Monday, April 28, 2014

THAT'S THE WAY THE BALL BOUNCES

Sterling and his girl toy-I'm sure his money has nothing to do with her attraction



Los Angeles Clippers’ owner Donald Sterling went on a racist rant during an argument with his girlfriend, who promptly put it out for public consumption.

Sterling expressed frustration that his girlfriend associated with "minorities" in public and said he didn't approve of her posting pictures online via Instagram. 

The recording is unsurprisingly garnering plenty of attention.

Interestingly enough, his girlfriend IS a minority, so he does not want to associate with minorities unless he happens to be cheating on his wife with one.

On ESPN’s First Take, Stephen A. Smith called on the NBA and the owners to kick Sterling out of their organization.

An enraged Stephen A. Smith....but he'll still cover the Clippers


The NBA probably does not have the authority to do that, and while they are “investigating” the matter and have scheduled a press conference for tomorrow (April 29), the statements by owners and players condemning Sterling’s behavior are the strongest action the league should take.

Interesting that the two prior lawsuits against Sterling regarding racist practices as a landlord and racism as a team executive, both settled out of court, never raused the ire of the league.

Funny thing, freedom. Sterling has every right to be a racist. 

That’s what America used to be-a country where the right for someone to act in a way that is reprehensible to most was a right that was guarded.

Smith also expressed outrage that the NAACP had planned to award Sterling a second lifetime achievement award next month, accusing them of ‘selling out.’

He also called for fans to stop criticizing the players (who are under contract), and for them to take action on their own, implying that they boycott the team.


Skip brought up the prior racist behavior-but I disagree that boycotting the team
and risking an NBA title is a bad approach-I think it is the ONLY approach


When Skip Bayless objected to this on the grounds that the Clippers had a good chance of winning the NBA title, Smith backpedaled.


Cari Champion, First Take's moderator, did not
get quoted-I just think she's really cute and wanted
to post her picture!

And there you have the level of commitment to beliefs in America.

Skip and Stephen, when you place an NBA title above principles, you’ve sold out. 

You are doing exactly what you called the NAACP on the carpet for.

I’d go further to say that if the players on the Clipper’s roster feel offended by Sterling’s comments to the point they want him gone as owner, they should not dress for tomorrow’s game. 

With a title on the line, now is the BEST time for players and fans to act to effect an ownership change.

The Clippers players also made their sentiments known yesterday. 

They came out for pregame and immediately discarded their team warmups into a pile on the court, wearing plain red shirts and pants during shootaround. 

They went on to turn in a lackluster performance, losing 118-97 to the Golden State Warriors in Game 4 of the Western Conference playoffs.

A good start. 

To not play at all would be a stronger action.

For the Warriors to sit down as well would make me STAND UP AND CHEER!

Smith raised the argument that the players were under contract.

Bullshit.

When a player under contract sits because he wants to renegotiate his deal, Smith is all for that behavior, saying the player deserves to ‘get paid.’

If that argument holds water for financial reasons, how can it not hold water when fighting racism?

What will happen to the value of the franchise if no one will play and no one will watch?

Magic Johnson was quoted as saying he’d “never attend a Clipper’s game for as long as Sterling owns the team.”

That’s a step in the right direction. 

You just need every seat in the arena to be empty.

During the nineteenth century, there were some slaves who risked EVERYTHING to escape their bondage. 

Some died, some made it to the north.

Many others waited for Lincoln free them.

I am not condemning those who did not take the risk-I do not know what I would have done given the same circumstances. 

But had emancipation not happened for another two centuries, the descendants of those people who played it safe would still be waiting for someone to free them.

Those who risked everything would have descendants who were free.

In every revolution, you need to risk something. Or you can wait for someone to do it for you (the New American Way). 

Los Angeles, if you want Donald Sterling out of your lives, maybe you need to be willing to give up that NBA title.

If Los Angeles places the value of one basketball season against their belief that Sterling’s behavior is wrong, then I believe he should be allowed to keep the team.

If the behavior is not offensive enough for the people of Los Angeles to act on their own behalf, it is obviously not offensive enough behavior to warrant punishment.

The league can condemn his behavior, and they may call for him to step down. I can see them suspending him, for whatever good that will do.



I believe any formal action to remove him as owner would be met with a legal reaction on his part, and I believe he would have the law on his side.

I believe Sterling has a right to his opinion.

I also believe America has a right to choose not to follow the Clippers or to buy products from corporations who sponsor the team while he is the owner.

Sponsors like CarMax, Kia Motors, State Farm and Virgin America have already begun to rethink their alliance with the team.

