Yeah but it sounds like he did a lot of good things for the black community. All she did was make race relations worse by leaking this phone call. There’s no good that will come out of this by her doing so. Does she really think she did something good by leaking this? No way, she did this because she probably was cut off by him because he found out she’s vindictive. The way the phone call sounds, it sounds like she was setting him up from the start. She acts very innocent but in a bad acting kind of way.
Good things? That’s in the eye of the beholder.
What’s not in the eye of the beholder is that he’s a slum lord who illegally targeted minorities in his tenancy policies. And this is hardly his first racially based tirade, though at least this time it wasn’t against one of his employees.
Maybe people let that slide if he was a decent owner. Nope. He’s run the Clippers into the ground, and it’s only been in the last few years (out of over 30 of ownership) they haven’t been a total joke.
BFD. Nobody twisted his arm. He was expressing his honest opinions on race. And those opinions are rightly being pilloried.
The attempt to deflect blame by attacking the messenger is really fucking disgusting.
Yeah, right, exposing racism is racist.
I think the whole thing is disgusting. I only blame the messenger because I don’t feel like she did this for the right reasons.
Again, BFD. We don’t live in an ideal world. And bad people end up doing good things (sometimes for bad reasons). Deal with it.
If that’s enough to detract attention away from a disgusting bigot, that reflects more poorly on us than it does on her.
Who cares about her reasons? She did us all a service. That is good enough for me.
Seriously, how did she do you a service? All of a sudden now your enlightened because some money grubbing women showed us that a 80 year old man has racist views? Cmon, the black community is going to get hurt for this because now the NAACP is giving back all donations made by Sterling. It’s ridiculous to me, I’m pretty sure even the NAACP even knew he had racist views before and now because of this, money he donated will probably go towards an island in Bermuda instead of food and shelter for the poor.
The fight against racism requires exposure and denunciation of racism. Every time that happens, especially when it’s someone who holds some degree of societal standing, we are better off. And every time an organization like the NAACP returns blood money in public and embarrasses someone like Sterling, we 're better off.
There will be other sources if private charity, which in the big picture is inconsequential anyway. It was a drop in the bucket compared to his housing policies.
I don’t know why his age is relevant. I’d happy if every 80-year-old racist should be publicly shamed in this way.
Also, I don’t think this was just a thought crime. Sterling was actively trying to pressure people around him to keep black people out of his fairly elite social circle. I think that kind of thing does real damage to the position of black people in society, and whatever her motivations, its a good thing Sterling’s gf exposed it.
(If I were incharge of the NAACP, I would’ve kept the money, since giving money back to a racist seems kinda nuts, but I can see why they went the other route).
Can we all slow down the lynch mob mentality a bit?
I listened to the clips, and I want to take a rational position on this.
First, this “girlfriend” allegedly baited him. She illegally taped a conversation which under California law was private and she broke the law by releasing it. Also I heard a person familiar with interrogation techniques believes the girlfriend was coached because of the way she asked the questions. Is it true? I don’t know.
Also, supposedly she is being sued by Sterlings estranged wife (or Sterling himself, I didn’t get the details) and she supposedly threatened to get him back for the lawsuit.
Finally we have no context. We also don’t know if the tapes were altered. Until all these questions are answered, I think it is crazy to suspend him or take his team away. Let due process occur.
Is the man racist? As much as a guy dating an asian/whatever she is could be. I mean, it’s not like he wouldn’t bed down only with jews. (i believe he is jewish). And if he only slept with jewish women, would that make him a racist?
Everyone is claiming he is this flaming racist, and yet he already received one lifetime achievement award from the NAACP and was scheduled to receive a second next month.
Everyone is using the word “alleged”, however he has already been condemned.
Let’s wait until the recording is proven to be unaltered and Sterling. And let’s also wait until we can all hear the entire tape.
I understand the politically correct all wanting to slam this guy, and maybe he is the biggest racist in the planet, but rushing to judgement is exactly what was done in the Duke Lacrosse scandal, and how did that turn out?
I have no problem with waiting for all the facts to come to light before deciding what to do. If he is guilty, let him deal with the consequences, whatever they may be.
