(Reuters) – Outspoken Detroit Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy joined a number of other non-political voices on Wednesday in condemning the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, stating that he was “ashamed” of the outcome. Several actors, writers and musicians had earlier expressed their disappointment at Republican Trump’s successful election, with many having publicly supported Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton beforehand. A visibly shaken Van Gundy, however went further, and felt Trump’s rhetoric about women, ethnic minorities and immigrants during the campaign would only damage the country.
“It’s embarrassing. I can’t say I’ve ever been ashamed of our country until today,” Van Gundy told reporters. “We just elected an openly brazen racist, misogynist leader. “What we have done to minorities and women in this election is despicable. I’m having a hard time dealing with it.
“We have just thrown a good part of our population under the bus and I have problems with thinking this is where we are as a country.”
Van Gundy, whose Pistons team is mostly African-American, added he felt the U.S. could no longer claim to be a moral leader and had disqualified itself from lecturing other countries on human rights. “I don’t want to hear anything from our leaders talking to China or anybody else about human rights abuses,” he said.
“We need to keep our mouths shut and realize we need to be learning maybe from the rest of the world because we ain’t got nothing to teach them.”
Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr was also dismayed at the election result, though he spoke more diplomatically.
“I thought we were better than this,” said Kerr.
“I have no idea what kind of president (Trump will be) but it’s tough when you want there to be some respect and dignity and there hasn’t been any.
“And you walk in and you see the faces of your players, and most of them who have been insulted directly, as minorities. It’s sure shocking. It really is.”
Golden State forward David West, however, felt Trump’s election was the manifestation of still simmering racial, ethnic and class tensions in the country.
“This whole fairy tale about some post-racial utopia that Obama supposedly created is all bull,” he said.
“The things that he (Trump) said, the things that he represented, that’s the way that the majority of this nation feels.
“I think he just emboldened them because he’s able to say it publicly. He got the platform.”
(Reporting by Andrew Both in Cary, North Carolina; Editing by Greg Stutchbury)
Reuters