Maybe you should rethink drinking Sprite, Budweiser and Gatorade, all sponsors of the NBA. How about the concessions in Staples Center? 

You see, what I believe most of all is that America has lost the ability to stand for something.

And this would be a perfect time to put that to the test.



Devil In A Blue Dress


I believe his girlfriend deserves what she gets, too.

She knew he was married and slept with him anyway.


She knew he was a racist ass and slept with him anyway. 

And I am sure that her making their private conversation public was not accidental.

I am guessing that size mattered to her-the size of his bank account. 



Afterword-While the theme of this post may seem a little off-topic, I have decided to suspend my sports-themed blog, and will post topics here that I feel strongly about.

This post is less about a basketball owner and more about people taking action for themselves rather than waiting for Big Brother to do it.

Although, I expect that our President will issue an executive order taking the Clippers away from Sterling and giving them to the tramp in the blue dress.



16 comments:

  1. Y'know, I also wondered the sense of the NAACP for giving a man with multiple racist incidents in his folio an award, or all these outraged players that signed contracts with the man knowing how he thinks. Throw in the talking heads, and you get a fine kettle that tastes the same all the way through and the prominent color is green.

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  2. LC ~
    Wow! First time ever that you've posted a blog bit in which I disagreed with EVERYONE (including you).

    I never realized I could be THIS FAR outside of the "playing field". I knew I was an outsider, but now it seems I'm an Outside-Outsider. Hokey-Smoke!

    ~ D-FensDogg
    'Loyal American Underground'

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    1. Well you can't drop that bomb and not elaborate...but did you read the small print?

      The point I am trying to make is that every black I have seen interviewed is offended and wants the NBA to do something about it.

      I'm calling for them to do something about it.

      Quite frankly, I don't care much either way-I was not going to watch the game anyway, I disagree with the guy's rant, I think his girlfriend's behavior stinks of a setup and believe he shouldn't be screwing around on his wife in the first place.

      If he'd kept it in his pants, he'd still be an "in-the'closet" racist!

      Hopefully you have a longer comment forthcoming....I am curious.

      LC

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  3. I used to wonder why I was always seeing these ads in the L.A.Times about the Donald Sterling Foundation and they'd have all these pictures of him and all these black people--mostly Clippers players I guess. I had no idea who he was and what it all meant, but they were in the paper so much that I couldn't help but remember the guy and his "charitable work". I didn't care then and I don't care now.

    This is just the new big news item to entertain the masses until they get bored. No one found the lost Malaysian airliner--old boring news. Ukraine might pop back up if things get really exciting--but for now Americans don't care that much. This Donald guy is a racy story with all kinds of issues involved--let's talk about him for a while. This is not a story that will probably have much influence over humanity in general.

    What celebrity will be next? Americans don't want the important news, they want the titillating crap or the stuff that fires the tinfoil hat imagination.

    Oh, yeah, and they trashed Bundy the cattle rancher. I'm not sure exactly what he said, but I think I know what he was talking about and I'd probably agree with him. But in the eyes of the media he's a racist and a subversive so we need to strip him of his credibility by calling him a racist. Why not just accuse him of being a "homophobe" as well?

    Well, now I'm on a free association rant. Back to basketball. If I were a Clippers fan and had tickets that I'd paid for in my hand, I'd be pretty upset if players staged a walkout or some protest that screwed up my enjoyment of the game. Most of them probably don't give a crap about the story and just want to watch a basketball game and hope their teams gets to the final playoff game. Just because the owner might have done something stupid we should punish a whole lot more people?

    I don't know, but actually I don't really care that much.

    Lee
    Wrote By Rote
    An A to Z Co-host blog

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    1. Lee-

      I would not blame the ticket holders for being upset, but I still maintain if the players are as upset as they are claiming, they should refuse to play.

      This business of waiting for the league to solve their issues for them is nonsense.

      The claim that they "must play due to their contract" is a joke (see how quickly they sit when they want to renegotiate-and nobody cares about the ticket holders in that scenario).

      Like you, I do not care so much. I just wish Americans claiming to have convictions would stand behind them.

      -The racist homophobic politically incorrect blogger formerly known as DiscConnected

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    2. NBA news conference coming in a short while from when I'm posting this comment.

      Pay me millions and people can denigrate me, make fun of me, or call me whatever they want. It's really all a big goofy mess. The team, the game and the fans should be kept separate from the owner. Let Sterling be handled as a separate issue. I'm sure there are other ways that he can be boycotted or punished. For one thing he's been getting humiliated plenty of late. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't sell his stupid team on his own and retreated under cover of profuse apologies and payouts to all sorts of charitable things to make him look like a humanitarian.

