NBA Charges Donald Sterling

LA Clippers vs. Phoenix Suns, NBA game at Staples Center (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Los Angeles Clippers secondary logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The National Basketball Association today hand delivered charges against Donald Sterling, the beleaguered owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. Last week, Sterling refused to pay the 2.5 million dollar fine issued by Commissioner Adam Silver and threatened court action if the NBA did not stop action designed to force him to sell the team. In short, Donald Sterling gave the NBA the proverbial finger and they did not like it!

Are we in danger of losing sight of the realities here? Amidst endless black people of questionable expertise, especially in the arena of race relations, constantly being interviewed on CNN and MSNBC ad nauseam, and endless replays of an interview of Donald Sterling by CNN's Anderson Cooper, not to mention heated debate among basketball fans and non fans alike...I feel we are losing sight of just what happened here!

Yes, Donald Sterling owns the LA Clippers which he acquired for some 12.5 million dollars. The team went through some rough times and only lately has become a team of championship caliber. Some place the current value of the Clippers north of a billion dollars today. All in all, a sound business investment, a source of great pride to the Sterling family and a handsome legacy to the Sterling children, the city of Los Angeles and basketball fans everywhere. So what's the rub?

Well, Donald and Shelly Sterling have been estranged for the past few years, Shelly appears confused...at one moment she is shocked and abhorred by her husband's racial attitudes and in the next moment staunchly defends him after an amicable dinner out at one of LA's popular restaurants. Donald admits to being a philanderer with an eye for young, light-skinned girls of mixed race but has consistently expressed some tender feelings for his estranged wife. Complicated??? You bet! But most relationships are complicated at the very least!

Let us remember though that at the time Donald Sterling allegedly make the comments that the NBA so disapproved of, he was at home, in his own private space with the utmost expectation (according to my reading of the law) of privacy. V. Stiviano, a young woman who was using Sterling to feather her own nest, taped him illegally and then released the tapes albeit via a third party, to TMZ. She has no moral high ground to stand on, in California or anywhere else on the planet. A scheming, conniving whore by any other name stinks like dead fish no matter who or where she is!

So what is the chrome-domed head of the NBA charging Donald Sterling with? For starters, Sterling is alleged to have undermined the NBA's position on diversity and inclusion. Does that mean that we can expect to see a whole lot more white, bisexual, Laplanders who can't jump recruited into the NBA soon? Additionally, Sterling is said to have ignited animus on the part of players and damaged relationships with fans and sponsors. Those must be the players who got undergraduate degrees in basketballology and who cannot pronounce the word ASK!

 As for racial issues and tensions in America, well I can say that I am surprised at the commentary this has ignited in the sphere of social media. Almost everyone, black, white, hispanic and small, green extra-terrestrials is that Sterling should pay the fine and search his couch for misplaced change should he have any liquidity problems. Roughly, three in four people do not believe he should lose his team as he was expressing private thoughts within the privacy of his own home.

Litigator Maxwell M. Blecher who is representing Sterling, last week stated that his client has been denied due process and had done nothing wrong. Today, he states he was reviewing the voluminous charges and above that he has, "No comment."

Apart from the allegations listed above, Sterling has violated some "good behavior" type covenants that he and other owners signed throughout the years.

What should Donald Sterling's next move be? Should he sell the Clippers and enjoy his immense wealth for whatever time he has left? Some folks think so. Most think he should fight the NBA on principle, in a real courtroom and in a real court. This is something he knows a great deal about. He is extremely wealthy and well connected in legal circles and appears to enjoy a good fight. As for the rumors that he has prostate cancer...take it from an old nurse...Donald Sterling has a better chance of being hit by a train, attacked by rabid wolves or being abducted by Martians then he has of dying of prostate cancer. This man lives to overcome adversity. His girlfriend is gone. Shelly is filing a strategic divorce. He loves basketball and takes pride in the Clippers. He has nothing to lose and may in fact, be instrumental in defining once and for all the meaning of privacy and where as members of society we may expect our right to privacy to be respected.

"I'm Only Racist When I'm Horny!"

Los Angeles Clippers (Photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com)

This seems to summarize the contents of a taped conversation leaked by an unnamed source in explanation of Donald Sterling supposed "racist rant" that got him in so much difficulty with the National Basketball Association. As far as "racist rants" go, I would dare to say Donald Sterling's remarks were relatively tame. He did not use the "N word" even once! He did not refer to African-Americans as "colored" or "negroes" at any time. I suspected all along that his request directed at his girlfriend, V. Stiviano, to refrain from being photographed with black men or to refrain from accompanying black men to the +Los Angeles Clippers  basketball games was born of deep insecurity and intense jealousy.

