Good news, everybody: the NBA is going to investigate Donald Sterling for racism. Mr. Sterling was outed as a racist the other day when… um, he was on the phone with his girlfriend, who is at the very least biracial (to use the current popular phrase) and might actually be Black by some measures. In the phone conversation, Mr. Sterling tells his girlfriend that she is free to sleep with Black guys. Still waiting for the racism? Don’t worry, we’ll get there.
Okay, here we are. In the convo, Sterling tells his girlfriend to stop hanging out with Black guys, putting their photos all over Instagram, and bringing them to the basketball games. Let’s cut to the chase here. This is an old white guy cashing out a young woman of indeterminate race to hang out with him. He doesn’t expect her to be faithful. What he expects her to do is to stop “showing out” with a bunch of ballers on Instagram and at the games of the basketball team that he owns.
How racist is that? Is it racist enough for the NBA to investigate and possibly penalize Mr. Sterling financially? ‘Twould appear so.
“But Jack,” you’re no doubt saying, “the racism comes from him telling her specifically about Black guys.” Fair point. What I’d suggest here is that Mr. Sterling is humiliated by the implication of his girlfriend’s Instagram photos — that implication being that she hangs out with him for cash, and these other guys for personal or sexual gratification. On this point, I have no sympathy for Mr. Sterling. If you want to mess around with much younger women, particularly those who are clearly in it for the money/fame/power/whatever else you can bring them, you have to understand that there are drawbacks to doing so. One of those drawbacks is that nobody believes that a thirtysomething woman is dating an eighty-one-year-old man for anything other than cash on the barrelhead.
Sterling’s request of his “girlfriend” is pretty minimal. Don’t bring these dudes to my games. Particularly the ballers. Unfortunately for him, Ms. “Stiviano” has decided she’d rather take her case to the media.
The question is, why does the media care? I have a theory — but before I get to that, let’s catch up with Cliven Bundy. Mr. Bundy is also on the Internet’s front page for “racist remarks”. In this case, it’s a monologue in which Bundy suggests that African-Americans might have been better off having intact family units under slavery (which, to be fair, was rarely the case) than with the current welfare-fueled destruction of the Black family. A high-profile defense of Mr. Bundy courtesy of a friend who happens to be both a Marine and African-American didn’t do much to stem the tide. Nor did the fact that Bundy wasn’t attacking African-Americans directly so much as he was questioning the impact of government programs on them.
In fact, if you read most of what’s been written about Bundy, the primary problem seems to be that he used the word “Negro.” You know, like United Negro College Fund. Like MLK, who said “But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free,” All I get from Bundy’s use of the word “Negro” is that he doesn’t consume enough mainstream media to know that we don’t say that anymore. That, in and of itself, shouldn’t be a sin. I sure as hell don’t say “Negro”, but I grew up on the East Coast where “Black” was the preferred phrase. The day will come, mind you, when I’m seventy-something years old and I say “Black” or “African-American” and my kid’s going to visibly blanch. “Dad, we say Chromosone-18-flipped now.” Hell, you can’t even say “Afro-American” in polite conversation and the use of that phrase was once a gold-plated demonstration of progressive credentials.
It would be naive to watch these two high-profile public hangings (let’s not say “lynching”) without trying to draw some parallels between them. “Duh, Jack,” you say. “They’re both creepy old white racists.” Well, maybe — but the media doesn’t spend 100% of its time leaning on creepy old white racists. “They’re high-profile creepy old white racists.” I’m not sure about that, either. An NBA owner and a rancher pursuing a confrontation with the BLM in Nevada are not necessarily the most newsworthy people out there. Note, as well, that the “racist” coverage on both vastly surpasses the fact-based coverage of their actions. The media hasn’t bothered to report much on the fact that Sterling has potentially made up to half a billion dollars on an investment that he has comprehensively and willfully mismanaged over the past thirty years, nor has it been particularly keen to untangle the Gordian knot of the Bundy/BLM disagreement.
What I’d like to suggest is that the media has chosen the racist angle in both cases because it, as a group, despises both individuals. Sterling’s a crappy team owner who abandoned his wife to play hooky with a barely disguised prostitute while his players and fans suffer his incompetence. Bundy had the nerve to respond to a Waco-like move from the federal government with an Arab-Spring-like counter-revolution. They’re both the wrong race and sex as far as modern media people are concerned. The general sentiment is that they should have their faces pushed into the ground. But how do you shame people in a world where we’ve systematically removed the stench of shame from everything to adultery to molesting children? (Think we haven’t? Ask Dylan Farrow, or look at Roman Polanski’s army of high-profile supporters.)
The fact is that our self-consciously “tolerant” era has but one sin which it cannot tolerate: the sin of racism. Therefore, that charge will be levied against anyone who displeases the media machine, the same way that heresy was the charge levied against anyone whom the Catholic Church of the medieval era thought would be better off dead. Piss off the ruling class in 1450, and you’ll find yourself accused of denying the divinity of Christ; piss off the ruling class in 2014, and you’ll find yourself accused of racism.
