{"id":5536,"date":"2014-05-12T03:11:01","date_gmt":"2014-05-12T03:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=5536"},"modified":"2014-05-12T03:11:01","modified_gmt":"2014-05-12T03:11:01","slug":"sterling-baited-into-saying-those-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=5536","title":{"rendered":"Sterling &#039;baited&#039; into saying those things?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;m going to need some help processing this &#8220;apology.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Donald Sterling, the disgraced Los Angeles Clippers professional basketball team owner, says he&#8217;s sorry for saying those racist things to his &#8212; what shall we call her? &#8212; girlfriend\/assistant\/&#8221;silly rabbit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said he was &#8220;baited&#8221; into uttering those disgusting remarks. Baited? Does that mean he was lured into saying things he didn&#8217;t mean? Was there some promise or payoff if he declared in a phone conversation that V. Stiviano &#8212; the said &#8220;silly rabbit&#8221; &#8212; shouldn&#8217;t be seen in public with African-Americans? Did little ol&#8217; V. put a gun to his head and make him say those hateful things?<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2014\/05\/11\/us\/donald-sterling-interview\/index.html?hpt=hp_t1<\/p>\n<p>Well, now he tells Anderson Cooper of CNN that he&#8217;s sorry. He declares &#8220;I am not a racist,&#8221; which of course is the usual dodge from those who actually <em>do<\/em> have racist tendencies.<\/p>\n<p>The National Basketball Association has banned him for life from the game. He can&#8217;t take part in any basketball-related operations; he cannot attend Clippers games; he cannot attend league meetings; he&#8217;s going to be pressured to sell his team. He&#8217;s a pariah.<\/p>\n<p>The players want him gone. His fellow owners want him out.<\/p>\n<p>This is a disgraceful episode that so far has produced only one bright, shining moment: the swift and decisive action by brand new NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to banish Sterling from the NBA.<\/p>\n<p>The timing of the &#8220;apology&#8221; also is suspect. He was revealed to have said these things about three weeks ago &#8212; and <em>now<\/em> he offers his mea culpa?<\/p>\n<p>This individual said some truly awful things. That&#8217;s no longer in doubt. There will be plenty of explanation required now to persuade many of us that he didn&#8217;t really mean what he said.<\/p>\n<p>I do not believe this &#8220;apology&#8221; is going to fly.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m going to need some help processing this &#8220;apology.&#8221; Donald Sterling, the disgraced Los Angeles Clippers professional basketball team owner, says he&#8217;s sorry for saying those racist things to his &#8212; what shall we call her? &#8212; girlfriend\/assistant\/&#8221;silly rabbit.&#8221; He said he was &#8220;baited&#8221; into uttering those disgusting remarks. Baited? Does that mean he was &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=5536\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Sterling &#039;baited&#039; into saying those things?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[146,375,1043,1423,3232,3808,5075],"class_list":["post-5536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-adam-silver","tag-anderson-cooper","tag-cnn","tag-donald-sterling","tag-nba","tag-racism","tag-v-stiviano"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}