Clippers owner Donald Sterling is stupid….he is
ignorant…..he is arrogant…but is he a racist? Can a man be a racist that hires
and employs Elgin Baylor for 22 years?
Can he be a racist when he allows his point guard (Chris Paul) to stage
a coup ousting a white coach (Vinnie Del Negro) for a black one (Doc Rivers)?
When I was done listening to the TMZ recordings I didn’t
think racist at all. Sterling said some
inflammatory things in the privacy of his home (purchased for his mistress),
but did they rise to racism or hate speech?
I think not. Should he be forced
to sell his team? NO.
After I heard the recording I wished that his mistress had
about 40 more IQ points because it could have led to a fascinating conversation
on the state of race in America. I
wished his mistress was a Rula Jebreal or Michelle Bernard because then the
conversation would have been less entertaining and more substantive.
I’m torn (as a black man) because it was damn cool to the
see the player show solidarity, and use soft power to achieve their goal. In the midst of last week’s media circus I
jotted down 10 words that I felt defined the proceedings.
OCTOGENARIAN
Mr. Sterling is 81 years of age. He was born in the 1930’s. He was 33 years old when blacks were given
the right to vote. He was born when
there was a very real “caste system” in America. He has lived through Jim Crowe, segregation,
separate but equal, integration, Negro, colored, black, African American. Things/changes we take for granted today, he
had to learn, and re-learn. My grandfather
is an octogenarian, and there is no way I would want his conversations taped,
and released to the masses for consumption.
ARISTOCRACY
Wealthy, well to do, people live differently than ordinary
people. Sterling has a wife, and open side-piece. He has a very public life with both. No one bats an eye. It’s accepted. It’s commonplace. Not unlike Arabs that take
multiple wives, he’s accustomed to buying things instead of asking for
them. He’s accustomed to people around
him doing what he demands because their livelihood often depends on it.
OWNERSHIP
Maybe the NBA should adopt the term CEO for their club
proprietors instead of “owner”? Maybe they should come up with a better term
than “Free Agency” when player’s contracts are up? Maybe they should get rid of those “Property
Of” practice t-shirts that players wear?
Make no mistake powerful people often in a show of hubris
say things like “If it weren’t for me they would be nothing” “I made you” “You
wouldn’t be shit without me” so when a powerful check signer says “I feed them,
I buy their cars, I buy their homes”, it
doesn’t sound racist to me. It sounds rich!
SVENGALI
Men have sought to control women since time immemorial. And men who have lots of money do a better
job than us ordinary Joes. When you buy food,
car, and home for a woman you own her.
If she’s not bringing any finances to the situation then she has allowed
herself to become an accessory to the man.
She becomes a living breathing piece of furniture. Sterling had every right to believe that he
could speak freely in front of his “furniture” without recourse.
When you are in a relationship your other half is a direct
reflection on you. I’m a single guy, and
know that If I’m in a relationship I can’t die my hair purple without having a
conversation about it, because when we go out…she got to deal with my purple
hair. She got to deal with her friends
asking question about my purple hair. My
purple hair becomes her purple hair.
Sterling never said don’t associate with minorities. He said don’t publicize it, (because my
racist friends will give me shit about it.)
You can best believe if my grandma knew what Facebook was,
and could get to my account, and saw lots of pictures with me and white women …
she would say…. Baby don’t you know any good black girls? Baby why do you only have pictures with white
woman? And she would feel some type of
way about it! Prejudice lies dormant in
each and every one of us.
INSECURE
Old men are insecure when they are dating young women for
obvious reasons. Powerful black men are
insecure because they wonder if they are still looked down on by powerful white
men.
Magic Johnson caught feelings about this because a rich
white man was telling a rich black man he was common/ordinary. It felt a little like when Oprah got her
feeling hurt in Europe a few years back.
It’s the “Oh not me…I have enough money that I don’t have to deal with
this shit anymore.” (Syndrome)
Magic is beloved however.
His was the wrong name to mention.
If Sterling had left Magic alone he would probably have survived this.
PRIVACY
Imagine this for a moment. Sterling is 3 persons removed
from a Saudi who hates America. His
phones are tapped by the NSA. A Laker’s
fan is the tech administering the wire-tap.
The Laker Tech loves Magic, and leaks the recording. Where are we at now? How do we feel about it now? Do we think
there is injustice now?
NIGGER
At this point I haven’t heard Sterling, on any of these recordings;
use the N-word to describe the players that work for him. But a few months back
Matt Barnes, a Clipper player, tweeted that his team mates were N-words, and he
only received a fine.
LARRY BIRD
Poor Larry Bird, just weeks after he had to relive the “BAD
BOYS” documentary he gets brought in to the nonsensical conversation between
an old fart and a young side-piece.
Bird can’t catch a break. He is
the Mario Andretti of white basketball players.
You know how when someone is driving real fast and you say… who do you
think you are? … Mario Andretti. Bird is
now that… Great white basketball player…. Who do you think you are? ….. Larry
Bird. As the old racist black guys in
the barber shop of “Coming to America” said… “That’s their ONE.”
OPTICS
There is an important distinction between someone being told
not to associate with a group of people as opposed to being told not to publicize
an association with that group. It’s not
semantics. It’s real. Back in 2008 then Senator Obama’s campaign
got in a bit of hot water because they removed a couple of Arab women from a
photo op in Detroit. It wasn’t about the
women. It was about the optics. Everyone
has to live in their own reality. Everyone
has to deal with their own peer group, and everyone tries to avoid giving other
people fodder when possible.
HYPERBOLE
I really couldn’t believe how much play this story got. On the racism scale from 1 to 10 this was a
2, but it got treated like a 10. I was
fully expecting a hefty fine (stupidity tax) and a suspension through the
remainder of the playoffs. When the
commission said banned “FOR LIFE” I was shocked. Blacks rejoiced. Not sure why, but it
reminded me of the rejoicing over the OJ verdict. What is the rejoicing really for? Justice did not prevail then and it didn’t
prevail now. Both outcomes ring very
hollow.
