Dell Curry played for the Hornets. While in Charlotte, he and his wife Sonya Curry raised future NBA players in Stephen Curry and Seth Curry. Those four featured prominently throughout the weekend. Stephen played in the All-Star game. He and Seth competed in the 3-point contest. Dell headlined a shooting competition for charity. Sonya even made a halfcourt shot.
But not all their memories in Charlotte were happy.
Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated:
When Dell Curry was drafted by the Charlotte Hornets in the 1988 NBA expansion draft, the Currys experienced more racism. The Hornets were owned at that time by George Shinn. Sonya Curry, who is a fair-skinned African-American woman, recalls Shinn erroneously thinking she was a white woman and not liking the fact that one of his black players was married to her.
“The owner called in another player, a white guy player who dated black women, and said, ‘We drafted you. We know who you like to date. But we just want to tell you to really be careful about letting people see because Dell Curry is married to a white woman and we don’t know how people are going to take them either,’ ” Sonya Curry said. “The player was like, ‘You are not going to believe what they just said.’ I was like, ‘What?’ Just the assumption of what I look like and all that.”
Shinn was loathed by Hornets fans even before he moved the franchise to New Orleans. This provides just another reason to dislike him.
Even if Shinn were merely cautioning his players that other people might object to interracial marriage/dating – the most charitable reading of this – it’s still awful. Put the burden of change on the people perpetuating racist standards, not the victims of that racism. |
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Aeneas Hunter
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Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 31763
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2019 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Well, if it is true, it's not shocking for Shinn. He was tried and acquitted of rape, but admitted multiple extramarital affairs at the time. He's an ideal guy to be giving out dating advice. |
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Osei
Starting Rotation
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 291
Location: Arlington, VA
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| Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 6:15 am Post subject: |
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Somewhat amusing that the name of the player Sonya was referring to was left out of the story - am fairly certain after glancing at the article that it's Rex Chapman. Maybe it's just because I follow Kentucky basketball pretty closely but thought it was common knowledge some of the issues Rex had in basketball because of interracial dating. He dated primarily black women in high school and college back in the 80s; at Kentucky some campus officials (don't recall if they were athletic department officials or officials from outside the department) brought this up with him and expressed concern about how his dating habits would be perceived.
Rex has cited this issue as one of the reasons he left Kentucky 2 years early. |
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