Originally Posted by Jack.Kerr
That's actually an interesting question, because apparently Clippers Team President Andy Roeser doesn't know the sound of his employer's voice well enough to be able to authenticate the tape recording: "We do not know if it is legitimate [the tape] or it has been altered."
Roeser does, however, recognize the voice of the owner's companion/girlfriend/mistress/hooker well enough to be able to identify her as the defendant in a civil lawsuit brought by Sterling's wife seeking return of cash, jewelry, cars, real estate and other gifts that Sterling dispensed to her during the course of a 4-year extra-marital affair/relationship. #UnemployableAnywhereInTheNBAFormerTeamPresident
Nor is Sterling's wife of 60+ years familiar enough with the sound of her estranged husband's voice to be able to tell for sure if it's him on the tape, according to ESPN's Lisa Salters. #chutzpah
At least one person, one Mr. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was previously in Stering's employ as recently as 2000, was willing to go on record as saying that he recognized Sterling's voice:
Funny how that works isn't it?
But if you go back to the very first post in this thread from nearly four years ago, you have accounts of Baron Davis being heckled from courtside by Sterling for being out of shape, and for playing poorly. So there's that. And maybe we should all be blaming Baron Davis right now for not going over mid-game and snapping the old man's neck like a twig. #PlayOn!
And then, if you read a couple of posts back, there's the information that came out in NBA legend Elgin Baylor's wrongful termination suit regarding player complaints [by former Maverick Sam Cassell, former Maverick Elton Brand, and Corey Magette] of Sterling bringing women/ girlfriends/ companions/ mistresses/ hookers into the lockerroom after NBA games while players were showering and encouraging the women to ogle the naked athletes as if they were livestock with comments like "Look at those beautiful black bodies." So there's that too.
And if you read some of the decades-long stack of allegations of racist statements and attitudes attributed to Sterling by former players and employees, you'll find where he allegedly said of/(to?) Danny Manning during contract negotiations "That's a lot of money for a poor black kid." So apparently Sterling injects himself into contract negotations, at lest to some degree.
And while Mrs. Sterling may not have been able to authenticate her husband's voice on-tape, she did have this to say: "The team (which is, or at least was worth an estimated $600 million) is the most important thing to my family." If true, does that sound like a family who is detached from the day-to-day goings-on of the franchise?
Maybe Sterling isn't as hands-on an owner as Cuban, but I'd say judging from a quick scan of available evidence that Sterling crossed paths with the players on more than an intermittent basis.
So you'd just ignore it? Keep your head down, and keep on working for someone, making a lot of money for a man who obviously didn't respect you or regard you as an equal person? Here's the thing: Sterling isn't just 'a racist' like any guy off the street. He's the longest tenured owner in the NBA, which is one of the highest-profile sports leagues in the world. He's the owner of an NBA franchise with a decades-long history of oncourt failure largely attributed to his unwillingness to pay (mostly African-American) athletes enough to remain with the team.
If Sterling feels like that about the players his team employs, can you imagine what he must feel like about the fanbase with a large number of African-Americans and Mexican-Americans who come to his games?
Oh wait! You don't have to imagine! Sterling's past comments on people like that are part of the public record in the form of court proceedings. Because in addition to being an NBA owner, Sterling is one of the wealthiest men in Southern California (net worth nearly $1.5 Billion), with a real estate empire and an extensively documented record as a slum lord, with numerous tenant complaints over unfair housing practices that resulted in a near $3 million fine by the U.S. Justice Department.
While Sterling's attitudes toward Asian-Americans are, in a perverse way, not quite as toxic:
...still they can't be characterized as positive.
And while Sterling apparently quite enjoyed the company of women other than his wife, LOTS of women, his attitudes toward them were not, shall we say, 21st-century enlightened:
So, Melonhead, you say, "But I'm not African-American. I'm not Mexican-American, I'm not Asian-American, and I'm most definitely NOT a woman! What does any of this have to do with me? Anyway, they're playing a sport!"
And let me hasten to say, Melonhead, that I understand your confusion. I have seen and heard attitudes like yours expressed often by people who are not African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Asian-Americans, or women--i.e. white males who've never been on the business end of the discrimination stick, and who, thus, have not developed any sense of empathy for people mistreated by incorrigible, unrepentant, elitis, classist, bigoted, chauvinistic, sexual predators like Donald Sterling. (Now, I'm not necessarily assuming that you're a white male, but I will observe that your perspective sounds very similar.) So maybe your sense of empathy for people in that situation isn't finely honed, but surely you have a mother? A sister? A wife? A daughter? Maybe a non-white-male friend? Would you really want any of them to have to work for a man like Donald Sterling?
Even as a white male (correct me if that's wrong), would you yourself want to work for a man like Donald Sterling? Would you just politely bow your head when he became abusive and demeaning, and wait for that twice-a-month paycheck? When you pose the question "....how long does one have to dwell on an ignorant person saying something ignorant...", I think you're posing the wrong question. Instead the question is "How long do you ignore the behavior of a bigot like Donald Sterling? How long do you have to put up with it?"
And the answer is: "Not one second longer than you have to."
And guess what? The players (and coaches) on the Clippers and the players across the league have figured out they don't have to put up with it any more. Those recordings are game-changers. Current Clippers players no longer have to put up with what past players, and past employees, and past tenants of buildings owned by Donald Sterling have had to put up with for decades.
Those recordings (and the others that are sure to come) will force the league to address a problem (Donald Sterling) that it had allowed to fester for far too long. In retrospect, Donald Sterling may be the indelible blemish on David Stern's NBA legacy, the ugly sh!tstain that Stern managed to keep hidden while he was NBA Commissioner, but who became impossible to ignore once Stern retired. (To be fair, Sterling loves playing hardball. David Stern attempted to fine Sterling $25 million in 1984 for relocating the Clippers from San Diego to Los Angeles without league approval. Sterling in turn sued the league for $100 million, and Stern ended up penalizing Sterling a mere cost-of-business $6 million by withholding his share of new expansion franchise fees. Maybe King David's fingers were singed enough by that interaction that he was reluctant to lock horns with Sterling thereafter.)
So to the question: "...how long does one have to dwell on an ignorant person saying something ignorant ..."? When that person is Donald Sterling, the answer for NBA players right now is "You dwell on it until Sterling is out of the league, or at least disassociated from Clipper ownership."
And after that? Is Sterling the only NBA owner with questionable social attitudes and business practices? Sadly, probably not. Is he the most extreme case? Gosh, you have to hope so. <...cough...Dolan...cough>
But if other similar examples to Sterling's years-long dossier of misbehavor come to light, the NBA Players Association should be prepared to point to Sterling as an example of the cost of doing nothing, and insist that the league be prepared to act.
As for the rest of us? When we hear with our own ears a billionaire, social- and power-elite like Sterling expressing an unequivocally bigoted mentality, and we see that mentality clearly manifested in his business practices over the years, we shouldn't bury our head in the sand and pretend that we're somehow 'post-racial'.
And when we see recent Supreme Court decisions that allow a majority of voters to abolish Affirmative Action programs; or that allow state legislatures to draw voting districts in such a way as to minimize minority political representation; or that allow state legislatures to pass Jim Crow-esque voter requirements that result in the suppression of racial minorities' voting rights, we should ask ourselves exactly whose interests the Supreme Court is protecting. If you're a billionaire, social- and power-elite without a conscience like Sterling, you can feel comfortable enough. But if you're a non-white-male, non-billionaire, non-social-and-power elite, chances are that Roberts, Scalia, & Alito ain't workin' for you.
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