The Sterling Case

In April it was all over the news, the Clippers owner Donald Sterling made racists comments (the story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2014/04/26/clippers-owner-donald-sterling-tells-girlfriend-not-to-bring-black-people-to-games-disses-magic-johnson/?tid=pm_pop). My first thoughts about this case were: Why is this so big on the news? Racism in the USA is still a topic today, and unfortunately there are often racist incidents or racist comments made. Also, I was wondering: why is this even in the news? It was a private conversation between two people, how did this become public? All this already seemed bizarre. Then I read an article about an interview of Kareem-Abdul Jabbar (http://toprightnews.com/?p=2777), which hit it right on the spot. Exactly my thoughts: People are furious about the fact that someone like the owner of a NBA team with players of all races makes racist remarks. Interesting is the fact that there have been incidents before, where Sterling denied housing to African-Americans, and this didn’t bring up any consequences for Sterling. Furthermore, currently are a lot of discussions about the privacy of people. There was the incident that the NSA audio monitored the phone from German chancellor Angela Merkel, or that facebook bought whatsapp and is now also entering the privacy of the customers. All that are facts that alarm us, but the fact that a private conversation between two people is published and costs a man a lot isn’t. That’s all very suspicious, if you ask me.

 As a result to the incident, there were some crazy reactions. Some of them just as bad as the whole incident itself: Larry Johnson tweeted that African-Americans should make their own team and own league (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2044113-knicks-great-larry-johnson-calls-for-all-black-league). Of course, it is your right to do or start a league like this, if you want to, but how is that any better than the racist comments by Sterling? How will this solve the issue of racism in the US or in the world? Often I think people are just really upset that they don’t think, and just try to pay like with like, but even the Bible says that you shouldn’t.
Furthermore, the NBA had to react and they did. Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, banned Sterling for lifetime from all NBA activities, and decreed a 2.5 million fee and the sale of the Clippers (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/video/nba/20140429/adam-silver-press-conference.sportsillustrated/). That is the next thing that seems very suspicious to me. I understand that Sterling should face a punishment, but how do you ban him from his own team that he owns? And how do you tell him to sell something that is his? Plus it is really not a punishment, if he still makes money off of it.

As a normal reaction to all this, of course Sterling wouldn’t give in, and decided to fire back. Sources say he sued the NBA for 1 billion dollar (http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/report-donald-sterling-to-sue-nba-for-1-billion-053014), and as this all wasn’t enough, the story continues. Sterling’s wife wants to sell the Clippers, but Sterling doesn’t. Now his wife tries to prove mental illness on his side, so she could decide on her own (http://nypost.com/2014/06/24/judge-donald-sterling-has-little-chance-of-blocking-clippers-sale/). All this is just another suspect matter, and calls one more time for a huge setup. I wouldn’t even be surprised, if his wife and his girlfriend made a deal to set him up and sell the team. Right now it has been really calm about this story, but within the next month there should be some decisions since the deal for the Clippers is only valid until Sept 15^th.