NBA owner BANNED FOR LIFE for racist remarks

1. They can't legally force him to sell the team. This is Amerika.

2. I have deep-seated problems with this story. Amerika is one of the ugliest countries in the world, both with regard to "its own" people, and especially in its rapacious and murderous behaviour toward people everywhere. This rich dude has a [i]private conversation[/i] in which he makes disgusting comments about "blacks" - to his African-Hispanic significant other. The President of the fucking United States is shocked, shocked! The NBA is shocked!

I really have problems with this story and how it's being turned into the biggest scandalous news item of the century.

Does anyone think this rich dude and his backward mentality is some kind of rare-as-hens'-teeth exception among the 1% of the U.S.?

Certainly being made to seem that way.

Ah yes, Smith, Kevin O'Leary is comparing Obama's glorious struggle against Sterling with his glorious struggle against Putin. Are you sure you're in the right thread?

Anyway, it merely proves that the United States is, yet again, the staunchest champion of human rights the world has ever seen.

Let me know when someone get a $2.5 million fine for actually doing something evil to people - like say sending drones to murder them, or sticking folks in Guantanamo, or arming everyone to the teeth, or prohibiting people of the same sex from marrying, or executing minority and disabled folks.

A big mistake has been made here by Donald Sterling, the owner of the LA Clippers. He should never have allowed his remarks to be publicized similiar to that GOP scumbag presidential candidate Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential election campaign. How dumb can these guys be!  

Donald Sterling was more than just a “painful episode”

The Clippers owner has been publicly shamed and banned from the NBA. But that won't fix the root of the problem

TOPICS: DONALD STERLING, CLIVEN BUNDY, RACISM, CLIPPERS, NBA, EDITOR'S PICKS, RACE, POLITICS NEWS

There has been and there will continue to be vigorous discussions about race in America. I worry that little will come of these discussions because we aren’t addressing what must be done to change the current racial climate. Donald Sterling’s lack of interest in having black people at Clippers’ games is on par with rancher Cliven Bundy’s nostalgia for slavery as a means of giving black folk something to do. These men’s racial attitudes are troubling and indicative of the racist beliefs far too many people hold. More important, these men and their ilk are propped up by a system for which the consequences for extolling such beliefs are painfully inadequate. They are propped up by a system that enables voter suppression, segregation, the retrenchment of affirmative action supported by even the Supreme Court, a glass ceiling in far too many industries, and the list goes on.

What truly worries me, though, is that far too many people seem surprised when racists like Sterling or Bundy are revealed, as if these men are closer to the exception than the rule. What worries me is that I am not at all surprised when these men are revealed for who they truly are. What worries me is that “post-racial” America is not that different from the Americas that have preceded us, and it might not ever be.

http://www.salon.com/2014/04/29/donald_sterling_was_more_than_just_a_pai...

Society should stop and debate what should be done with some irrelevant jerk named Sterling????

Are we really not clear what's happening here? The NBA is chock-full of African-Americans, because basketball is what they're "good" at. They entertain us and make us feel oh so welcoming. Sterling comes along and attacks them - huh? What a dolt. The NBA, unwilling to bite the hand that feeds them, reacts as if Sterling had committed genocide, instead of just being a racist asshole in a private conversation, just like you might hear any old jerk in a pub with a few too many beers. And the players, on cue, applaud and rejoice, as if some gigantic blow for equality has been struck!

This is a farce, not far from the gladiatorial spectacles. It is not a blow for liberty. It is, actually, nothing.

Unionist wrote:

1. They can't legally force him to sell the team. This is Amerika.

2. I have deep-seated problems with this story. Amerika is one of the ugliest countries in the world, both with regard to "its own" people, and especially in its rapacious and murderous behaviour toward people everywhere. This rich dude has a [i]private conversation[/i] in which he makes disgusting comments about "blacks" - to his African-Hispanic significant other. The President of the fucking United States is shocked, shocked! The NBA is shocked!

I really have problems with this story and how it's being turned into the biggest scandalous news item of the century.

Does anyone think this rich dude and his backward mentality is some kind of rare-as-hens'-teeth exception among the 1% of the U.S.?

Certainly being made to seem that way.

 

1)According to the NBA commissioner, the league CAN make Sterling sell the team if 3/4ths of the owners vote to make him do that.

2)The banning of Sterling isn't being read, on this side of the border, as proof that the U.S. is now a non-bigoted classless Utopia. 
The gloating about the banning is mainly corporate feel-good bullshit from the Basketball-Industrial-Complex.   This is to be expected.  All it is is a minor moment when, for once, a rich jerk(at least symbolically)got punished for SOMETHING(it wouldn't surprise me if the guy "found Jesus" and then ended up giving the keynote speech at the 2016 GOP Convention0.  We're all gonna keep on working on changing the stuff that needs to be changed. Don't take the smugness of the NBA and the media as representing the way everybody here feels about stuff, U.

