Sacramento Kings Pull Racially 'Insensitive' Year Of Monkey T-Shirts
SAN FRANCISCSO (CBS SF) -- On the first day of Black History Month and the Lunar New Year, the Sacramento Kings decided it best to pull free 'Year of the Monkey' t-shirts from the arena seats at Monday night's game against the Milwaukee Bucks.
According to the Sacramento Bee, workers scrambled to remove the shirts emblazoned with a purple monkey wearing a crown after DeMarcus Cousins raised concerns that the shirts were racially inappropriate.
Kings remove T-shirts with monkey on them 1st day of Black History Month https://t.co/TjaEBLsAkW pic.twitter.com/WPNJQcZ2QO
— Hector Amezcua (@sacbeehector) February 2, 2016
NBA All-Star and TV sports analyst Marques Johnson was at the Sleep Train Arena Monday night, and applauded the team's decision. He wrote about it on his Facebook page:
"I walk into the building and DeMarcus Cousins calls me over to an animated discussion he's having with Kings operations people. He ask me, "Olskool, what you think about this T Shirt? Told him a little insensitive on 1st day of Black History Month". They pulled the shirts..."
Johnson thanked DeMarcus for speaking up.
The shirts were out of sight before the public arrived but other scheduled Lunar New celebrations went off as planned, including a ribbon dance by the Kings cheerleaders. Team officials defended the decision to remove the shirts.
"We all need a lesson in sensitivity," Kings president Chris Granger told the Sacramento Bee. "In an effort to celebrate Chinese New Year, we had some concerns about the T-shirt giveaway, so we pulled them all before the doors opened. Certainly we don't want to offend anybody, and we acted as soon as we heard the concern."
Some criticized the Kings and DeMarcus on social media, saying they were being overly sensitive and too politically correct. Others felt they were justified.
Comparisons of black people to apes, monkeys and gorillas abound in American history. As recently as last year, an Oregon police chief was caught comparing blacks to monkeys and Google recently apologized when it's photo app kept automatically tagging black people as gorillas.
Each Lunar New Year is represented one of the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac. This year is symbolized by the monkey, last year was symbolized by the goat; next year is the rooster.
READ MORE: CBS SACRAMENTO
.@SacramentoKings Only weak & hyper sensitive people would associate purple monkey t-shirts w/ #BlackHistoryMonth https://t.co/BjNpbuMydw
— Jesse Lee Peterson (@JLPtalk) February 2, 2016
Smh.. The Sacramento Kings wanted to put out purple "year of monkey" t-shirts on first day of black history month.. Smooth..
— Mr. E (@SA_Wes) February 2, 2016
CBSSF.com writer, producer Jan Mabry is also executive producer and host of The Bronze Report. She lives in Northern California. Follow her on Twitter @janmabr.
