Bucks President Says Milwaukee Is 'Most Segregated, Racist Place I've Ever Experienced'

Milwaukee Bucks president Peter Feigin might want to stop talking for a while. During an event at the Rotary Club of Madison last Wednesday, Feigin dropped a bomb on the city of Milwaukee.

Feigin’s remarks included this passage:

"“We know we can’t cure the world. But we are very determined to get ourselves involved in programs that we can measure a difference in and put our claws into for a long period of time and show a difference. “Very bluntly, Milwaukee is the most segregated, racist place I’ve ever experienced in my life. It just is a place that is antiquated. It is in desperate need of repair and has happened for a long, long time. One of our messages and one of our goals is to lead by example.”"

The spirit of Feigin’s remarks is certainly positive. He wants the Bucks to become something the people of Milwaukee can look to as a positive within the city. I lived in Milwaukee for two years, it is an incredibly segregated city. In fact, it has been ranked as the most segregated city in America. So Feigin is not wrong.

That said, making those comments publicly and calling the city the most racist place he’s ever experienced is probably not something a leader in the community should be doing.

As Deadspin pointed out, it’s also kind of a surprising stance from a man whose team received $250 million in state and local funds for a new arena. The $1 billion the Bucks plan to spend on that new facility probably could have gone to help the city in dozens of other ways. Instead it’s going to a project that will benefit Feigin and his bosses personally.