Posted on 04/30/2014 7:01:32 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In November 2009, Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling settled a lawsuit in which the Department of Justice alleged that Sterling had discriminated against Hispanics, blacks and families without children in his rental properties. The lawsuit contained testimony that Sterling had suggested Hispanics were poor tenants because they "smoke, drink, and just hang around the building," and that "black tenants smell and attract vermin." The settlement cost him and his insurers $2.73 million.
The NBA and the national media said virtually nothing. That same year, the NAACP gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2005, Sterling signed a check for more than $5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that he had attempted to prevent non-Koreans from renting in his facilities in Koreatown.
The NBA and the national media said virtually nothing.
This week, Sterling's 31-year-old girlfriend, V. Stiviano, released a tape of the 80-year-old racist being an 80-year-old racist. Sterling apparently told Stiviano he didn't want her posting pictures of black men on her Instagram account and didn't want her bringing black men to Clippers games.
The entire media establishment suddenly went insane. Colin Cowherd of ESPN idiotically called for the league to void all of Sterling's contracts with his players and agents -- a violation of basic contract law. Magic Johnson declared that the NBA should force Sterling to sell his team -- a violation of basic contract law. President Barack Obama, determined never to let an opportunity pass to label America racist, took to the microphones to declare Sterling's racism a symptom of America's "legacy of race and slavery and segregation."
This is, at the very least, hypocrisy. Last year, Sterling signed coach Doc Rivers, who is black, to a contract worth $7 million per year. Chris Paul, who is black, is slated to make nearly $19 million this season. Blake Griffin, who is black, is slated to make $16 million. DeAndre Jordan will make $11 million. The coach, these players and their agents surely knew about Sterling's legacy. So did Cowherd, Johnson and Obama. They all said nothing.
But the big problem here isn't hypocrisy. The big problem is that the market is turning on Sterling not over action, but over words. Sterling's a pig, and that's been no secret for decades. But what triggered America's response? Sterling's thoughts. American society now considers expression of thought to be significantly more important than action. Sterling got away with actual discrimination for years. But now he is caught on tape telling his gold-digging girlfriend he doesn't like blacks, and that's when the firestorm erupts?
This is the thought police at work. Feelings matter more than action. Words matter more than harming others. That sets a radically dangerous precedent for freedom of thought and speech, particularly for those whose thought and speech we hate. Freedom of speech and thought matters especially when it is speech and thought with which we disagree. The moment the majority decides to destroy people for engaging in thought it dislikes, thoughtcrime becomes a reality.
Sterling's career should have been ended by public outrage based on his established patterns of discrimination years ago. To end it based not on such disreputable action but on private musings caught on tape demonstrates America's newfound disregard for the rights of those whose thought we find despicable.
Ben Shapiro also observes at his column in Breitbart:
Spike Lee has stated that white gentrification of Harlem has been horrible, has posted the address of George Zimmerman’s parents online to spur violence, has explained after visiting South Africa in the early 1990s, “I seriously wanted to pick up a gun and shoot whites. The only way to resolve matters is by bloodshed.” He, like Donald Sterling, is no fan of interracial dating: “I give interracial couples a look. Daggers. They get uncomfortable when they see me on the street.” He’s currently a host on NBA Radio on SiriusXM, stars in NBA commercials, and had a front-row seat to the Sterling announcement.
Then there’s Jay Z. Jay Z isn’t just fêted by the President of the United States. He’s a former part-owner of the Brooklyn Nets and, as an agent, works closely with the league. He was spotted recently at an NBA game wearing a necklace medallion for the Five Percent Nation, which sees black men as gods and white people as devils.
I believe it was c. barkley that said the NBA was a black league. That is pretty racist itself, he has a free pass because it is a racist statement towards an old white guy.
Not one news story about magic johnsons and investment partners wanting to buy the team. (and the picture with the girlfriend is with magic Johnson)
We live in a politically correct world now.
Any statements which can be perceived as disrespectful to officially recognized grievance groups, such as blacks and homosexuals, will make one a target for destruction.
One will not just be condemned for racist or bigoted statements, one will also be targeted for destruction.
Paula Deen, the guy from Mozilla who contributed to Proposition 8, the guy from Chick Fill A, and now Donald Sterling, can all tell us about being targeted for destruction and banishment from society.
It’s no longer enough for the politically correct crowd to condemn statements or actions of those with whom they disagree. It’s no longer enough for them to try to persuade us that what all of these people did was bad. Instead, we now want to see these people driven out of business and their lives destroyed.
“I give interracial couples a look. Daggers. They get uncomfortable when they see me on the street.” - Spike Lee
Mr. Lee, you don't want to meet my First lady and me. Trust me, it won't end well.
5.56mm
Colin Cowturd having an opinion means it's okay for me to have the opposite one.
.....And this is just the public folks.
The lynching of Mr. Sterling for his thoughts was the biggest victory for the thought police too date. IMHO -tom
WHOA - maybe NOW can shake the old man down for cash too... Any chance he insulted Tea Party members?
Screw the black and the homo thought police. I think they are bigoted asses. Haven’t these losers heard of freedom? Freedom frightens them because they are degenerates.
“ain’t that America”
where a man can be divested of liberty and property for words.
No it isn't. It's the simple truth.
It could happen to just the average person. Imagine a some co-workers stopping for a drink after work. One of them has a grudge against the other and knows their views. So the conversation is prompted, recorded and ends up in Human Resources.
RE: where a man can be divested of liberty and property for words.
Well, we’ll just have to see if his property (i.e. the L.A. Clippers) is “confiscated” OR NOT...
Sterling bought the Clippers for just $12 million in 1981, and the team is now worth $575 million, according to Forbes magazine.
If he sells it for market value, he makes nearly 50 times hims original investment. And if he does, his property isn’t being confiscated at all.
This is really all about.....”I hate Whitey”...and it can’t be more evident in the promotion of such by Obama and Michelle.
what you describe is where we are headed.
I can’t believe what we just witnessed. An NBA owner is being forced out of the NBA for comments in a private conversation.
He’s being forced out due to political correctness, not because of mismanaging his team, but because he “dissed”, in ghetto parlance, a recognized grievance group (blacks).
If he had made stark comments about the tea party or gun rights people or born again Christians, this would never have become a big news story, or an issue for the commissioner to deal with.
Under political correctness, there are certain grievance groups which you are not allowed to say anything about.
Blacks and homosexuals are at the top of the pyramid of such groups. Born again Christians, straight men, white men, family values groups, etc. are at the bottom of the pyramid.
If he gets market value, then we could say his team was not confiscated; I see your point.
But, if it is a forced sale, I wonder if that changes things?
Not true.
It was a tape of an 80-year old fool being an 80-year old fool over his young, hot, tight (well, perhaps not THAT tight) mistress - a story as old as time.
He was BEGGING her - that's right, a real-estate billionaire was begging a penniless wretch - not to humiliate him in front of his peers. That's what he meant about "bringing them to MY games".
He didn't say he didn't want (generic) blacks at (generic) Clippers games. He said he didn't want HIS girlfriend showing up at HIS games with hot young studs, and he made it clear that it was so because his fellow owners would taunt him - which, I have no doubt, they would have done, and in racist terms that would dwarf anything he said on the damn tape.
Just to be clear - best practice is to forgo the young mistress. But, cash is to young women like horsesh** is to flies, and, as above, this story is as old as time.
I used the word “divested” instead of “confiscated” on purpose.
A forced sale is still against his will.
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