Los Angeles Clippers’ long-time owner Donald Sterling is being investigated for allegedly making repulsive racist comments that have no place in today’s society.
TMZ has released an audio tape recording attributed to Sterling in which he admonishes a younger girlfriend, identified by the website as V. Stivano, saying he was angry she had posted an Instagram account of herself and Lakers’ great Magic Johnson. “It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people,” the voice said. “Don’t put hm on an Instragram for the world to have to see so they have to call me. And don’t bring him to my games,”
“Yeah,” the voice says, “It bothers me a lot you want to promo, broadcast that you’re associating with black people. Do you have that?”
Sterling’s wife sued Stivano last month, asking for a return of cash, property, cars and other items Sterling gave Stivano.”
If the allegations are true, the NBA should suspend Sterling from attending his team’s home games next season, fine him $10 million with the money going to a minority charity, make him publicly apologize and attend sensitivity training sessions.
His alleged behavior has given this league its biggest black eye of the young century.
The Clippers were quick to jump to Sterling’s defense, with president Andy Roeser saying in a statement he is not certain whether the recording was authentic and the club was investigating. He added that “Mr. Sterling is emphatic that what is reflected on that recording is not consistent with, nor reflect his views, beliefs or feelings. It is the antithesis of what he is.”
Everyone should be afforded due process and it is only fair to wait until the results of a league investigation before passing final judgment. Newly appointed NBA commissioner Adam Silver said the league will move “extraordinarily quickly” in its investigation and he hoped to have an initial report in “the next few days.” He indicated the NBA had been in contact with Sterling already, saying the league’s longest-tenured owner had agreed not to travel to Oakland, Calif. where the Clippers played Golden State Warriors Sunday in the first round of the playoffs.
This isn’t an isolated incident where Sterling is concerned. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Sterling for using race as a factor in filling some of his apartment buildings in Los Angeles County. The suit charged Sterling systematically drove Hispanics, blacks and families with children out of apartment buildings he owned in Los Angeles County. According to a deposition given by Sumner Davenport, one of his four property supervisors, in the lawsuit and obtained by ESPN, Sterling said he did not like to rent to Hispanics because they “just sit around and drink and smoke all day” and that black tenants “smell and are not clean.”’
Three years later, in 2009, Sterling paid $2.73 million to settle the suit plus court costs.
That same year, Sterling was sued unsuccessfully by former longtime Clippers executive Elgin Baylor for employment discrimination on the basis of age and race. The original lawsuit, reported in the Los Angeles Times, alleged Sterling told Baylor that he wanted to fill his team with “poor black boys from the South and a white head coach”. The suit alleged that during negotiations for Danny Manning, Sterling said “I’m offering a lot of money for a poor black kid.” The suit noted those comments while alleging “the Caucasian head coach was given a four-year, $22-million contract”, but Baylor’s salary had “been frozen at a comparatively paltry $350,000 since 2003”.
The NBA should have taken a closer look at Sterling back then, but chose to turn a blind eye. Now, the league is paying for it.
There is no room for this type of bigotry in a league that is as close as this country has to being race blind. “He’s got to suspend him right now,” TNT analyst Charles Barkley said. “First of all, they have to prove it is his voice on the tape, but this is the first big test of Adam Silver. You can’t have this guy making statements like that. He has to suspend him and fine him immediately.”
Sterling has never been sanctioned by the league since he bought the team in 1981. Other owners have been fined, most notably Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who has paid out nearly $2 million in 19 fines, according to Bleacher Report. One fine reportedly was $500,000, about the same amount Miami Heat owner Micky Arison supposedly had to pay in 2011. But those were for remarks about officiating and the lockout.
This is far worse.
If Sterling is guilty, sanctions need to be meaningful, falling just short of making him sell the franchise, which is reportedly worth $578 million. This is the 21st century and although it would be foolish to suggest racism is dead in this country, it would also be wrong for anyone who might hold these views to be associated with this globalized league, which reaches every corner of the world.
Reaction to the release of the TMZ tape was swift throughout the NBA. LeBron James of the Heat said, “There is no room for Donald Sterling in our league.” Magic Johnson said he would never attend a Clippers’ game as long as Sterling remained owner. The Clippers talked about boycotting their playoff game, but instead chose to wear their uniforms inside out as a symbolic form of protest
It hasn’t taken long for the White House to weigh in. President Barack Obama said Sunday during a trip to Malaysia that comments reportedly made by Sterling are “incredibly offensive racist statements” before casting them as part of “a continuous legacy of slavery and segregation that Americans must confront.”
“When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don’t really have to do anything, just let them talk,” Obama said.
Both the mayor’s office and city council in Los Angeles have condemned the statements. Clippers’ coach Doc Rivers, who is an African American, was asked how comfortable he was working for the Clippers. “I don’t know,” he said. It doesn’t make me comfortable, that’s for sure.”
The NAACP, which was supposed to present Sterling with a lifetime achievement award May 15, has cancelled that event.
The Clippers are the only playoff team in Los Angeles these days and have a quality coach and two legitimate stars Chris Paul and Blake Griffin. But if the statements are true, they and any future free agents should think twice about accepting money to play for a man with a slave owner’s mentality.
