Posted on 04/29/2014 8:36:30 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This isn’t a defense of Sterling, whom he hopes loses the team, just a plenty-of-blame-to-go-around scolding — and a good one, too. Read it all. He blames Sterling for old-school bigotry, the media for ignoring Sterling’s history of racist behavior until it was served up on a silver platter last weekend, and Sterling’s girlfriend for violating his privacy by recording their conversations. That last bit is an interesting analog to the reaction among some righties after Cliven Bundy said what he said about slavery and the welfare state. Just because the man holds outre views, Bundy’s defenders argued, doesn’t mean that the feds’ land-use policies are correct. Abdul-Jabbar’s making the same point about Sterling’s privacy, a small rebuke to the idea that when it comes to punishing a cardinal social sin like prejudice, the ends justify the means. Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, is worried about the same thing.
“Again, there’s no excuse for his positions. There’s no excuse for what he said. There’s no excuse for anybody to support racism. There’s no place for it in our league, but there’s a very, very, very slippery slope.
“If it’s about racism and we’re ready to kick people out of the league, OK? Then what about homophobia? What about somebody who doesn’t like a particular religion. What about somebody who’s anti-semitic What about a xenophobe?
“In this country, people are allowed to be morons.”
Here’s Kareem. Just one question: Was Sterling’s privacy violated?
And now the poor guy’s girlfriend (undoubtedly ex-girlfriend now) is on tape cajoling him into revealing his racism. Man, what a winding road she led him down to get all of that out. She was like a sexy nanny playing “pin the fried chicken on the Sambo.” She blindfolded him and spun him around until he was just blathering all sorts of incoherent racist sound bites that had the news media peeing themselves with glee.
They caught big game on a slow news day, so they put his head on a pike, dubbed him Lord of the Flies, and danced around him whooping…
Shouldn’t we be equally angered by the fact that his private, intimate conversation was taped and then leaked to the media? Didn’t we just call to task the NSA for intruding into American citizen’s privacy in such an un-American way? Although the impact is similar to Mitt Romney’s comments that were secretly taped, the difference is that Romney was giving a public speech. The making and release of this tape is so sleazy that just listening to it makes me feel like an accomplice to the crime. We didn’t steal the cake but we’re all gorging ourselves on it.
“I hope whoever made this illegal tape is sent to prison,” he concludes. Is the tape illegal, though? Well, California is a two-party consent state when it comes to wiretapping; if Sterling didn’t consent, his girlfriend could indeed do time for recording him. The curveball here is that she claims he did consent. Supposedly, she has more than 100 hours of audio of him rambling about God knows what, all of which was done with his approval because, she says … he had trouble remembering things and used the tapes as memory-fresheners. Which raises a new legal/ethical question: Does an 80-year-old man with memory problems have the capacity to “consent” within the meaning of the wiretapping law? (Follow-up: Should an 80-year-old man who needs audio to remember things he said be running an NBA franchise?) That’s not to suggest that Sterling’s “plantation mentality,” as Abdul-Jabbar aptly describes it in the clip below, is a product of age. Kareem’s whole point is that he has a long history of dubious racial behavior and only now is being closely scrutinized for it. But does the ends justify the means in exposing him — even bearing in mind that Sterling’s gotten a free pass for stuff like this his entire, very comfortable life? To see him swing from 80 years of near-impunity to public enemy number one overnight is odd, but is it unjust?
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s going to make an announcement about Sterling today at 2 p.m. ET. At a minimum he’ll face a huge fine; what they can do to him beyond that is unclear, but stay tuned. Exit question via policy genius Al Sharpton: Should the Clippers disband?
Same cr** as with Paula Dean.
It's none of anyone's business.
Anyone really think he consented?? BS
I’m not sure what the law is in Cali. But where I live you are allowed to record a conversation you are involved in.
Absolutely agree. I am sick of this PC garbage. This is the thought police. Paula Dean’s comment was 30 years ago, right? Geeeeeeeeeeee what were we all thinking 30+ years ago?
None of anyone’s beeswax what we think. This moral outrage is disgusting as well as the media’s take on it. All these TV dudes and dudettes jumping on this old man, Cliven Bundy, etc. makes my blood boil. But it’s ok if you’re black / negro / latino or a rapper or Reverunnnnnnnnnnnnnd Al to say/do whatever you want.
she--the girlfriend--is gross on manly levels...
For the same reason no one is talking about the fact that this rich, white Jew is a liberal Democrat that donates big buck$$$ to the DNC and was going to get an award from the NAACP on Sunday.
“Why aren’t we also outraged that Donald Sterling was secretly recorded?
For the same reason the libs didn’t care that Sarah Palin’s email got hacked..............to them the end justifies the means.
And why is there no outrage that a CEO was forced to resign after his PRIVATE donation to a referendum initiative was discovered 6 years later?
If Sterling were racist, he’d have hired an all-white team. But he’s been signing large checks to black athletes for decades.
I wonder whether the gf recorded this and then tried to blackmail him for more money. When he said no, she sold the tape to the sleaziest buyer, no surprise it’s TMZ.
In addition to privacy issues, there is the matter of rich older guys and their bimbo girlfriends.
So although Kareem is black, he is also a rich older guy. So one would think that the aging successful blacks would have a conundrum as far as should their race or their status rule their lives? It is a bad precedent to give too much credence to shrewish bimbos biting the hand that feeds them.
In addition to privacy issues, there is the matter of rich older guys and their bimbo girlfriends.
So although Kareem is black, he is also a rich older guy. So one would think that the aging successful blacks would have a conundrum as far as should their race or their status rule their lives? It is a bad precedent to give too much credence to shrewish bimbos biting the hand that feeds them.
Listening to the tape it obvious she was goading him on and basically trying to make him say things that he might not have otherwise have said. As it was it was very mild and seemed more like he was objecting to her stepping out with people and being very public about it. The black thing was really kind of secondary as opposed to what she was doing. That was the catalyst.
And that sums it up nicely, angry elephant. I wonder whether Sterling can or would sue her.
As you listen to the back-and-forth conversation, it is exactly as if she was reading a script. Her questions seemed "set".....stilted.....with an unnatural, unspontaneous aroma and cadence to them.
Leni
I do suspect the girl friend was setting him up. I heard some of the taped conversation and paid more attention to what she was saying & how she was saying it. But I believe it is at a higher level than just blackmail. It may have been a wag the dog, don’t let a catastrophe go to waste scenario. Look at all the players getting involved to make this a big news event in the social justice realm. I believe this incident has timing & purpose.
The b**ch set me up!
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