Posted on 05/01/2014 3:51:22 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Usually on The Lookout I share my views on at least five stories concerning Black folks in the media but this week, all anybody is talking about is Donald Sterling the hopefully soon-to-be former owner of the L.A. Clippers. So, I figured, my column this week had to focus on what we should really Lookout for in Sterlings comments.
As you know NBA commissioner Adam Silver threw the book at the longest tenured owner in franchise history Tuesday following TMZs release of a racist recording where like a modern-day plantation owner Sterling can be heard talking about his players as if they were his slaves.
I support them and give them food, and clothes, and cars, and houses, he tells his Black and Mexican mistress V. Stiviano, who secretly taped him. Who gives it to them? Does someone else give it to them? he asks her.
But while much has been said about notorious slumlord Sterling and his long and undisputed history of racism to include insults he made years ago about how his Black tenants smell and attract vermin the issue is so much bigger than the words of a bigoted, 80-year-old man.
The real issue here is the culture that Donald Sterling represents.
He said it himself on that now infamous recording: We dont evaluate whats right and wrong, he explained to Stiviano, after demanding she not bring or be photographed with Blacks like NBA great Magic Johnson or L.A. Dodgers player Matt Kemp at his games. We live in a society. We live in a culture we have to live within that culture.
Hmm, exactly what culture is Sterling speaking of?
While he may now be banned from the sport for life and fined $2.5 million dollars a drop in the bucket in his nearly two billion-dollar enterprise trust, Sterling is hardly alone.
In fact, the rest of his culture a.k.a all the other people who feel like he does are not only still out there, theyre busy drafting and enacting the laws that will continue to keep us legislatively enslaved.
That culture Donald Sterling speaks of is represented in the United States Congress, where Republicans like congressman Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann and Ted Cruz are working overtime to either push or support bills that will cut billions of dollars in food stamps literally taking food out of millions of poor childrens mouths.
The culture is demonstrated in the Supreme Court where Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito recently scrapped section four of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, the provision that dictates which parts of the country must have changes to their voting laws cleared by the federal government or in federal court before they are made. In areas generally affecting whom, you ask?
You got it Black folks.
The culture Sterling mentioned is evident with other team owners, most of them white men who rep a league made up of 80-percent Black players who, in my opinion, moved too slowly to denounce Sterling. He made his position toward Black people very clear: You can sleep with them, you can bring them in, you can do whatever you want, he told Stiviano, echoing the good ol boy mentality shared by many. The little I ask you is not to promote it on that [Instagram] and not to bring them to my games.
In other words, Theyre cool as far as working for me just dont bring them to my house or allow them to date my daughter.
The culture is the anchors at FOX News and those pulling the strings inside our police stations, federal and local courthouses, prison complexes and medical facilities. Theyre the ones insides the schools teaching our kids!
Theyre billionaires like the Koch brothers whove got the money and power to give and take away opportunity at will.
The culture is Trayvon Martins killer George Zimmerman and Jordan Davis killer Michael Dunn a man who didnt think twice about pulling the trigger on a Black teen because he played his music too loud.
The culture is newly-minted Tea Party poster-child Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who had this to say to the New York Times recently about African Americans: They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton And Ive often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didnt get no more freedom. They got less.
The culture is vicious, unrelenting, pervasive, obvious yet hidden and unapologetically anti-Black.
From the moment our ancestors set foot in this country we have been at war with this culture abject racism reinforced by the chain and whip and guarded by the U.S. Constitution.
Today the culture openly mocks and disrespects our President, calling him a liar, a monkey and worse, spending hundreds of millions of dollars in an effort to appeal the Affordable Care Act just to spite him.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said that Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless, and the spirit by which he proclaimed this is still true today.
Yes, Sterling was booted out. Yes, he stands to lose his team. But the take-away should be that we dont have to wait for the powers that be to make the call.
We dont have to hold our breaths and hope the other team owners see it from our side.
We can and should stand up and speak out whenever and wherever there is injustice.
Our job the next time we run up against the culture is to say, you know what? Eff the game. Playing in it, going to it or watching it is not worth the insult to my dignity and pride.
It is to exercise our enormous collective economic power and just stop buying whether theyre jeans, pancake platters or seasons tickets from people who hate us.
Its to strike, rally, protest and put pressure on any of the corporations that dare to back the culture. And, finally, its to back ourselves building up businesses in our own community so that when the culture shows its true colors we have the strength to hit it where it hurts. In the pockets.
After all, we have the power to control the culture if only we would wake up and use it.
Ive spent my entire career as a civil rights activist and anti-violence advocate. I hear from folks all over the country about how fed-up they arehow much they want changebut they dont know where to start. Its not enough just to be informed, weve got to work tirelessly to do better. With the The Lookout, Ill collect the most important stories and action items that you need to know about and things you can do each week, keeping you involved so you can create positive change for yourself and your community.
I want to hear from you; whats going on in your community? What stories or events should folks know about? Leave a comment below.
Called a leader of tomorrow by Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama, Valerie B. Jarrett, Tamika D. Mallory is a nationally recognized leader and civil rights activist. Tamika is the Founder/President of Mallory Consulting, LLC and the former Executive Director of the National Action Network (NAN), one of the nations leading civil rights organizations. She is featured regularly as a leading voice on key social justice issues and is currently making headlines around the country for her tireless activism and strong stance on womens issues, anti-violence, young adult advocacy, and decency.
Tamika, here's your sign!
Taking white folks earnings and giving them to non working black people (Tamika says) is racist.
You mean Democrats?
A surreptitiously recorded conversation between a Jewish billionaire and his Black/Mexican Sugar Baby is an example of white racism ...
She thinks Sara Palin is a congressman?
Without seeing a picture, i am guessing that Tamika is NOT a white person of Norwegian descent. Or Irish. Or Polish. Or French.
There is no such thing as RACIST, just people with opinions and people that disagree for now but will eventually come to share the same opinion.
The Fox Koch Zimmerman face of white America ...
I feel much like this guy in that regard.....Tamika, if you really want to hurt my feelings, boycott accepting all those freebies.
Every girlfriend I had while stationed overseas was at least 10X more attractive than that creature and I made less than $500 a month before taxes and other deductions. Seriously? He’s a billionaire?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.