In late April 2014, Donald Sterling unwittingly unleashed one of most riveting moments in sports history. It has come to be known as, well, you can call it whatever you like, but what it truly is at heart is one of most recent iterations of racism in our sophisticated “first world” culture.
On April 25, in a recording made public by entertainment news outlet TMZ, Donald Sterling, owner of NBA team the Los Angeles Clippers, wore his racism as a badge of honor for all the world to hear. Some laughed, some cried, most people were outraged. His vitriolic statements, originally made on September 2013, were intended to be part of a private phone argument with his girlfriend at the time, V. Stiviano. Stiviano, whose real name is María Vanessa Pérez, was recording the conversation and is believed to have leaked it to the press, in spite of her denying so.
The recording of Sterling’s racist tirade overcame the media like wildfire. Had Sterling been just your regular Joe spewing his daily bigotry in the comfort of his ignorance just as many a Joe does, nobody would have cared. Bigots gotta hate. But Sterling is a high profile multi-billionaire lawyer and businessman with multi-billion dollar interests in the higher profile brand of the NBA. It would have been a worse crime to let his comments go unnoticed since due to their nature a considerable amount of his employees on and off the court where direct targets.
Once Sterling’s comments went public the outcry from the Clippers themselves, however subdued, did not make itself wait. They protested with finesse during a playoff series against the Golden State Warriors by throwing their warmup jerseys on the center of the court floor and wearing their Clippers t-shirts inside out. Each player in the Clippers basketball team was saying to Sterling, “You may own this franchise, but you don’t own me, bastard!”
NBA authorities got to work fast and furious under the leadership of Adam Silver, Commissioner of the National Basketball Association. What did they do? They asked the right questions making sure without a shadow of a doubt that the voice on the recording was indeed Donald Sterling’s. Once the facts were confirmed, Adam Silver swiftly banned Donald Sterling for life from any association with the team he owns, the Clippers, and any association with the NBA. The hatchet came down hard. Figuratively speaking, we could see the head rolling down. Anything less would not have sufficed.
So where does this leave us? Well let’s begin by stating the obvious: Donald Sterling is sound proof that racism is alive and well in the US of A. There is no question that race relations in the US have changed for the better in the course of the last 50 years. A review of our history will not allow us to forget that it has taken a horrific Civil War and a more than bold Civil Rights movement to fight and keep the evil tide of racism and self-servient bigotry in our society at bay. There have been ample gains in race relations thanks to the determination of leaders with the necessary moral backbone (sometimes it's just plain political expediency) to lobby, propose and enact legislation seeking a more leveled playing field for minorities and peoples of color in our country.
We need to be grateful for the sacrifices and risks many before my generation have made and taken so that we who came after could breath easier and not have to seat at the back of the bus because we simply look different. Thanks to their efforts it is a crime today to discriminate against a person based on the color of their skin. Donald Sterling, however, is our most recent and sobering alert that it is yet to be seen if what ultimately matters most in human nature is the content of our character.
And so, racism in America is not going anywhere any time soon. Hate groups of all kinds, especially white supremacist groups, are on the rise. Don't’ believe me? Fine. They may be small pockets dispersed throughout the country, but they are many more today than in decades past. Most people acknowledge that there should be no place for these attitudes and prejudices in the 21st century, but the passage of time, progressiveness, the Enlightenment, what-have-you, have seldom been good or even valid arguments to combat or even stem racism in any given age.
The root causes of racism cut deep within the human heart. They lie beyond the measure of time progression. They are ingrained attitudes, part of the human DNA. We have picked them up, subtly or not, since before childbirth and they come to define us post-partum. Like weeds, racism and bigotry are difficult to extract and even harder to eradicate. Bigotry is no respecter of time or age. It’s not the domain of just old white people wishing away the colored man. Most hate groups are full of young white folk who would prefer to go back to Jim Crow if they could help it. I ask myself how exactly would that help them, going back to a racially oppressive and segregated society. That’s how mind-boggling racism is.
Intellectually, we know discrimination is wrong, that bigotry is hatred, that racism should have no place in our society, but we fumble the praxis. We all fall short on these counts, but when someone like Donald Sterling comes around and makes outrageous statements, we are rightfully scandalized and angered. We should be cautious at our outrage even when it is justifiable. Our shock at Sterling’s comments cannot naively pretend that this kind of hatred is a dying breed and has just resurfaced in a desperate attempt to call our attention gasping to us “I’m still here!” It has always been here and it will always be.
Donald Sterling is a violent reminder that human nature is more than ugly. The irony is that human nature also gives birth to the highest expressions of kindness and beauty imaginable. What gives then? How come can this ugliness and beauty coexist in one and the very same person? We’re broken human beings.
An irony that shouldn’t be lost on us in this whole Sterlingate drama is that Sterling’s girlfriend is not white. V. Stiviano is both Latino and Black. She obviously had to put up with some amount of bigotry dished out her way, however sophisticated. Maybe the trade off was worth it in her own eyes. You know, don’t bite the hand that feeds you. But that’s a high price to pay; nothing short of selling your soul. It is precisely because we’re broken human beings that we do such things. Bigotry dehumanizes both victim and victimizer.
However, the irony that has stuck with me lies in the very names that have been pitted against each other in this affair, Sterling v. Silver. At face value, we might think these are just two different names for the same metal, but that’s wrong. It’s been proven that sterling silver is about 92.5% silver. While commercial silver is at least 99.9% pure. They may look the same, but they’re not. One of them is actually the real thing. The other one only comes close. They may give you just about the same shine when rightly polished, but we all know that Donald Sterling lacks any light of his own others could appreciate.
In less than three months since being named Commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silver was thrown into the hornet's racial nest. He came out of it shining so bright many of us just want his light to rub off on us.
