Filed under: News, Race and Civil Rights
It's hard to believe that a man closely associated with a sport dominated by black players like professional basketball would be so ignorant when it comes to matters of race.
But believe it. Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling (pictured above) is that ignorant.
The latest example comes from a report today that the Clippers are going to celebrate Black History Month in March. That's right. The annual celebration of black achievement held every February since 1976 will start a few days late for the Clippers.
In an ad published in the Los Angeles Times, the March 2 game against the Houston Rockets will admit 1,000 underprivileged children for free "in honor of Black History Month."
The ad has the intentionally hilarious line that "tickets are subject to availability" as if tickets to two losing clubs are a hot commodity in a town with more than a few entertainment options like Los Angeles.
One might be willing to give Sterling, one of the largest real estate owners in Southern California, the benefit of the doubt on the Black History Month screw-up if it weren't for his earlier missteps on race.
Sterling paid $2.73 million to settle a federal-housing bias lawsuit. Sterling was accused by one of his property managers of having said he didn't like renting to blacks because they smelled nor Mexican-Americans because they drank liquor all day.
To his credit, he said he liked renting to Korean-Americans, because they would accept any living conditions and still pay the rent.
Sterling was also accused of telling a coaching candidate that he would prefer to have a white Southern coach leading a team of poor black players.
Sterling's racial views are just part of the story. His poor management of the Clippers over the past 30 years has made the franchise the posterchild for dysfunction in professional American sports.
Sterling's latest gaffe makes you wonder when and if NBA Commissioner David Stern will consider nudging Sterling from the owners' box in the same way baseball overlords did with Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott during the 1990s.
No doubt Schott's comments, like calling two of her players, Eric Davis and Dave Parker, "million-dollar n*ggers," are far worse than anything Sterling has been charged with to date.
But when any owner of a professional sports team allows his ignorant racial views to get aired publicly, as Sterling has, it threatens the bottom line for the entire sport. And that's when league managers should get involved.
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