The actual truth of the charges is irrelevant, because racism is a guilty-until-proven-innocent thing. I recently had a fellow journalist test-float charges of racism against me, primarily because he was angry with some statements I’d made regarding his work. It’s a wonder he wasn’t successful. I could point to any number of non-racist things I’ve done, from hiring African-Americans personally to serving as the Minority Adviser to my freshman dorm, but that would simply lend credibility to my accuser. “He says he plays music with Black people… well, so did Leonard Chess, and he was a racist!” The minute I started defending myself, I’d have conceded the fellow’s right to accuse me, and I’d be toast.
If you float, you’re a witch.
If you drown, you’re innocent, and dead.
In the future, the accusation of racism will be used, wholesale, to level opposition to any position or figure that doesn’t have the favor of our corpo-govern-media machine. Future generations might see it as the equivalent to the “Red Scare” or the Puritan witch hunts. But note this: it does you no good to be exonerated by posterity if you’re dead, or homeless, or beaten, in the present life. This is what’s going to happen. Mr. Bundy is going to be told to give up his claim to the land, and eventually he’s going to do it. Mr. Sterling will have it suggested to him that he sell his team at favorable rates to someone whom the media and the NBA like better, the same way Anheuser-Busch moved a Hispanic manager aside to make room for Jesse Jackson’s sweetheart deal. Business will go on as usual. Bundy and Sterling will be swept aside. And it will, as the French said, encourage the others. To comply, to play nice, to do what they’re told.
How long will it be until children can denounce their parents for racism, 1984-style? Hint: you’ll be alive when it happens — and, most likely, so will Donald Sterling.
Dude. Cliven Bundy said that African Americans were better off as slaves. That makes him an idiot. His “ancestral claims” to grazing rights on BLM land are delusional: his family bought the land his ranch is on in 1948. And read this about the freaks, loons and losers Bundy has infesting his ranch. (And what pricked my own interest was Bundy’s claim that his politics were a “revelation from God.” Google the Lafferty Brothers, Jack. They thought they had a direct line to God, too.
He says that he “wondered” whether they were. That’s a fair distance from the Grand Wizard Of The Klan image the media’s busy projecting onto him. Furthermore, it’s a dangerous day when it’s fatal to one’s career or business prospects to say anything that isn’t Katie-Couric-approved.
Last but not least, he doesn’t appear to have done anything racist in his career. Are we going to judge people by what they say, or what they do?
“He says that he “wondered” whether they were. ”
so, Just Asking Questions.
Should we call Lon Horiuchi a racist because he only murders white people but doesn’t (as far as we know) call them round-eyes? I’m just asking questions.
At the very least, Horiuchi was an ideologue and a fanatic. He possessed the same “us-vs-them” mentality that is the cornerstone of racism, only in this case he applied it to a pregnant woman because she wasn’t part of his government club. 🙂
Drive around the Adirondacks in upstate NY, or Appalachia, and you can see plenty of white people who fit the same description. I don’t hear Bundy or his ilk calling for their indenture.
Jack, you’re lucky it was just another writer and not some dedicated ideologue, otherwise you’d have been Google-bombed and the target of emails to your employers. There must be social media sites where witch burners amplify their message.
Between the racism card, speakers like Charles Murray and Hirsan Ali getting disinvited from campus speaking engagements, college newspaper op-eds openly espousing Marcuse’s “tolerance for me and not for thee” attitude, Prof. Mann’s lawsuit against Mark Steyn, and most recently some “interfaith” council of liberal clergy getting their collective teats in a wringer about the 9/11 Memorial daring to mention the words “Jihah” and “Islamist”, it’s a dreary time for free-expression in America. Nat Hentoff must feel like a very lonely man.
Free expression isn’t in trouble at all. Messr. Bundy & Sterling are free to say whatever they like. No prosecutor will seek to jail either for their views.
The First Amendment allows for freedom of speech. It does not imply freedom from criticism.
http://xkcd.com/1357/
Nothing like people waving their incipient inner totalitarians for all to see. I specifically used the term “free expression” because the concept is much broader than First Amendment restrictions on government censorship, but you probably know that already, which is why you set up the straw man of the 1st Amend.
There’s a difference between criticism and waging a war of personal destruction. You think you’ll never be on the receiving end because you’ve convinced yourself that all your thoughts are pure and morally superior and that you and your kind will always be in control of the narrative. That worm may turn.
Maybe I’ll put together a list of all the idiot Jewish college students who cravenly seek validation by attacking Israel and supporting the Jew-hating BDS movement. Then I’ll take out ads in Jewish media saying “Don’t Hire These Kapos”. You cool with that?
Ronnie, I’m assuming that that wasn’t aimed at me, since I’m a) not Jewish and b) way too old to be a college student.
