Tuesday, April 29, 2014

The Donald Sterl-mancipation

So I guess I'm supposed to be happy that Donald Sterling got a lifetime ban from the NBA.  Yeah, that's fantastic, considering that his days on this earth are probably in the single digits, anyway.  It's a lifetime ban for a person without much life left.  And he still owns the team, so all Adam Silver really did was tell him he can't come to the stadium.  When you buy Clippers merch or tix, you're still putting money in his pocket. And speaking of money, on a percentage basis, the amount that he got fined is about the same as you being fined around $20. 

Yeah, we got a huge win today.

But during a few checks on social media when I was supposed to be working, I see y'all out here acting like we just got emancipated.  Like it was the OJ verdict all over again.  And I gotta ask, what are you so happy about?

Now, I'm not one of these people who's gonna try to ruin your good mood by saying that there are more important things to be concerned with.  Those people are assholes, because of course there's always something to be more concerned with. It's just that there hasn't been much change on the Keystone XL Pipeline and Congress still isn't passing any bills.  And since The Walking Dead still hasn't come back, we're pretty starved for excitement.

No, I'm going to ruin your good mood by telling you that this is nothing to be happy about, because Donald Sterling didn't get banned because he's a racist.  Donald Sterling got banned because it became big news that he was a racist. 

Donald Sterling was a racist a long time before now, and there were a whole lot of incidents that he was involved in that were reported on and promptly ignored.  The only difference between this one and all of those was how you found out about it.  The other ones came out through lawsuits and court depositions and OH MY GOD THIS IS SO BORINGZZZZZZZZZZZZ. This one came out because his jump off (I refuse to call her anything else) goaded him into talking about black people so she could record it and leak it to TMZ.  Already, this story is more sexy.  Certainly, sexier than she is.  She looks like she used to be a man. 

All of a sudden, Donald Sterling is an embarrassment and needs to be removed, but wasn't he just as embarrassing, if not more so back in 2009, when he paid out the largest settlement on housing discrimination lawsuit ever?  Or what about those sexual harassment suits?  His callous nature when it came to evicting tenants?  The time that he made his wife pose as a government worker and visit the residents of his buildings to find out what race they were, so he could evict them?  Refusing to rent to Blacks or Latinos at all?  Donald Sterling has been a horrible piece of shit racist for a long time.  So really, it should insult all of you that this is what it took to bring him down. 

You mean to tell me that the NBA didn't know about any of this?  And that his racist views expressed in a private conversation is worse than the stuff listed above that the NBA certainly knows about?  The NBA doesn't care that Donald Sterling is racist.  The NBA cares that you know he's racist.  If this was about his racism, they would have banned him in 1983 when he asked Rollie Massamino, "I wanna know why you think you can coach these niggers."

The truth is, if Donald Sterling's jump off was a woman of a higher character, you wouldn't know anything that he said and they wouldn't have done anything.  Period.  Despite the fact that he's continued to make himself rich by denying living space to minorities.  Despite the fact that he's sexually harassed women in his employ.  Adam Silver can get in front of reporters and make his dramatic statements, but the truth is, it wasn't a problem for them before.  It only became a problem when it became public.

And the same goes for all of these sponsors who cut ties with the Clippers.  If y'all don't stop acting like you have morals.  Every one of you is a conglomerate of corrupt pieces of shit.  Every one of you knew who Sterling was and chose to sign deals with him anyway, because OOH LOOGIT BLAKE GRIFFIN JUMPS HIGH.  And now that everyone knows that he's a bigot, you don't want your brand associated with him.  Good thing those lawsuits got swept under the rug, otherwise, you would have been forced to leave all that money on the table.  So CarMax, State Farm, Kia, Corona, AQUAhydrate. Red Bull, Sprint, Lumber Liquidators,  LoanMart, Yokohama Tires, Samsung, Mercedes-Benz, and Virgin America, you ain't shit.  Not a single one of you.

So don't get too excited about all of this.  All that happened is that they reminded you what their real priorities are.  No progress has been made.  Unless you're Donald Sterling's jump off.  She's about to come up when she gets that spot on Basketball Wives.

No comments: