The NBA Racism Awakes
Donald Sterling, NBA (National Basketball Association) Clippers owner is being investigated after allegedly heard making a series of racist comments to his girlfriend, V. Stiviano. According to Golliver (2014), “TMZ.com released a tape of a conversation in which Sterling can allegedly be heard scolding V. Stiviano, his girlfriend, for bringing African-Americans to Clippers games and for posting photos of herself and African-Americans to her Instagram account.”
TMZ released excerpts of the audio conversation in which Sterling is upset with Stiviano -who identifies herself as “black and Mexican”- for posting a photo with NBA Hall of Famer, Magic Johnson;
“It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people. Do you have to?”
“You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it on that … and not to bring them to my games.”
“Don’t put him [Johnson] on an Instagram for the world to have to see so they have to call me. And don’t bring him to my games.”
Donald Sterling and his girlfriend V. Stiviano in a Clippers game.
Magic Johnson, a retired NBA professional basketball player who played for the Los Angeles Lakers, addressed the reports from TMZ to him;
“TMZ reported this morning that Clippers owner Donald Sterling doesn’t want me or other African-Americans to come to Clippers games,” Johnson wrote on Twitter. “[My wife] and I will never go to a Clippers game again as long as Donald Sterling is the owner. I feel sorry for my friends Coach Doc Rivers and Chris Paul that they have to work for a man that feels that way about African-Americans. … Sterling’s comments about African-Americans are a black eye for the NBA.
This was not the first time Sterling was reported to have been involved in racial slurs. He was previously sued by his ex-lover, Maiko Maya King, for sexual and racial allegations says TMZ Sports. She claims in her new lawsuit, that she was in a romantic relationship with Sterling between 2005 and 2011.