Making celebrities of idiots who say or do things that have no socially redeeming value has become a defining feature of social media. Far worse, though, is the way mainstream media now cover these idiots as if their ignorant rantings and contrived antics are truly newsworthy.
This was brought into distressing relief over the past few days when President Obama’s historic trip to Asia had to compete for media coverage – even on NBC – with some deadbeat, redneck Nevada rancher who reportedly feels entitled to graze his cows on federal land free of charge and thinks Blacks were better off during slavery.
Whereas, but for the media making him a cause celebre, U.S. Marshals would have set him straight with no national fuss, leaving only his unfortunate friends and neighbors to suffer his asinine thoughts about the welfare of Blacks. (I refuse to dignify him by mentioning his name, let alone commenting any further.)
On the other hand, having the owner of a major American enterprise, like an NBA team, spout similar thoughts about Blacks is clearly newsworthy. Therefore, I fully expect all media to have a field day covering the (alleged) rantings of the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling, which went viral yesterday. I’m convinced it’s him, and shall proceed accordingly.
Here, courtesy of TMZ.com, is just a little of the racist admonition he was caught on tape giving, ironically enough, to his half-Black, half-Hispanic girlfriend. She, evidently, has the embarrassing habit (for him) of publishing Instagram photos of herself in the company of Black people:
It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people…
You can sleep with [black people] … you can bring them in, you can do whatever you want; the little I ask you is not to promote it on that [Instagram] and not to bring them to my games.
Don’t put [Magic Johnson] on an Instagram for the world to have to see so they have to call me … and don’t bring him to my games.
This really does not require much comment. I gather that Magic has reacted by saying he will not attend another Clippers game as long as Sterling is team owner. But, as long as he’s team owner, that should be the least of it.
Here are three things that should happen, immediately:
- Magic should call for an outright boycott by all Clippers fans. I’m sure most Whites are just as outraged but, like Magic, no self-respecting Black should support a team with an owner so racist he doesn’t even want Blacks in his arena. And I urge Magic to do so before Rev. Al Sharpton turns this sympathetic cause into yet another self-aggrandizing spectacle.
- Team leaders Chris Paul and Blake Griffin should organize a strike. No playoff game is worth playing for an owner who clearly thinks of his Black players as nothing more than glorified (and overpaid) slaves.
- The commissioner should forfeit his ownership with fair compensation in the interest of the NBA. (The commissioner of Major League Baseball set an instructive precedent by prevailing upon Marge Schott to sell her interest in the Cincinnati Reds after she was caught making similarly offensive anti-Semitic and anti-Asian comments.)
Frankly, these are no-brainers. After all, here’s what I called for when Donald Trump began spouting his semi-racist rantings about Barack Obama:
I urge all of the rich folks he depends on to patronize his eponymous resorts and buy up his eponymous condominiums to begin shunning him – just as they would a two-bit racist like David Duke. I urge this especially of the Black Hollywood and sports stars he likes to feature as extras in his one-man freak show.
Trump is entitled to say whatever he likes. But, at the very least, he should suffer truth and consequences for accusing this country’s first Black president of being a Kenyan Muslim – who has perpetrated ‘the biggest con in U.S. history.’
CBS fired Charlie Sheen from One and a Half Men for hurling anti-Semitic remarks at a TV producer; NBC should feel even more compelled to fire Trump from The Apprentice for hurling racist remarks at the president of the United States.
So, here’s to this fiendishly thin-skinned huckster having his trademark words thrown back in his face: Trump, you’re fired!
(“Trump for President? Don’t Be a Sucker,” The iPINIONS Journal, April 8, 2011)
No matter how this Sterling mess unfolds, I’d be shocked and dismayed if he still has his his NBA team or his Black-Hispanic girlfriend this time … next week.
But let me hasten to clarify that the takeaway from this story should not be Sterling’s pathetic, hypocritical, misogynistic, chauvinistic, and racist admonition to his girlfriend. It should be what his admonition betrays about the insidious strain of covert racism that runs so blithely through this ostensibly non-racist White man … and others like him (We have to wonder now, don’t we?).
Not to mention the slave master-like contradiction inherent in Sterling fearing mortal embarrassment by having his Black-Hispanic girlfriend post pictures of herself with Blacks online, yet proudly showing off this Black-Hispanic girl like a trophy wife everywhere he goes. Except that, with his nineteenth century-plantation mentality, he probably sees no greater contradiction in this than White slave masters saw in routinely sleeping with their Black female slaves.
Incidentally, he’s 80; she looks 25. This says all one needs to know about the kind of woman she is, which I suppose makes betraying her sugar daddy of four years in this fashion not principled or personal, just business.
In any event, I would be remiss not to note that my Jewish friends are particularly distressed that this Jew has been caught spewing racist bile that would make even a neo-Nazi wince. Especially given that section of the audiotape where Sterling is heard rationalizing his racism by declaring that in Israel White Jews treat Black Jews like dogs.
This gives a sense of the Solomonic challenge Jewish commissioner Adam Silver faces in sanctioning Sterling in a manner that not only respects his ownership rights, but also satisfies the justifiably outraged Black players who constitute almost 80 percent of the NBA.
(Yes, Silver bears an uncanny resemblance to the pitchfork-holding husband in Grant Wood’s classic painting, “American Gothic.”)
Also, the irony is not lost on me that this racial flare up comes on the heels of the Supreme Court ruling this week that it’s perfectly legal for states to ban affirmative action based on race in college admissions.
But this irony pales in comparison to this flare up coming right in the midst of the NAACP advertising its intent to award Sterling a lifetime achievement award. This, despite his well-documented legacy of housing discrimination against Blacks and Hispanics as one of America’s most notorious slumlords, which speaks volumes about the NAACP’s administrative incompetence … or venality. It’ll be interesting to see, though, whether the NAACP moves faster than the NBA to wipe the egg off its face, which association with Sterling now represents.
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* This commentary was originally published on Saturday at 5:17 pm