'RESPECT, is the key'
Raptors senior advisor Wayne Embry opens up as the NBA struggles publicly with race relations
Wayne Embry clasps his giant hands together, and tries to explain the nature of his conflict. Basketball’s history is inextricably intertwined with race, and Embry is one of the sport’s touchstone figures in that regard. The Toronto Raptors’ senior advisor was the only black player on his team when he came to the Cincinnati Royals in 1958. He was the league’s first African-American general manager in 1972.
“It’s certainly grown from that, in case you hadn’t noticed,” the 77-yearold Embry says with a quick laugh. He is proud of that. He is quick to point out that his wife, Terri, and the wife of his longtime teammate Oscar Robertson, Yvonne, marched in Selma, Ala., in 1965. Those protests led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. Embry has long been a proponent of inclusion with the NBA, saying that stance occasionally worked to his detriment in the past. He co-wrote an autobiography — The Inside Game: Race,
Power and Politics in the NBA — that dovetails with the history of race relations in the league.
As evidenced by the swift response to the Donald Sterling situation in April, it is clear that some of Embry’s core beliefs are now valuable principles in the league that he has been a part of for more than half a century. However, that increased awareness caught up with Danny Ferry, a player Embry traded for in 1989 when he was Cleveland’s general manager.
In a conference call with the fractious Atlanta ownership in advance of July’s free agency, Ferry commented Luol Deng had “some African in him,” the implication being that the small forward is untrustworthy. Although the comments appeared to be the paraphrasing of another team’s scouting reports, Ferry seemed to reinforce them during the call. (Regardless of what Ferry thought, he reportedly offered Deng a contract worth US$10-million annually.) Ferry took an indefinite leave of absence from the Hawks in September.
“We traded for Danny in Cleveland. We take pride in doing our due diligence,” Embry said. “Looking at me, being African-American, there is no way I’m going to trade for someone I thought was a racist. I simply [wouldn’t have done it].
“Danny Ferry is not a racist. He doesn’t deserve the label of being a racist. Did he make a mistake and use poor judgement? Yes he did.”
Embry is hurt for Ferry. Still, despite the specifics, it is a sign of progress. Even if odious insensitivity is required to bring issues of inclusion to the forefront, they are no longer being glossed over. For Embry, that is a huge change. This is a man who was once sent home from a game at the Richfield Coliseum near Cleveland when a bullet was found on his seat.
He was pleased to see the players using their power to prompt change after the Sterling tapes were leaked, although he was ultimately glad that no games were cancelled in protest.
“When we were in the playoffs, [Clippers coach] Doc [Rivers] called me. We had a discussion about it,” Embry recalled. “The players wanted to protest and not play the games.
“My advice was [for Rivers] to tell the players, ‘ Look, you play for each other in this room. You play for each other first. We’ve come this far with a chance to go further. So let us not allow ignorance to interfere with what the goal is.’ I think that’s the case in all of this: Let decency prevail.”
As Embry pointed out, inclusion guaranteed that these problems would arise, and will continue to do so. Laziness of thought and ignorance guarantee that clashes will happen, and those things are not on the verge of being totally eradicated. That, Embry said, is how stereotyping happens.
“The fact that you just profile people creates situations like we’re having in the U.S., like with Ferguson, Missouri. It creates a different set of problems,” Embry said. “I think, to summarize, respect is the key word. You’ve got to respect other people’s feelings, their needs, their backgrounds and try to understand what their sensitivities may be. Disrespect leads to hostility. Hostility leads to hatred. Hatred quite often can lead to conflict. Out of all that comes the ‘isms, which creates major issues.”
Those issues, at least, are out there in the open.
“The lessons are being learned. I think if people are willing to step back and really analyze the overall situation, we live in a multicultural society,” Embry said. “And it’s not going to change. It’s not going to change.
“I use the 80/20 rule. There’s 20% of [the population] that doesn’t want to see this. But we can’t let the 20% prevail. We’ve just got to keep surging forward to make it work and learn from situations we witnessed over the summer in the NBA.”