Race Baiting In America

I didn't think that Racism In America could get more interesting than Clippers owner Donald Sterling saying things that made him look - as Kareem Abdul Jabaar put it - like an "irritable plantation owner". That was until, in response to Sterling's rant to his black girlfriend, the inevitable Race Pimping began.  The Usual Suspects all came out, of course, and did The Sharpton: 

"See you at the Awards banquet Don"

The condemnation was swift, universal, vitriolic, and unfortunately for all these black celebrities,  mere days before Sterling was to have received his second Lifetime Achievement award from the L.A. chapter of the NAACP.

Oprah Winfrey: "It feels like a plantation mentality in the 21st century.  In 2014, it just doesn’t fit, and I'm waiting to see what they’re going to do, because something has to be done.”  I get it Oprah, I get it: I too am waiting impatiently to see what is done because something has to be done; and as everybody knows, when something must be done, I am validated in demanding that it be done.  First things first, though: What the Hell are you and Kareem talking about with the plantation references?  Does anybody believe that back in the days of slavery that the White Massah would whine to his slave mistress about parading her Mandingo lovers at the Cotillion, much less tell her it was OK to cheat on him as long as she was discreet about it?  And who in their right mind could believe that Sterling's mistress was being held in some kind of involuntary servitude? 

As to your insistence that "something has to be done", call me a crazy cynic, but I think that "something" will turn out to be Sterling being forced to sell the Clippers to you at a bargain basement price.

Whoopie Goldberg declared herself "very happy about all of this (Sterling's punishment), because I'm personally looking for a kerbillionaire to help me buy this team. I'm serious because there are no women who own any NBA teams or no teams anywhere seem to be owned by women."  Crappy grammar aside, could she be a bigger hypocrite?  If I may summarize her position: "It's time for the NBA to let a woman own a franchise; that woman should be me; I don't have the money; a man should step up and buy it for me."  I swear, next thing we know, she'll be putting the back of her hand dramatically to her forehead, declare she has The Vapors and insist that Rhett do something about it.

And Whoopie passing judgment on Sterling as a racist might be a little less ironic, were it not for the fact that she herself is the biggest collector of what is known as "Negrobilia", 19th and early 20th century artwork and figurines that are unimaginably offensive in their portrayal of the physical characteristics of blacks.  I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that Donald Sterling is not a collector, but rest assured that if he was, the NBA would ban him from owning a franchise.   

Barack Obama responded to the matter by saying "The United States continues to wrestle with the legacy of race and slavery and segregation...."  He was of course in that bastion of racial tolerance, Malaysia, and speaking of the United States in the third person.  How cool is it to be a prominent Democrat politician and be able to go to foreign countries and trash the U.S. like you're Hugo Chavez?  Pretty damn cool is the answer, judging from the frequency with which the likes of Obama, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and John Kerry do it, but as with the comments of Oprah and Kareem, what is he talking about?  By what tortured logic does any of this have to do with segregation or slavery? 

This does provide me another opportunity to play my favorite game though, which is to recommend that people read Obama's words, rather than listen to them.  Take away that pretty face and his admittedly formidable oratorical skills, and you discover that the words coming out of his mouth are not only incoherent, but insipid to boot.  Seriously, read a transcript of any prominent speech he has ever made.  As to matters of race, he is a wind up doll, or as I have famously referred to him: "A TelePrompTer Addled Hand Puppet."

And then, there's Snoop Dogg.  I literally am at a loss for words, but he's not.  You're going to want to click the link and listen for yourself, though.  No word on whether the Dogg is putting together a consortium to buy the Clippers, but P Diddy is. 

And finally, what would any public spectacle of this sort be without the inclusion of the Reverend Al Sharpton who himself threatened to start a boycott of the NBA unless they suspended Sterling "immediately".  Can you imagine the butt hole pucker that rippled through the NBA player community when he went down that road?  Can you imagine how quickly Sharpton was advised not to go there again?  Predictably, he has not repeated the demand; Say what you will about Al Sharpton's many faults, drying up the money pot is not one of them. 

And all that said, I guess we should be grateful that Sharpton has distinguished himself by being one of the few prominent black critics not using his blackness as a justification to be the next owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.  Then again, the Long Play has never much been his specialty.  As Grifters go, Sharpton is much more comfortable with the Short Con.

Which brings us to former black superstar and current NBA executive Larry Brown, who responded to Sterling's remarks by calling for an all black league with all black ownership.

Set aside for a moment how purely racist such a demand is: how much more out of touch could he be with his black brothers and sisters.  Let's take a case in point close to home, my Houston Rockets.  I guarantee you that Rockets superstars Dwight Howard and James Harden think Brown is crazy because Rockets superstars Dwight Howard and James Harden looove teammates Chandler Parsons, Jeremy Lin and Omar Asik, who collectively are a virtual rainbow of non-blackness, and all of whom stepped up their games in the playoffs, in particular picking up the slack for Harden, who has been terrible in post-season play for three years in a row.

Larry Brown's premise is that banning the likes of Parsons, Lin and Asik would be a smart thing to do.  I take him at his word, but even assuming he overrides the objections of, like, 99% of the black players in the NBA, if he was being consistent, he would also insist on a league with all black fans. That way, the average attendance at games would be about 27 people.

Let's see him cover payroll with that business model.

And of all the things that Larry Brown could have used to illustrate racism in the NBA, the comments of Donald Sterling would seem to be pretty low down the list.  Case in point, in the past decade, the average cheap seat at NBA games has gone from $20 to $50. Ironically, the highest priced cheap seat in the league at $125 is at New York Knicks games.  The Knicks are Larry Brown's employer. So there you go: including parking, refreshments and one beer each for Mom and Dad, a family of four can experience the New York Knicks from the cheap seats for a measly $700.

So Brown works for and promotes the interests of a team and a league that uses a government sanctioned monopoly to insure that people of modest means can't afford a ticket; that includes 95% of his black brothers and sisters - which likely explains their near complete absence in the stands at Knick basketball games.  See, the average black family doesn't call $700 "a night out"; they likely call $700 "a month's rent and utilities", but then again, so do about 200 million white people.

So there IS big time discrimination going on in the NBA, and Larry Johnson is one of the prime enablers.  The funny part of this story is that, while the rest of us, black or white, reacted to Sterling's comments by agreeing he's a putz but then otherwise getting on with our lives, scores of black celebrities like him and Oprah - all scions of the Democrat Party - are milking it for personal gain or media exposure.  But don't take my word for it; seek out the perspective of blacks who are not celebrities, like this guy:

It immediately puts this whole sorry affair in perspective, and for me, that perspective is this: The overwhelming majority of Rich Democrats, black or white, have no perspective, and no sense of humor. 

Thank God so many average folk - black and white - do.