Donald Sterling Shows True Colors: What Now?

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has long been considered an enigma around the professional sports world. For a while now, his archaic ideologies on race relations in the United States have been swept under the rug by the National Baskeball Association, David Stern, his players, those in his front office and the larger media world. 

That’s unlikely to be the case following TMZ’s release of a conversation Sterling had with his girlfriend over the phone earlier this month.

In the conversation, which does include some strong language, Sterling indicated that it bothered him that his girlfriend, V. Stiviano, wants to broadcast that she’s associating with black people.

Here are some other excerpts from the conversation.

You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it on that … and not to bring them to my games.

When Stiviano brings up Magic Johnson as a role model, Sterling’s response is jaw-dropping…

 

Don’t put him [Magic] on an Instagram for the world to have to see so they have to call me. And don’t bring him to my games.

It doesn’t get much better throughout the duration of the near 10-minute conversation.

Here are a series of tweets sent out from Black Sports Online owner Robert Littal, who I have had the pleasure of speaking with numerous times in the past. His pragmatic approach to every race-related issue in the professional sports world should be applauded. Even Littal, who always stops short of playing the race card, takes exception to Sterling’s comments…

Beyond the ridiculous double standards in Sterling’s approach to race, there is an underlining issue as it relates to his own perception of minorities in this nation.

Jeff Pearlman, a friend of the site, tells us a story of just how wide spread Sterling’s racist mentality might be.

Former Clippers general manager Paul Phipps, who had agreed to terms with Rollie Massimino to be the teams new head coach, relayed a story to Pearlman about Massimino’s first and likely last interactionwith Sterling before ultimately backing out of the deal to be the Clippers head man.

They (Massimino and Sterling) met…and between 3 and 4 in the morning my phone rings…it was an irate Massimino. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told Phipps, ‘but I’d never work for that son of a bitch. Ever.’

When asked why he’d never work for Sterling, Massimino responded…

“Here’s this guy,” Massimino said, “and he has this blonde bimbo with him, they have a bottle of champagne, they’re tanked. And Don looks at me and he says, ‘I wanna know why you think you can coach these niggers.’

Apparently, Sterling’s perceptions of blacks and minorities hasn’t changed in the more than quarter century since that conversation with Massimino took place.

Back to the story at hand, TMZ reported later on Friday evening that Magic Johnson had responded to Sterling’s comments. His response was as expected…

 It’s a shame that Donald Sterling feels that way about African-Americans…He has a team full of amazing African-American basketball players that are working to bring a championship to Clippers fans. The Clippers also have a strong minority fan base.

Always a gentleman, Johnson wasn’t fully prepared to put Sterling on blast for his recent comments. That’s just not how the guy reacts to situations that come up.

That being said, others weren’t so diplomatic in their responses to Sterling’s outwardly racist comments…

This is in reference to Sterling allegedly refusing housing to minorities in apartments that he had owned in the past.

That last point is the most interesting. Do any Clippers players stand up against their bigoted owner? If not, what type of message does that send to others around the sports world and children that look up to them? Are they willing to play for an open racist as long as they’re able to collect the millions, which are paid out directly from him?

That’s the larger question here.

What about Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and Doc Rivers? They are playing/coaching for a man that obviously doesn’t respect them as men simply because of the color of their skins. Is that acceptable to them?

What about the larger Los Angeles Clippers fan base? Will they take a stand against Sterling or support his team because of their fandom?

What about the National Basketball Association itself? Will it attempt to sweep this latest incident under the rugh with nothing more than a minimal fine?

Maybe it’s time that the power players that can impact Sterling’s own bottom line step up and say enough is enough. This is not a message that one of the up-and-coming organizations in the NBA want to be associated with. Furthermore, it’s not something that makes the NBA look too good, especially if it decides to ignore what is happening in Los Angeles.

In the opinion of this one humble scribe, some drastic measures need to be taken here. Free speech is one thing. Representing the NBA and Los Angeles Clippers in a manner that Sterling has over the course of his tenure in Southern California is a completely different thing.

I put in a direct inquiry to a high-profile Los Angeles Clippers player who I have been in communication with in the past. Let’s see if he decides that enough is enough and wants to make a comment.

The sad part here is that Los Angeles is in the midst of an important All-California series with the Golden State Warriors. Let’s hope this doesn’t cloud the success of those players on the basketball court.

Photo: Jayne Kamin-Oncea, USA Today