Had to mention this, a quote from a deposition Sterling gave in 2003:
http://theclassical.org/sites/default/files/SterlingTalkLikeSex1.png
Man, I get through the whole thread, think “holy cow, no one’s posted the deposition yet” and then this.
No reason to. The guy’s a billionaire and he can’t be hurt. He has a history of bizarrely sick racism. This has been out for several days and he still hasn’t clearly denied that it’s him.
As for “the bitch set me up” nonsense—there’s no way she could have tricked him into saying that stuff.
Bwa-ha-ha-ha!
“Sir, the question was ‘Is this your handwriting?’”
HA!
If this was the first friggin’ time it happened, sure. Fool me 103846 times, shame on you. Fool me 103847 or more times…
This is nowhere close to the first time this douchenozzle has said or done something disgustingly racist. He’s got a recorded history of this shit going back literally decades. I’d elaborate, but a simple Google search (plus several of the replies in this thread) give the story pretty well.
Do you honestly think he can be shamed into it?
There is no legal precedent for this, and as you say, the NBA can’t force him to sell. And they won’t, because they know they are all one slip of the tongue from the same fate.
He is an old, and very strange man. His death will come long before he agrees to sell the team on anything but only his terms.
He can also probably have a case that this whole thing has reduced the amount of the value of his team. Billionaire or no, I haven’t known a rich man to leave money on the table.
How old is he, anyway? 80? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what the 20+ year old was doing with him.
And here’s an interesting twist. What if (and I say what if, because I am just speculating here) that it turns out that she did doctor the tapes? And she admits to baiting him?
Would Sterling be able to sue all of these folks that are calling him a racist? Isn’t that slander (and libel, for that matter)?
I can see how he might have a case, since the NAACP was loading up to give him his second lifetime achievement award.
From what I’ve read, Sterling loves court, and never goes down without a fight.
Unless there is a major smoking gun that gives him zero outs, I suspect this will be an ugly, drawn out spectacle for a long time.
He can press charges if he wants. But I don’t think anyone really cares about the gf. She isn’t a billionaire real-estate mogal and owner of a major sports franchise. Trying to deflect the conversation to be about her isn’t going to work.
It wasn’t like a slip of the tongue. The guy goes on a prolonged explanation of why he doesn’t want her to be seen with black people. For fifteen minutes. He repeats himself several times, in different ways. The idea that this was some sort of Jedi mind-trick is desperate grasping at straws.
I think its probably safe to say that the person that released the tape probably doesn’t like Sterling very much, for whatever reason.
There is no context that would make this go away. It’s not like it might be a badly worded phrase or few seconds of audio taken out of a longer conversation. There’s fifteen minutes of him going on about the same topic.
This is a defence Sterling himself doesn’t seem to be making. He’s had plenty of time to deny the tape if its a fake.
Your just throwing up random issues. Nobody cares about his personal preference in romantic partners.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that probably won’t be happening.
Due process is a legal term. Trying to browbeat your gf into not associating with other people isn’t illegal, there isn’t going to be any legal case to wait for.
I agree that he does not have a very good track record.
However, as I have mentioned, he was just about to receive his second lifetime achievement award from the NAACP. Can you explain this?
Why on earth would the NAACP give him not one, but two awards? This baffles me, especially since, as you and many others have pointed out, he isn’t exactly clean in his history here.
Also, from what I have read the last couple of days, it seems very clear from those who know about the situation, that David Stern gave the Clippers Chris Paul. Why reward a guy who has, from all indications, been a terrible owner and worse, a terrible person?
No, there is something more at work here.
By the way, i am in no way supporting anything Sterling said. I am just suggesting that there may be more here than meets the eye, that everyone may not want the covers pulled completely back.
Most of you have condemned him, and that is understandable to a point. However, I believe it is advisable to wait and see what falls out here.
The NBA will simply hound him until he sells the team. He may be a billionaire, but even he isn’t immune to ridicule or scorn. You can also bet that the NBA Player’s Association ( the player’s union) will be scrutinizing claims against the Cipper’s organization more closely until until Sterling has left the stage.
If you want people to do something that they may not be inclined to do, you don’t have to undertake a forward assault. You can simply make things so unpleasant for them that they decide to leave on their own.MLB did it with Marge Schott after her incidents with the Cincinnati Reds and the NBA can easily do it to Sterling.