by Delise Lynch
Racism in the NBA?! How is this even possible?
On Friday, April 25th, tmz.com released an audio recording that featured Donald Sterling, (real estate mogul & owner of the Los Angeles Clippers) and his girlfriend V. Stiviano, having a heated conversation over her association with a certain group of people. The group of people, as we all know from hearing the recordings, being African-Americans. During the more than hour long recording, Sterling questions her as to why she has to “associate with black people”. He then goes on to tell her not to bring “them” to his games. As I listened to the audio myself, I immediately was overcome with emotion. Not with anger or outrage as most might expect, but with disgust. How could this man own a team in a predominantly African-American league and have these sort of feelings? Better yet, why did no one know about it? I just knew there had to be more to this story.
of people. The group of people, as we all know from hearing the recordings, being African-Americans. During the more than hour long recording, Sterling questions her as to why she has to “associate with black people”. He then goes on to tell her not to bring “them” to his games. As I listened to the audio myself, I immediately was overcome with emotion. Not with anger or outrage as most might expect, but with disgust. How could this man own a team in a predominantly African-American league and have these sort of feelings? Better yet, why did no one know about it? I just knew there had to be more to this story.
So being the inquisitive young woman that I am, I began to research Mr. Sterling. What I found was not only a legacy of discriminatory behavior, but just outward disrespect toward individuals that are different than himself. An example is the lawsuit that was filed against Sterling, and his wife Shelly, by the Justice Department. According to research presented by the LA Times, the Sterlings were accused of discriminating against tenants that wished to reside in buildings they owned in the Los Angeles County area. Court documents show that Sterling and his wife made comments “indicating that African-American and Hispanics were not desirable and that they preferred Korean tenants”. The Justice Department was prepared to produce an expert witness that would have shown how the Sterlings had rented to far fewer Hispanics and African-Americans than was expected based on demographics. But the Sterlings elected not to go to trial and settle out-of-court. They paid a $2.725 million settlement, and as a condition of the settlement were required to hire an independent contractor to monitor their compliance with the Fair Housing Act for three years starting in 2009. This example is bad enough, but sadly there’s more.