Is it looking like spring yet in Montreal, by the way? 

Ken Burch wrote:

Unionist wrote:

1. They can't legally force him to sell the team. This is Amerika.

2. I have deep-seated problems with this story. Amerika is one of the ugliest countries in the world, both with regard to "its own" people, and especially in its rapacious and murderous behaviour toward people everywhere. This rich dude has a [i]private conversation[/i] in which he makes disgusting comments about "blacks" - to his African-Hispanic significant other. The President of the fucking United States is shocked, shocked! The NBA is shocked!

I really have problems with this story and how it's being turned into the biggest scandalous news item of the century.

Does anyone think this rich dude and his backward mentality is some kind of rare-as-hens'-teeth exception among the 1% of the U.S.?

Certainly being made to seem that way.

 

 

1)According to the NBA commissioner, the league CAN make Sterling sell the team if 3/4ths of the owners vote to make him do that.

2)The banning of Sterling isn't being read, on this side of the border, as proof that the U.S. is now a non-bigoted classless Utopia. 
The gloating about the banning is mainly corporate feel-good bullshit from the Basketball-Industrial-Complex.   This is to be expected.  All it is is a minor moment when, for once, a rich jerk(at least symbolically)got punished for SOMETHING(it wouldn't surprise me if the guy "found Jesus" and then ended up giving the keynote speech at the 2016 GOP Convention0.  We're all gonna keep on working on changing the stuff that needs to be changed. Don't take the smugness of the NBA and the media as representing the way everybody here feels about stuff, U.

Is it looking like spring yet in Montreal, by the way? 

Only for certain restricted things, not for being a racist windbag in a private conversation. If it stands, any comment by any owner, NBA employee or player would be grounds for termination.

It wasn't just one private conversation. Sterling has a long record

http://deadspin.com/your-complete-quotable-guide-to-decades-of-donald-st...

Here's an article from 2006:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=jones/060810

Sterling is a POS.

I read that he refused to pay for one of the coaches cancer surgery.

But I also think he's the poster boy of the 1%...Greedy,selfish and sociopathic.

I think the whole issue will  be tied up in litigation for many years. That said, I applaud Silver for his decisive action in this case.

Here's the thing: Sterling bought the team a long time ago  for $12.5 million. The team is now probably worth close to a billion dollars and he's being forced to sell it. So, basically, as a result of his stupid and offensive comments, his punishment will see him make hundreds of millions of dollars.

Also, while this guy certainly seems like a major asshole, I don't like that his private conversation was secretly recorded and that was used as a way to oust him. It sets a pretty dangerous precedent. Sterling's a billionaire and will be fine but what about the average person, working an average job? Should employers be able to take something they might have said on Facebook or Twitter or in a private conversation to a friend and use that as a reason to get rid of them?

Mr.Tea wrote:

Should employers be able to take something they might have said on Facebook or Twitter or in a private conversation to a friend and use that as a reason to get rid of them?

He's not an employee. He is a business owner who has a franchise, and he is a former chair of the organization.

If a business or organization wants to dump a relationship with someone because it affects how they do their job, or how they make the organization look, they are often well within their rights to do so. None of these situations are solved by a cookie-cutter approach; context is very important.

As I said upthread, it's not just someone's about freedom to be a racist. He had made that pretty clear already, and he's not being prevented from speaking. . His words relate directly to how he does his job, and this is a matter of context, and an ongoing bad situation that was probably left undealt with far too long.

Mr.Tea wrote:

Here's the thing: Sterling bought the team a long time ago  for $12.5 million. The team is now probably worth close to a billion dollars and he's being forced to sell it. So, basically, as a result of his stupid and offensive comments, his punishment will see him make hundreds of millions of dollars.

The difference between him selling the team and his family selling it after he dies is about $300 million in Capital Gains Tax

bekayne wrote:

Mr.Tea wrote:

Here's the thing: Sterling bought the team a long time ago  for $12.5 million. The team is now probably worth close to a billion dollars and he's being forced to sell it. So, basically, as a result of his stupid and offensive comments, his punishment will see him make hundreds of millions of dollars.

The difference between him selling the team and his family selling it after he dies is about $300 million in Capital Gains Tax

Correct. I just read a article on that very subject so he'll definitely take a financial hit (or his family will). There's speculation that one way of getting around this is that he would simply transfer ownership to his wife or kids. Not sure if that's feasible or not.

Caissa wrote:

People should read the constitution.

Or perhaps just point out the sections you consider noteworthy, and why.