      No matter what he does, I still don't care and wish this story would disappear. I want to hear about Justin Bieber. Now that's news.

      Lee
      Wrote By Rote
      An A to Z Co-host blog

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    3. Here's my scenario on the Malaysian jetliner:

      Two terrorists aligned with the ones in xingjiang (sp) province in China board the plane. They plan to hijack the plane a la 9/11. But the Chinese catch wind. Invite one or two of their terrorist "brethren to observe as- with the complicity of the Malaysian gov't- SHOOT DOWN the plane in mid flight. They all make a big show of searching for it thousands of miles away to divert until the truth is hopelessly sunk, the Malaysian gov't takes a small bit of egg-foo-yung on face, and the terrorists are warned: "You cannot get anything past US."

      Fantasy? Maybe, but makes more sense than "crashed in to the southern Indian Ocean" or "Landed on a mountain road between Pakistan and Afghanistan".

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    4. Lee-

      At the end of the day we agree at least on one thing-we wish the story would go away. It sounds like the "ruling" banned the owner from the team (wonder how that works in practice).

      CW-your scenario is no weirder than the "official" explanations....although if the plane did simply crash, it is an awfully big ocean to be looking for debris...maybe the pilots were tired of news stories about American athletes whining about racial prejudice while collecting paychecks from the same racist asses, and crashed the plane on purpose to stop the constant Twitter feed.

      LC

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    5. The radio pundits in L.A. are suggesting that Sterling will be fighting this and in the end the NBA is going to lose. Already the NAACP is getting a lot of bad press here, but they've done plenty of stupid things in the past and I don't think that organization has much credibility. This whole story might play out in an interesting way in the days and weeks to come.

      Wonder how the game tonight will go. I don't know if it's televised here or not, but I don't plan to be anywhere near Staples Center.

      Lee
      Wrote By Rote
      An A to Z Co-host blog

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    6. It sounds like the game went off without incident.

      On ESPN this morning, they talked about the NBA forcing Sterling to sell the team. Not sure how that can work legally, but I think he'd stand to make 100 million dollars or so...

      I have heard blacks call other blacks "Uncle Tom" for silly reasons-ESPN's Stephen A. Smith and Jaylen Jones having used the term a lot. Jones used it enough to make me change channels or turn the TV off any time he is on TV.

      Why, I wonder, with Sterling's history, are they not using that term for every black member of the Clippers' organization?

      These guys all went to work for a known racist for money. They sold out.

      This baloney that now they want to know why the NBA did not act is the past is shinola.

      The players did the same thing the NAACP did-they overlooked blatant racism in exchange for cash.

      And now they want to act offended. Boo-frigging-hoo.

      I actually have no vested interest in this issue (being a WASC-white Anglo-Saxon Catholic).

      But the reaction from the players when compared to their behavior is kind of a joke.

      LC

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  4. LC ~
    Late returning here... sorry ‘bout that.

    Well, first of all, you know me and you know I am NOT a racist and I find racism deplorable. So, I’m certainly not defending this owner’s beliefs in the least.

    But... here in Amerika, we’re supposedly free individuals who can think and say what we want. I mean, yeah, we can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theatre, which might cause panic and pain, if not death. But if a person is so screwed up that they have racist beliefs (and plenty of Whites, Blacks, Asians, etc., are indeed racists) then they have a right to hold those erroneous beliefs.

    If the fans don’t like it, they can express their disapproval with their wallets (i.e., by refusing to buy tickets and attend the games).

    If the NBA doesn’t like it, that’s just too bad... UNLESS there is something in writing that the owner had agreed to previous to purchasing the team. Something along the lines of “As an owner, you represent the League, and if your demeanor somehow damages the League’s reputation, you can be forced to sell your team, or be fined X number of dollars, or... blah, blah, blah”.

    What I’m saying is that as much as I despise Sterling’s racism, I think he has a right to hold that viewpoint, no matter how unpopular it is with some people (myself included). But I don’t feel the NBA should have a right to punish Sterling in ANY way, unless there were certain conditions agreed upon prior to his purchasing the NBA team.

    The players can display their disgust by refusing to sign new contracts to play for Sterling. (That alone would FORCE him to sell the team, even if the NBA cannot force him to do that.)

    But here comes the part where I disagreed with you. You wrote the following in this post:

    >>... The Clippers players also made their sentiments known yesterday. They came out for pregame and immediately discarded their team warmups into a pile on the court, wearing plain red shirts and pants during shootaround.

