Another view

The owner, for now, of the Los Angeles Clippers is everybody’s target these days. It seems he was recorded saying some less than flattering things about black people on tape. Ergo, the commissioner of the National Basketball Association has banned said owner from games or other NBA-sponsored events. For life. Now the league has to figure out how to take the team away from him legally or get him to sell. The tone of the comments directed at Mr. Donald Sterling (and maybe the big problem with them, too) can be gauged well enough by a few samples of the comments sent zinging his way this week:

“In a league dominated by black athletes, there is zero room for Sterling’s brand of booming bigotry.”- Jamelle Bouie in Slate.

“Nothing Sterling said was illegal, of course, but team owners answer to a different law . . . especially in a sport in which almost 80 percent of the players are African Americans.”- USA Today

“We are a black league!”- Charles Barkley, former player and current basketball analyst.

Allow us to offer another view of the matter, and it shouldn’t take any great insight to share it: It matters not a whit how many black players are on the Clippers’ team, or what percentage of the league is black. It wouldn’t matter if there were no black players on the team and none at all in the NBA. (If you can imagine such a thing.) No, the statements attributed to Donald Sterling were offensive-or should have been-to any American of any race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation or preferred sports team. Because it’s not just black fans or black players who have reason to be offended. That’s the big problem, and big omission, with all this righteous indignation aimed at the execrable Mr. Sterling.

If one Donald Sterling weren’t a rich and influential sports magnate, but just another oaf at another cocktail party, it would be obvious that he needs to be told off like any regular jerk. Without making some big deal about it. Garden variety racism needs to be taken care of like any other noxious weed: dug up by the roots.

Editorial, Pages 14 on 05/01/2014

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