8 Racist Insights Decoded From The Comments of LA Clippers Owner, Donald Sterling
This past week, two audio recordings purportedly of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling making inflammatory racist remarks hit the Internet and rocked the NBA and sports world.
The audio clips, yet to be officially authenticated, supposedly reveals a racially charged conversation between Sterling and his alleged mistress Vanessa Stiviano, where the sports mogul could be heard berating her for posting pictures of herself on Instagram posing with African-Americans, including basketball legend Magic Johnson.
The conversation between Sterling, who is Jewish, and Stiviano, who is half-Black and half- Mexican, provides intriguing insights into the white supremacist worldview and the complexity of racial dynamics, particularly between lovers from different races.
While there are many more, here are eight of those insights gleaned from the clips.
According to many of Sterling’s comments, it is clear that he and and some of his associates feel a white woman — or someone who is perceived as one — is devalued if she is seen with a Black man, even if that Black man is a multimillionaire businessman like Magic Johnson.
Sterling: “By walking, and you’re perceived as either a Latina or a white girl. Why can’t you be walking publicly with Black people? Why? Is there a benefit to you? ”
Sterling: “Don’t put him [Magic] on an Instagram for the world to have to see so they have to call me. And don’t bring him to my games.”
Sterling speech seems disturbingly close to what many in the Black community would consider a slave-master mentality. It is as if, to him, the NBA players are not employees of the teams they play for — they are more like slaves on a plantation.
Sterling: ”I support them and give them food, and clothes, and cars, and houses. Who gives it to them? Does someone else give it to them? Do I know that I have— who makes the game? Do I make the game, or do they make the game? Is there 30 owners, that created the league?”
The sports tycoon also demonstrates that even a white person who is regularly seen interacting in a friendly and personable way with Blacks, and one who professes to “love the Black people,” could still be a racist.
Sterling: “Well, believe it, and stop talking about it! You’re not making any good points. You can’t believe this man . ..that’s all I am. I’m not a good person in your eyes. If I was a good person, you wouldn’t say, ‘I can’t believe this, I can’t believe that.’ Which are all lies. I love the Black people.”
V. Stiviano: ”Look at all this negativity coming from–”
Sterling: “There is no negativity. I love everybody. I’m just saying, in your lousy f*** Instagrams, you don’t have to have yourself with, walking with Black people. You don’t have to. If you want to, do it.”
Sterling lets the world know in no unclear terms: Race still matters!
V. Stiviano: ”Is it a benefit to me? Does it matter if they’re white or blue or yellow?”
Sterling: “I guess that you don’t know that. Maybe you’re stupid. Maybe you don’t know what people think of you. It does matter, yeah! It matters.”
Sterling implies that the Jewish Holocaust should not be compared with racism against Black people and that excluding Blacks is not about racism at all.
V. Stiviano: “It’s like saying, ‘Let’s just persecute and kill all of the Jews.’”
Sterling: “Oh, it’s the same thing, right?”
V. Stiviano: “ Isn’t it wrong? Wasn’t it wrong then? With the Holocaust? And you’re Jewish, you understand discrimination.”
Sterling: “You’re a mental case, you’re really a mental case. The Holocaust, we’re comparing with—”
V. Stiviano: “Racism! Discrimination.”
Sterling: “There’s no racism here. If you don’t want to be… walking… into a basketball game with a certain… person, is that racism?
Sterling provides evidence that people involved in interracial relationships can still be very racist.
Sterling: “It isn’t a question — we don’t evaluate what’s right and wrong, we live in a society. We live in a culture. We have to live within that culture.”
V. Stiviano: ”But shouldn’t we take a stand for what’s wrong? And be the change and the difference?”
Sterling: ”I don’t want to change the culture, because I can’t. It’s too big and too powerful.”
V. Stiviano: “But you can change yourself.”
Sterling: “I don’t want to change. If my girl can’t do what I want, I don’t want the girl. I’ll find a girl that will do what I want! Believe me. I thought you were that girl—because I tried to do what you want. But you’re not that girl.”
The Clippers owner admits to what many news reports have been implying about the conditions Black people face in the state of Israel: Although it was created to protect Jews from oppression, this protection does not extend to followers of Judaism with darker skin.
Sterling: “It’s the world! You go to Israel, the Blacks are just treated like dogs.”
V. Stiviano: “So do you have to treat them like that too?”
Sterling: “The white Jews, there’s white Jews and Black Jews, do you understand?”
V. Stiviano: “And are the Black Jews less than the white Jews?”
Sterling: “A hundred percent, fifty, a hundred percent.”
In other comments, Sterling indicates a biracial woman with African ancestry can be accepted into white society if she denies African heritage. He also reaffirms a University of Washington study that found that most white people are more comfortable around Black people who deny or play down their racial heritage.
Sterling: ”Yeah, it bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with Black people. Do you have to?”
Stiviano: ”You associate with Black people.”
Sterling: ”I’m not you, and you’re not me. You’re supposed to be a delicate white or a delicate Latina girl.”
Stiviano: “I’m a mixed girl. And you’re in love with me. And I’m Black and Mexican, whether you like it or not, whether the world accepts it or not. And you’re asking me to remove something that’s part of me and in my bloodstream because the world thinks different of me, and you’re afraid of what they’re going to think see because of your upbringing? You want me to have hate towards Black people?”
Stiviano: “I’m a mixed girl. And you’re in love with me. And I’m Black and Mexican, whether you like it or not, whether the world accepts it or not. And you’re asking me to remove something that’s part of me and in my bloodstream because the world thinks different of me, and you’re afraid of what they’re going to think see because of your upbringing? You want me to have hate towards Black people?”
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