THIS IS IMPORTANT NEWS: Clip's Owner Donald Sterling Accused of Housing Discrimination

by Atma Brother ONE on Aug 12, 2006 9:32 AM PDT in News

Everyone in Warriors Nation, Hoops Nation, and the whole sports world should read Bomani Jones' recent piece Sterling's Racism Should be News for ESPN's Page 2. Rarely do you find anything that insightful or socially relevant in the mostly sensationalized sports world, but Bomani seriously drops some science.

Donald Sterling's housing discrimination lawsuit shouldn't be on Page 2. It should be on Page 1, front and center instead of meaningless stories like Danica Patrick switching race car teams or some over-hyped and calculated shot at Terrell Owens. As Bomani illuminates:

The tragedy of Maurice Clarett is big news. So are the legal adventures of the Cincinnati Bengals, Rhett Bomar's inability to recognize that not all money is good money, Floyd Landis' daily excuse, and teenager Michelle Wie's being too nervous to tell a grown man she would no longer pay him to carry her stuff around a golf course. But Donald Sterling's refusing to offer housing to blacks and Latinos? Must not have that sizzle. On the section of the Los Angeles Times Web site dedicated to the Clippers, the lawsuit against Sterling can be found only on the AP news wire. On ESPN.com, it takes a few clicks to find the story.

Housing discrimination is a terrible sin and deserves censure at the highest level. When former Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott and former Major League Baseball pitcher John Rocker made their dumb comments they were publicly vilified, but the type of structural, covert racism that Sterling is being sued for and has been accused of in the past is far more destructive and harmful. It's the type of racism that keeps this nation from ever fully realizing the dream of equality.

On a positive note, I hope that ESPN realizes what they've got and gives Bomani Jones more air time. ESPN.com and SportsCenter are quickly turning into nothing more than the National Enquirer and E! Hollywood Story for the high testosterone crowd. It's refreshing to see a perspective like this. Props to Bomani.

All the more reason to boo Donald Sterling if he ever comes to town for a Warriors-Clippers playoff game...

Definitely check out Bomani Jones.com

Running List of Blogosphere Coverage:

Bethlehem Shoals at FreeDarko dropped an insightful piece: The unfortunate moss
Donald Sterling Might Be A Huge, HUGE Douchebag from The Mighty MJD
Sublimation & the Sports Fan from ClippersBlog.com
Racism Isn't Dead, Its Just Been Caricatured from The Assimilated Negro
Eddie Johnson is a child molestor, Donald Sterling is a racist, and all Arabs are pretty much terrorists from 5-Point Bucks
Clippers' Owner Sterling Sued for Racial Discrimination and No One is Talking from SportsBiz
Monday Bullets from True Hoop
Et Tu Renaldo? from Bench Renaldo

EDIT: Correction- Sterling was not found guilty of housing discrimination in the previous case. Instead he paid "one of the largest settlements" of this sort. For a crime that is incredibly difficult for victims to prove, a large settlement speaks volumes. Again, Sterling is being accused of housing discrimination here as well as in the past. This piece has been modified to reflect this correction.

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On the money

Yes to everything you said here. I appreciate your willingness to expose yourself to criticism for putting out this information on our board, as sports fans such as ourselves often wish for a politics-free moment when surfing the sports boards, when the sad truth is that there is no part of life that isn't part of our common life as social people and therefore part of political life. This is a basketball story that happens to involve politics directly, and it has every reason to appear front and center, as much as a baseball story, say, in 1947 about Jackie Robinson. In 1958 Willie Mays couldn't buy a house in the St. Francis Wood neighborhood in San Francisco, nor could he get a membership at the Olympic Club by Lake Merced. No one called him a foul name, no one said any but the most admiring things about him; but the answer always came down to No, because we don't allow colored people, even the ones we like. Here we have the same exact thing happening almost fifty years later. That certainly deserves a front page write up on ESPN: one of the most powerful people in sports, an owner of an NBA franchise, using his money and power to uphold segregation, violating not just the law but what we now supposedly accept as common decency.

Steroids make the front page of ESPN because users violate fans' sense of fairness--quite rightly--with respect to the narrowly focused contests that are sports events. Here we have an affront to our sense of fairness, involving a sports figure; the only difference is that the injustice involved greatly exceeds the narrow focus of a sports event. Front page. And it should be front page news in the L. A. Times, too.

by mikej @ Golden State Of Mind on Aug 12, 2006 11:09 PM PDT reply actions

Always a pleasure mikej

Thanks for sharing your insights on this topic.

I honestly didn't know about Willie Mays' experiences in 1958. The history is much appreciated.

And you're right on about this:

as sports fans such as ourselves often wish for a politics-free moment when surfing the sports boards, when the sad truth is that there is no part of life that isn't part of our common life as social people and therefore part of political life

Well said.

I know many of us think of sports as a way to escape from the problems of the world, but no matter how hard we may try it's just inevitable.

93 'til Infinity: The Warriors' playoff drought?

by Atma Brother ONE on Aug 13, 2006 12:13 AM PDT up reply actions

It makes me sick

to have learned of this from GSoM instead of say a major newspaper, but im glad someone had the courage to put this up. Why in the world isnt this all over anything people read. This isnt just a sports issue, ESPN should be one of the last websites to report it. Sterling is a real-estate giant, who just happens to own a sports team. Every major media source in the country should be scolding Sterling unmercifully, people like him truly make this world a worse place to live, for those of us fortunate enough to be the right color to be able to buy a place to live. I cant express enough how indignant this makes me. Shelter is one of the basic necessities of life, and i cant believe anyone would go so far as to flat out deny it to someone just because they are "the wrong color." If I were a Clippers player, Id flat out refuse to take the mans money (given its alot easier for me to say this because im not being paid millions) but if there was ever a just cause to not report to a team, this is it.

Thanks Atma for reminding us that not making the playoffs isnt all that bad when you look at some of the other things wrong in the world

Well theres always next year x12

by FoyledAgain on Aug 13, 2006 12:47 AM PDT reply actions