Tag Archives: Los Angeles Clippers

national news, Sports news

Racist rant brings right response

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Donald Sterling, the former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers professional basketball team, was caught saying some hideous things about African-Americans. His response? He fought tooth and nail to keep control of his team. He failed in that effort.

Bruce Levenson, owner of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, has admitted to sending out racist emails two years ago. His response? He announced his intention to sell his majority interest in the Hawks, he has apologized to NBA fans everywhere and is vowing to bow out quietly.

Which man did the honorable thing?

Of course you know the answer: Bruce Levenson.

http://time.com/3292250/atlanta-hawks-selling/

Levenson’s email reportedly said some derogatory things about African-American fans. “I’m truly embarrassed by my words in that email and I apologize to the Hawks family and all of our fans,” Levenson said in a statement. Levenson said he had “trivialized our fans by making clichéd assumptions about their interests” based on their race and ethnicity.

The NBA, which has demonstrated its zero-tolerance policy on racial matters, was quick to commend Levenson for thinking first about the NBA, the Hawks and “the Atlanta community.”

That, folks, is how you respond to an incident in which you have shamed yourself.

 

 

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No threat to freedom of speech

So … I’m watching a bit of news at work the other day when a colleague walks up and says of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, “I don’t think he should have to pay a damn thing for what he said. Whatever happened to freedom of speech?”

He wasn’t finished. Then he took off on the controversy over that New Hampshire police chief who called President Obama an “n-word,” and then said he wasn’t going to apologize for saying it. “He’s got a right to say what he wants,” my colleague said.

He said a bunch of other things. I chose not to engage him at that moment, as there were customers present.

I’ll answer him here.

Freedom of speech? He thinks it’s threatened by so-called “political correctness.” That’s what I got from him. If that’s the case, he’s wrong.

Donald Sterling has the right to say the things he did to his, uh, girlfriend. You know, the stuff about his disliking her hanging out with black athletes and bringing them to his basketball games. He can say those things.

The National Basketball Association to which he belongs as a team owner, however, has the right to impose certain codes of conduct upon team owners, players, coaches, ball boys and girls, and cheerleaders. Sterling broke the rules when he spouted off as he did with those reprehensible comments about African-Americans. His comments entered the public domain and the NBA has acted according to its bylaws.

It banned him for life, fined him $2.5 million and is pressuring other team owners to get him relieved of his team.

As for the n-word-spouting police chief, he also has the right to say what he said. He’s also a public official in a community that has the right to demand better of the people it pays with the taxpayer money.

The Constitution’s First Amendment isn’t in jeopardy here. It still stands. The Neanderthal cop and the sad-sack NBA team owner have just been caught saying things decent human beings shouldn’t say about other human beings.

Long live freedom of speech — and long live those who demand better of those who say disgraceful things.

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Shut … up, Donald Sterling

Donald Sterling is now the living, breathing embodiment of what many of us have known for a long time.

You don’t have to be smart to be rich.

The disgraced Los Angeles Clippers owner spoke the other day to CNN’s Anderson Cooper and revealed to the world that he is as clueless as they come.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/donald-sterling-on-magic-johnson-what-has-he-done-he-has-aids-051214

He ridiculed a professional basketball legend, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, taking note of the HIV condition to which Johnson admitted more than two decades ago. He derided Johnson’s efforts to educate the world about the illness.

Why in the world does this man continue to drag Magic Johnson’s good name through the mud?

He said he was “baited” into saying those despicable things about African-Americans to his so-called girlfriend, V. Stiviano. It’s as if she purportedly “tricked” him into revealing the poison that afflicts his heart.

None of this makes any sense.

Sterling has been banned for life from the NBA. His fellow team owners are working — quickly, it is being reported — to remove him as owner of the Clippers. Sterling’s estranged wife, Shelly, wants to keep possession of the franchise. Others have expressed interest in buying the Clippers from Sterling.

Meanwhile, Sterling likely is going to keep making idiotic statements.

The more I hear from this clown, the less interested I become in anything he has to say.

Will you please just shut the (bleep) up, Donald Sterling?