I stand by my statement that the 1st Amendment does not guarantee freedom from criticism, and I think Randall Munroe’s comic states that pretty eloquently. Don Sterling is free to dislike people with dark skin (except, it seems, for the ones he sleeps with), but the NBA is free to show him the door, too. Cliven Bundy can say what he likes about poor blacks, and liberals can call him out on it and point out that he’s an idiot. On the other side of the divide, the Dixie Chicks’ criticism of GW Bush stirred up a conservative backlash that arguably destroyed the band’s career, and Andres Serrano’s photograph “Piss Christ” earned him the wrath of Jesse Helms and much of the Religious Right. You could argue that their “freedom of expression” was compromised, too. That said, I don’t think Clear Channel Communications should have been forced to play Dixie Chicks records on their C&W stations, and Jesse Helms had as much right to denounce what he thought was an offensive image as Serrano had to create it in the first place. I think I’m enough of an adult to disagree with some of your politics and still appreciate your talents as a writer and photographer. The former does not at all effect the latter.
That said, as someone who’s decidedly more to the left of the political spectrum than you are, I understand and share some of your concerns. The rise of social media and the collapse of privacy in modern Western society have thrown the rules in the blender. To use an automotive example, if Henry Ford was the CEO of FoMoCo today, does anyone think his rabid anti-Semitism wouldn’t result in him being shown the door by his board of directors?
I agree with you that criticism should not devolve into character assassination. We’ve lost the ability to engage in civil debate and disagreement in this country, and that should be troubling to liberals and conservatives alike. Where do you draw the line between private beliefs and public action? Damnedifiknow any more.
Regarding Bundy, years ago, it was obligatory for liberal high school teachers to assign the reading of Gideon’s Trumpet, the book about the Supreme Court case that guaranteed the right to an attorney. Gideon was not a good man, he had a long criminal record (and he was probably guilty if I remember the facts of the case correctly), but the point made was that at the heart of an important legal or policy issue may be some rather unsympathetic characters. Not every test case is Rosa Parks.
Bundy may or may not hold some objectionable ideas about race. However, there are a number of legitimate issues surrounding his case including land grabs by the federal government, the proliferation of military style SWAT teams throughout the executive branch of the federal government, the exceeding of statutory powers by executive branch agencies, and a general screw you attitude towards the public by public employees.
kicking someone off of land you own is not a “land grab,” Ronnie. he hasn’t paid fees for used of the land for 20 years, and now that they’ve said “enough” he’s kicking up a fuss about “ancestral claims” which only exist in his mind.
Jack, great piece BTW. We’re the same age and have seen things change from the Reagan era to now. I fear for our future but have much more concern for our children. Bundy is certainly not your typical conservative American as the MSM would have us believe. Yes, he’s out there, way out there, but way aren’t more people asking why the BLM owns so much land?
” but way aren’t more people asking why the BLM owns so much land?”
because not all of us think that every single thing the government does is evil, and that not everything needs to be sold into private hands. Quite frankly I’d rather have something like the BLM to preserve lands, resources, and life than have industry shit it up or developers build Levittowns as far as the eye can see.
Yes, let’s end development just as soon as your own house is finished.
What on earth makes you think that bureaucrats are more moral than anyone else?
Does the Consumer Product Safety Commission need a SWAT team?
Ironically, given what CPSC did to destroy the BMX and road race frame industry in the United States, I’m surprised they don’t have one.
“Approximately 86% of the state’s land is managed by various jurisdictions of the U.S. federal government, both civilian and military.[8]”
That includes “shit(ting) it up with strip mines, bombing ranges, nuclear waste, and former nuclear bombing ranges.
I always figure those 80yo white guys thought it was hot when their young gfs dated black guys 🙂
Bravo Jack. Thanks for dissecting the Sterling incident a bit. Seems so much of the news today is driven by sound bytes and blog posts that the drive by media can put a quick narrative on and commit endless news cycles to without giving it more context or critical thought. In fact, your account is the first with any detail that I have seen. Without a doubt, there is going to be a constant drum beat from here on out to run Sterling out of town. I see it more like you do; that Sterling wants to uphold the image that he can actually get good looking women and that them bringing their boyfriends and ballers around makes it too obvious that he’s putting on a charade. Even if he is a racist I’d rather let the market sort it out than there being a public effort to ruin his livelihood. Certainly those who feel he’s a bigot would refuse to work for him or buy tickets to watch his team, right?
As far as Bundy goes, the old guy may have a few loose screws but this story does raise some serious questions. Why do the Feds still own so much land in the west? Do they have any plans to relinquish control to the states? Why the huge show of force for one rancher? Why are Harry Reid and his son so invested in the outcome of this dispute, even though they supposedly have no involvement with any land deals? Like others, I fear for our future, but especially for what my young son is going to see in his lifetime. Things are just now starting to come to a head and it’s not looking pretty…
Harry Reid’s son is the lobbyist for the Chinese-owned firm that needs those BLM lands for their alternative energy project. The BLM itself is headed by Harry Reid’s former chief advisor. And look, here’s a photo of Harry Reid himself at the ground-breaking for the Chinese alternative energy project, which has a direct financial benefit to his family.
The government (Harry Reid, his former advisor, and now current head of the BLM) are working for the public’s best interests? Or for their own financial stake in a private project on government land?