Donald Sterling, Bigotry, and Consequences
– by Ken Bolding
Prologue: Donald Sterling, the owner of the L.A. Clippers basketball team, was banned for life from the NBA, and therefore forced to sell his interest in the L.A. Clippers and fined $2.5 million after recordings surfaced of him making racist remarks to his girlfriend in his home.
I once dated a woman whose parents didn’t think it was appropriate for her to be dating me because I wasn’t deaf (she was). They said it to her at the their home in Vermont.
I was in a relationship with a woman whose mother didn’t approve of me because I am black. She told her so in a phone conversation.
When I was headed off to college, an aunt said to me, “and don’t you come back with no white girl because if you do, don’t come back.” She said it to me in my grandparents’ house.
I’m wondering how big a fine each should have had to pay, and whether each should have been forced from their jobs? Can I maybe take their houses from them? My point is that people sometimes say bigoted shit, and they have racist feelings, especially when they were raised in a generation before the civil rights movement. But just like the owner of the Clippers, they expressed their bigoted opinions in private. They didn’t go on TV. They didn’t stand on a soapbox or a stage. Unfortunately for Donald Sterling, he was being recorded when he said his bigoted bullshit. And a ton of shit rained down on him because of it.
But I still have to say I’m much more upset at the idea of causing someone to suffer consequences that severe for saying stupid shit that people say all the time inside the walls of his own house. I get it. It went public, and the NBA has money to make; so they have to distance themselves. My problem is that extreme reactions like this have a chilling effect on dissent in general. Of even uttering an idea that is contrary to what is accepted in the mainstream, even inside your own home. And I think that’s dangerous. Much more dangerous than Sterling’s ridiculous racist and misogynistic statements.
I had a debate with Mookie Spitz about this today. And for me it comes down to this:
I want people in the world who disagree with me. I want them to be able to say so, especially in a private conversation. Why? Because sometimes I am wrong. Sometimes I’m a little wrong, and sometimes I’m a lot wrong. And if everyone is afraid to tell me that they *think* I’m wrong, just because my opinion jibes with the current mainstream, we all lose.
I think some sort of sanction or fine or community service or whatever is appropriate here, but when we dole out punishments like banning a guy for life for some stupid shit he said in his own kitchen, I have a problem with it because that leaves no opportunity for redemption. Mel Gibson has been on the shit list for quite a while now for his racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, and homophobic rants. Movie crews were unwilling to work with him. His friend Jodie Foster cast him in a movie to help him get to forgiveness, we all said, “We like you, Jodie, but fuck that guy!” Robert Downey Jr. plead Mel’s case saying, “you have to forgive Mel and let him work.” We all said, “we love you, Ironman, but fuck that guy!” Now he has been cast in a small role in “The Expendables III.” I might, might have forgiven Mel enough to see that movie; even though he’s in it. If so, and other people do too, maybe he can find his way back into our good graces. Maybe. But he has that opportunity. And the things he said are MUCH worse than anything Sterling said. To remind you, some of Mel’s greatest hits were:
“Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.”
“I will report her to the fucking people that take fucking money from the wetbacks.”
“You look like a fucking pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of niggers, it will be your fault.”
But Mel isn’t banned for life from anything. And in my opinion he shouldn’t be. Just because my attitude has been, “fuck that guy” for the past several years doesn’t mean that’s how I’ll always feel. I think the possibility of atoning for sins is a good thing.
One final point. If it seems as though I’m viewing this whole thing dispassionately, it’s because I am. None of these racist or bigoted comments have anything to do with me. The fact that some people think I’m beneath them because I’m black has absolutely nothing to do with me; so I have no investment in trying to force them into thinking differently. I don’t really care what they think. I only care what they can do. I care about access to opportunity. If you hate me because I’m black, but are not empowered to stop me from doing what I want to do, I have no reason to give you my attention. Just like in the personal examples I gave at the beginning of this post, I did whatever I wanted to do. I ignored the bigots and lived my life because fuck them.