"Ridiculous!", you say. Well, not as I see it. Donald Sterling may have the old plantation mentality but last time I checked, a man is entitled to say what he likes in the privacy of his own home and in the company of family and friends. As for the tape released albeit indirectly by Ms. Stiviano, I find her actions suspect, deplorable and tantamount to extortion! And last time I checked, extortion and blackmail are criminal offenses, while outdated thinking is not.

I really should not have to teach American history to Americans but for those who have forgotten, the basis of all those antiquated laws that date back to the Old South were designed to protect delicate, chaste, southern ladies from being preyed upon by the big, black bucks with their long shlongs and rampant, uncontrolled sexuality that would defile those genteel ladies and unleash all sorts of real and imagined ills upon society. Of course, the same standards did not apply to the genteel gentlemen that owned the plantations. They were free to be roving penises among their female slaves and to father innumerable children with them, thus supplying a steady and predictable workforce for their plantations.

That an 82 year-old man could fall in love with some gold-digging bitch (and Donald Sterling is a very rich old man) is hardly unbelievable to me or to almost anyone else. That he would want to get into her pants is entirely believable too! How many men in love have tried to extract promises of exclusivity or undying love and affection from their mistresses? How many men in love have not perceived other men, black, white, younger, perhaps richer as a potential threat to their love interest?  We may shake our heads, or secretly think of Donald Sterling as a silly, old fool but seriously does he really deserve the 'punishment' meted out by Adam Silver, the grand pubah of the NBA, to lose his team or to be divested of the family trust he and his wife own?

A lawyer by education and litigious by nature, Donald Sterling is unlikely to go down without a fight. It is a sad comment on American society when a man or woman can lose his or her property or income due to a private conversation. It is deeply troubling to me that no one is terribly concerned as to what laws have been broken in the course of making these taped conversations public. I have listened to endless bullshit, especially from the politically correct broadcasters at +CNN  and their endless guests (generally black or mixed race) babbling on about a conversation we need to have about race in North America. They don't want a conversation! They want everyone to agree with their particular brand of socially acceptable behavior! Well, I don't agree!

And could someone please teach black people how to pronounce the word 'ask'. Mispronouncing  a simple, single syllable word continually strikes me as lazy and unintelligent in the extreme, not to mention deeply insulting to me as an immigrant.

What's next? The 'thought police'?

 

Related articles

• V. Stiviano Is Reportedly Under Investigation for Allegedly Extorting Donald Sterling
• Donald Sterling: I Was Only Saying Racist Things To Get Laid

Tell Me It Ain't So..........cont'd

Not All Tall People Play Ball (Photo credit: Keoni Cabral)

The MBA's decision is not a transcendent moment in sports history or race relations in America. It will not eradicate racism and bigotry. When people cannot verbalize their true feelings they will act out their feelings in thousands of ways, large and small. And while small minds like Don Lemon's may view Adam Silver's decision today as a sort of victory, those of us with a more expansive world view see it for what it truly is...yet another death blow to the already ravaged carcass of personal freedom for all.

Tell Me It Ain't So!

Los Angeles Clippers logo (1984–2010) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Breaking news! Racism is alive and well in America and yes Don Lemon, it is 2014!

No religion has been successful in stamping it out with threats of hell fire and brimstone. No government on earth has been able to legislate a "kumbaya" moment in history. And barring Don Sterling (the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers) from the MBA for life and forcing him to sell the franchise will not rid America of the 'plantation mentality' or Rudyard Kipling's notion of 'the white man's burden'. However, the MBA's Adam Silver did succeed in driving overt racism underground, to seethe, moil and toil beneath a veil of political correctness and polite platitudes. A national conversation about racism is now impossible unless black people want to talk to themselves as they have been on CNN for the past few days.

Fortunately, I do not stand on ceremony, political correctness or some 'fuck wit's' hurt feelings. For the record, I love basketball. I played basketball in high school against some of the ugliest, hairy-legged, foul-mouthed and equally foul-smelling protestant chicks in the business. I outgrew basketball and brawling in parking lots at graduation...that crossroads in life where young adults have to consider how they will share their gifts with the world at large. But I digress.

Whatever Ms. Sibiano's role in Don Sterling's life, he is well rid of her. I suggest he buy a dog...a big dog. Any canine bitch, even a mongrel canine bitch would prove herself to be more loyal a companion than Ms. Sibiano who has more aliases than Heinz has beans. And really Don, at age 80 with your nut sac hanging down to your knees and a prostate as big as a football,...admit it, you have enough on your plate taking a long, satisfying leak. Sell the Clippers, pocket a billion bucks or so, teach your grandkids to drive, take up finger painting, scuba diving, buy an island and sort out the relationship with your estranged wife.