Let’s stop for a moment and examine the Donald Sterling aftermath. The man is fired. Exiled. Banned from a league where presumably, but “until proven” could quite possibly be littered with more undercover Donald Sterling’s. Is Sterling a saint? No. But is he a scapegoat? A way behind a means that insists upon a justice for all that Black people have endured, pre-and-post Donald Sterling? Absolutely. Is Donald Sterling a racist? A syncopate degenerate who is both equally wealthy and delusional? Yes, but to a certain degree. You see, Donald Sterling is more than a racist. To be a racist would not be an accurate assessment to befall this man. The Grand Wizard of the Klan is a racist. But he’s also an astute businessman and leader, both of which can be attributed to one Donald Sterling. That is not to suggest that Sterling’s next gig should be the Grand Wizard of the Klan, but to simply promote the idea that one can be more than just a racist. A racist is a label. Sterling is more than a label.
The words from the voice on the tape came from a man who seemed more like an insecure old white man vs a person that “hates” Black people. Donald Sterling is a byproduct of a certain segment of the U.S. population, let alone U.S. history. In the words of the late-great Tupac Shakur, “I was given this world, I didn’t make it.” Had Sterling been about 50-60 years younger and knew of the legendary Tupac, perhaps he could have spouted out those words to sum up his whole ideological wisdom. Yet Donald Sterling is eighty years old. Which means that he was born during a time when Jim Crow, racial segregation and the idea of not being “seen” keeping company with certain people was the law of the land. On many fronts, Donald Sterling invoked in his rant the troublesome past from which he came, and from which sadly, he could not escape.
Indeed realistically, Sterling could not understand why his young half Black, half Latino girlfriend/mistress could surround herself among Black people. He could not understand why she choose to flaunt her associations with Black people on Instagram or Twitter. Why? Because in the world that Donald Sterling lives in, and the world that many people like him lived/lives in, that does not happen. Period, point, blank. To put it in a more historical context, President Thomas Jefferson is famously known for having fathered children with his slave, Sally Hemming. It was never that Jefferson denied his transgressions, being married and all, but he also did not openly flaunt it either. Morally right or wrong, justifiable or not, Sterling, as with Jefferson, believed that so long as it was under lock & key, everything was acceptable.
But with Donald Sterling, it wasn’t about who HE associated himself with, it was about who his mistress associated with. In a true case of double standardism, Sterling cared less about his transgressions as a married man who was having an open affair on his wife, and cared more about who the “other woman” linked herself up to. When Sterling said, “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.”, who do you suppose “We” meant? What did “that culture” imply? His equally wealthy and impressionable white (and probably some Black) friends/business owners, who would have raised a suspicious eye at what his mistress was involving herself in, or who. The mere idea that she could be around certain groups of people was fine, so long as she did not broadcast that. The moment she did, in Donald Sterling’s eyes, that was where she jeopardized herself, her possible future and his business.
But did his idea of a certain type of culture warrant the punishment he received, or the label of racist? He went on to further say, “There’s no racism here. If you don’t want to be… walking… into a basketball game with a certain… person, is that racism?” The racism doesn’t necessarily lie at the foot of those comments. But if not there? Where?
The racism lies in the cover-up. The cover-up is within Donald Sterling’s internal embarrassment or potential embarrassment of what others would think of his association to a woman who associates with certain groups of people. The racism lies in the fact that he could not absolve himself from the climate that was given to him from the moment he was born. Sterling’s mistress didn’t get the point just as much as Sterling himself didn’t get it, thus both missed a critical truth. On one hand, IF Sterling’s mistress were to advance herself upwardly in the world she entered, a world that has been inhabited by an eighty year old man and his other older friends, who were of a particular walk, then she had to remove herself from a life she had known pre-Donald Sterling’s world. He was not given the rules to this game of life, a game where race DOES matter. A game where wealth DOES matter. And a game where sadly, other people’s opinions of who you are based upon who is around you MATTERS.
What Sterling missed is that this is 2014, not 1954. Perhaps many of his friends cared about the fact that his young mistress was parading herself around with other young people. Perhaps not. But even if they did, ultimately Sterling could not fully understand that that’s what young people do. She has an Instagram account. That should have been clue enough. Instead, he missed the boat and subjected himself to being an insecure, grumpy old man at best, and a racial fanatic at worse. All & all, both were negligent of the reality they both were apart of, whether or not either helped to create it.
A few parting words on Race and Relationships:
It is suggested, in some regards, that a Black male athlete dates a beautiful white woman for two reasons, and neither are love. The belief is that if a Black male athlete dates a white woman it is for financial gain and personal/professional upward mobility. There’s a lot that can come from dating a wealthy white woman who just so happens to be related to an even wealthier white man who could do wonders for that Black man’s life. Doors start to become open that were never opened before. People who wouldn’t give this Black man the time of day if he couldn’t dunk a basketball or catch a football start to pay attention to this man. He’s a valuable asset, a commodity, a cash cow. But still, many believe that he’d not achieve these accolades and reach these heights if he didn’t have a well-to-do white woman on his arm. Stereotype or not, there’s a lot to suggest this is the case, and could be cause to examine the reasons why so many Black NBA and NFL players end up with white women vs Black women.
So let’s suggest for a moment that Donald’s Sterling’s mistress is just like that Black male NBA player. She associated herself with a wealthy well-to-do white man, and yet failed to understand the world in which she entered, or why she was even there? I do not believe that for a second. The “shock” she maintained throughout the leaked tape is Oscar-worthy because she should have understood WHY Donald felt the way he felt, even if she didn’t agree with it. She was brought to the dance on the ideals of a culture that required her compliance, not his. Just like a Black man dating a white woman to “get ahead in life” is adopting the philosophy of that lifestyle, not the other way around. So in short, Donald Sterling, while racist in theory, could not see his own racism in practice. And his mistress could not comprehend her own ignorance to a world she volunteered to be apart of. To Sterling0, he did not want Black people “at his games” not because he believed that, but because he believed that his mistress bringing “Black people” would counter the very culture of which he was apart of and believed his mistress to have followed suit in. To have changed it up in the middle of the game (no pun intended) was just as inexcusable as his racist remarks were.
This is not to give Donald Sterling a pass, but to shed some light on the reasons why he said what he said, which I strongly feel was missed by many people who were sprinting as quickly as they could with stones and burning torches in hand, waiting for the moment to strike. There are more Donald Sterling’s in the NBA, NFL, MLB and everywhere there’s a major corporation in America. What this has done is protected those persons and given them a blueprint on what not to do moving forward. An eighty year old business owner/racist was the scapegoat indeed. But what happens the next time somebody leaks out the truth about their own feelings and a culture? Like Tupac said, “I was given this world, I didn’t make it.”