    >>... They went on to turn in a lackluster performance, losing 118-97 to the Golden State Warriors in Game 4 of the Western Conference playoffs. A good start. To not play at all would be a stronger action.

    The players are under contract to play for this guy. I believe they MUST honor their contracts. I had NO PROBLEM with their display of displeasure by discarding their team warmups in a pile. But once the game began, they were obligated to play their best – after all, they are being paid millions of dollars to try to win the organization a championship.

    It would akin to me sleeping in my truck for 4 of my 8 work hours because I did not like something my boss had said about minorities.

    My view is that if the players were THAT OFFENDED, they had really only one legitimate option: To quit the team now, permanently, accept no more money from the owner and pay back what they did not earn by refusing to play the remaining games on their contract.

    Otherwise they should have played the game to the best of their ability. But, of course, just as Sterling has a guaranteed right to his opinion, so do his players. So, they could have also made some very angry, public anti-Sterling statements and I would have been OK with that, too. They could have also said that once this season ends, they will NEVER play for him again (and return the unearned money in their contract).

    But I disagree with you that they had any right – so long as they were collecting money from Sterling – to “turn in a lackluster performance”. (And for the record, I am every bit as opposed to players refusing to play when they are under contract already but what to renegotiate it. I am consistent in my stand.)

    I was rather surprised by the position you took here. It didn't seem like it belonged to the LC I've gotten to know.

    ~ D-FensDogg
    ‘Loyal American Underground’

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    1. For your first point, chalk it up to a poor choice of words on my part-the lackluster performance comment conveys that the performance was intentional, and I doubt it was. Either way, I did not mean, nor would I suggest that a game be thrown.

      But when I say "refusing to play," I did meant that, in the same sense of a strike or a holdout.

      Players have gone on strike or sat out for less meaningful reasons.

      By not playing, I would assume they forgo their game checks (they do not live up to their contract, so the team responds in kind).

      But it would make a statement.

      Overall, though, as I have said in many of my comment responses-I really have no position on what the right action is.

      Sterling didn't say anything to me. I think he is an ass, but that's as far as I go.

      The whole point I was trying to make is that if the players and fans are so offended, they should take action themselves, rather than having the league do it for them.

      But I guess since Americans look to their government to solve all their problems, sports fans would be no different.

      I'm going to start watching soccer. Those fans take action-beheading refs, killing players-I bet their owners are in line!

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    2. Ahh, well alrighty then! It seems we are on the same page after all.

      Yes, the way you followed the "lackluster performance" with it being "a good start" definitely gave me the impression that you felt the players held back intentionally (cheating the fans, who'd paid a lot of money to see a playoff game, in the process) and that you felt that was acceptable.

      That's why I said it really didn't seem like a position that the LC I know would take.

      Glad to know I'm still just an Outsider and not an Outside-Outsider.

      You posting something for 'BOTB' tomorrow? Huh? Are ya? (I still got you linked to my 'BOTB' installments just in case.)

      ~ D-FensDogg
      'Loyal American Underground'

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    3. If I told you it would ruin the surprise (re BOTB)...

      Regarding sitting out on contracts-I don't think we disagree there either-I HATE it when a player sits because he feels he's "better than his contract." Show me a player who ever gave money back because he thought he under-performed.

      To not play because of the racism of the honor would at least be a better motive (although I agree with your phrasing-quit-why the hell do you want to work for him at all)?

      Quite frankly, even with Sterling 'suspended for life," the players and staff are still working for the guy, and winning a championship will still enrich him.

      But I guess people are free to not act at all....it has made this country mediocre over the last forty years or so...let Emporer Obama-Lama-Ding-Dong deal with it....maybe he'll bail out the Clippers!

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  5. You know what's particularly interesting, regarding the whole people not willing to stand up thing? That people WILL stand up, but only for the internet. When SOPA/PIPA was a big thing and the government was threatening to censor the internet, I've never seen so many people stand up to fight this thing. People everywhere took action and shut that thing down in a heartbeat. But anything else? Meh, whatever, eventually it'll blow over. The league will do something about this guy.

    Also, it seems fitting that his little gold digging girlfriend is both ugly on the inside and the out. She looks like a man with way too much plastic surgery who put on a dress. Ugh. If anything, I just want HER to go away, because I'm sick of seeing that awful, busted up face everywhere.

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    1. I would definitely not call that "enhancement." Is "surgical dehancement" a term?

      "Give me the Michael Jackson nose, please, and make sure my cheekbones are sharp enough to cut glass."

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