Donald Sterling’s racism is old
news. It’s been documented as far back as 1983 when he asked a potential head
coach “I wanna know why you think you can coach these niggers”, and it’s safe
to assume that Sterling’s devaluing of minorities didn’t start with that quote.
Donald Sterling’s racism has been
destructive. He has been sued multiple times for sexual harassment, and once
for racial and age discrimination by former General Manager and NBA legend
Elgin Baylor, who says that Sterling’s vision of the team was one of a modern
plantation, where he “would like to have a white Southern coach coaching poor
black players.” The Department of Justice has twice sued Sterling for
housing discrimination for refusing to rent to African-Americans and Mexicans,
his reasoning being that the former smell and attract vermin, and the latter do
nothing but sit around and drink all day. Those cases resulted in two of the
largest housing discrimination payouts of all-time, with the most recent case
being the single largest. He’s had his wife pose as the leader of a repair crew
so she could document the ethnicities of the people living in properties they
owned, and then did everything he could to create living conditions so bad that
the unwanted tenants moved out. His racism has had real, detrimental effects on
real people.
Despite what the NBA and Adam Silver
tried to claim, Donald Sterling’s ouster from the Los Angeles Clippers had
nothing to do with his racism. His thoughts and prejudices have been clear for
decades. There have been firsthand accounts of comments worse than anything he
said on the tape his mistress recorded and then sent to TMZ and Deadspin, yet
not a single fine or suspension has ever been levied against Sterling, as
commissioner Adam Silver admitted in his press conference this morning. Through
the quotes, and the lawsuits, and the settlements, Sterling’s racism was never
an issue to the owners. Only when Sterling’s racial issues crossed over from
the courthouse to the tabloids did the NBA decide it necessary to act. An
investigation was “ongoing”, but only when sponsors started fleeing in droves
did the NBA say when a decision would be announced. If this scandal
never went viral, Sterling would still be sitting courtside, same as always.
If what got Sterling kicked out of
the NBA was him being morally repugnant, then why isn’t he sharing a cab out of
the building with Orlando Magic owner Richard DeVos, who has been openly against gay
marriage and just wants gay people to stop “asking for favors”?
Why is Dan Gilbert skating free when he was square in the middle of the
sub-prime loan mess that led to the radical decay of the global economy?
Sterling is gone because he made the owners look bad, and because he started to
cost them money.
This is a shame, because the forest
is being missed for the trees. Housing discrimination, which has been
Sterling’s stock-in-trade for years, has disastrous effects on countless lives.
In a powerful interview on Dan Le Batard’s radio show yesterday,
Bomani Jones recounted the recent murder of a friend in Chicago, and related it
to the macro point of how housing discrimination has, largely, led to
segregated war zones in many major cities. This is the true evil of Donald
Sterling; he was a contributor to the decline and despair that is infecting
America’s metropolitan areas. But the NBA and the media didn’t care about that; they
care about a phone call between him and his mistress that centered on Instagram
photos. As Bomani Jones said in the above interview (and please,
start at the 4:30 mark and listen from there, it’s thought provoking, powerful
stuff):
“When all these guys get up here and stand on their soapbox, and wag their fingers, and start talking about “oh we won’t tolerate this racism, we won’t tolerate what Donald sterling said” what they’re not tolerating about Donald sterling is the fact that what he said was impolite, and what he said was gauche. That’s what their problem is. But when Donald sterling was out here toying with people’s lives, on things that really matter as matters of life and death, the media, the NBA, these sponsors, and all these people now who want to get patted on the back for what good people they are didn’t say a mumbling word.”
Donald Sterling is a racist and a
terrible human being, and his removal from NBA ownership was, albeit long
overdue, a good thing for the league and for society at large. But the fact
that this is a “getting Capone on tax evasion” situation is disheartening,
because the real crimes that Donald Sterling committed and the real issues that
go hand in hand with them will recede into the background. The NBA will
consider this a job well done, the media will consider this whole case closed,
and an opportunity to confront real issues will once again fall to the wayside.
You can follow Andy on twitter
at @AMOhoop34
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