The NBA vs. Donald Sterling

Warning:  These are my (opinions)....reasonable people can disagree on this.

We all might wish that Donald Sterling's living room conversations never made it to international news..but they did (in a very shady sort of way), and the aftermath has been crazy...and disheveled, and not well thought out, in my opinion.

Racism is bad, very bad, let's just start there.  I was a "crusader" as a kid, MLK, Bobby Kennedy, and all that, and, though not a partisan, I voted for Barack twice...and I like the guy.  I will say, though, that I stand against the NBA in the way they have handled Donald Sterling's private conversations in his living room.

In this country we are safe to be racists, homophobes, atheists, believers in the healing magic of gingko biloba, Scientologists, etc..  If not in the privacy of our own homes, then where are we safe?  Will we next be accountable for our unexpressed thoughts?  George Orwell, where are you?

Even the almighty NBA can't sanitize (or sanction) the conversations that an owner has at his home, in private.  When Adam Silver pretended to be Moses and held his Tablets up during that press conference it is was nothing more than pandering..pandering to the African American community, and more specifically, to the African American players in the NBA.  Where does he come up with that 2.5 million dollar fine?  Banishing Sterling from NBA games?...forever?, when any NBA game has pedophiles in the stands (convicted ones), felons, wife beaters (many of those are playing in the games), drunk drivers... heck, I would wager that there are murderers in the stands of any given NBA game but, Donald Sterling, an 80 year old man who made some reckless, yet deplorable statements in his living room will be turned away by Security if he tries to attend the game of a team that he owns?

He will be (forced) to sell his assets at the directive of the NBA?

What if Sterling, or any owner, decides to terminate the NBA contract of any player convicted of beating his girlfriend?  How about if they are just indicted for beating their girlfriend?  I, personally, would be for that.  Ray Rice, a football player in the NFL, is seen on video dragging his girlfriend forcefully on the ground...the NFL doesn't bother him.  Do we want to do a morality test on the average NBA player?  We  don't want to go there.

Why not just have Julius Erving (though he had a child out of wedlock while he was married) give a press conference where he says that, while Sterling's comments are reprehensible and sad, the African American community will press on..just like we always have...just like Jackie Robinson did, just like Martin Luther King did...we will point out racism when we see it..but when it is only expressed in words in the privacy of ones' home, we will let those words speak for themselves, as a testament to ignorance and insensitivity.

A team of lawyers is not always the answer to every problem, especially when no one used "sticks or stones", and the "words" were uttered in private.

my opinions

I welcome any dissent.