CLEVELAND _ The verbal dust-up earlier this week between New York Knicks President Phil Jackson and LeBron James over the word "posse" made Detroit Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy examine himself and his own language. And Van Gundy, blunt and transparent on most issues, acknowledged he has used that word before in relation to African-Americans.
Both James and his business partner, Maverick Carter, considered Jackson's use of the term posse disrespectful to what James and his friends have accomplished. Jackson hasn't responded publicly, but Van Gundy took it upon himself to admit where he has erred.
"When LeBron or Maverick Carter or Rich Paul or whoever makes a statement that they're offended, instead of just reflexively trying to defend yourself and say there is nothing racist about it, look, the people in the majority don't get to decide what is racist and what's not," Van Gundy said. "It's like men don't get to decide what's sexist and what's not. You have to listen and if you care, you listen and you try to get better from it.
"When the whole thing came up with Phil's comments and the whole thing, I was sort of guilty. I felt guilty about it a little bit. Even though it's a long time ago and I know my intent wasn't nefarious in anyway, still, you look at it and you say, 'You know what? They're right.' And you got to watch the language that you use."
Van Gundy is both the Pistons' coach and president. He said he wasn't going to seek out James or Paul, his agent, before or after Friday's game, but he would acknowledge it if he ran into them. Paul also represents Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
"You can't be afraid of those kind of dialogues," Van Gundy said. "We're not going to make a lot of progress if we can't have those kind of dialogues and particularly if we in the majority, whether it's male or white or Christian or whatever or straight or whatever is in the majority, aren't willing to look at the way (that we are), the language that we use and the treatment that minority people _ people in the minority _ get, we can't make progress."
