OT: Donald Sterling

[Russ Smith]

First amendment? What first Amendment?

The league could have let everyone else run him out of town vs trampling on first amendment rights and persecuting the guy for something he said in his own house.

Players wouldnt want to be there, coaches, media raking, etc. He would have been forced away either way. To give a lifetime ban on someone for making a racist comment?

So anyone who posts something racist on a basketball forum or facebook account should be permanently banned from all things nba too? crazy.

no because those people are not an NBA owner and are not diminishing the very product they are an owner of. That's why the NBA can and should do what they did, he's devaluing the NBA.

What if they did nothing, you think there wouldn't be more advertisers pulling out? Now instead of protesting Sterling they'd be protesting the NBA not taking action.

That is the reality, there are owners who are genuinely outraged he made such racist comments, but my guess is most of them are outraged by what it could do to the value of their franchise if the NBA doesn't speak up.

 

[Catlover]

Kareem on Sterling:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Welcome to the Finger-Wagging Olympics

http://time.com/79590/donald-sterling-kareem-abdul-jabbar-racism/

What bothers me about this whole Donald Sterling affair isn’t just his racism. I’m bothered that everyone acts as if it’s a huge surprise. Now there’s all this dramatic and very public rending of clothing about whether they should keep their expensive Clippers season tickets. Really? All this other stuff I listed above has been going on for years and this ridiculous conversation with his girlfriend is what puts you over the edge? That’s the smoking gun?

He was discriminating against black and Hispanic families for years, preventing them from getting housing. It was public record. We did nothing. Suddenly he says he doesn’t want his girlfriend posing with Magic Johnson on Instagram and we bring out the torches and rope. Shouldn’t we have all called for his resignation back then?

Shouldn’t we be equally angered by the fact that his private, intimate conversation was taped and then leaked to the media? Didn’t we just call to task the NSA for intruding into American citizen’s privacy in such an un-American way? Although the impact is similar to Mitt Romney’s comments that were secretly taped, the difference is that Romney was giving a public speech. The making and release of this tape is so sleazy that just listening to it makes me feel like an accomplice to the crime. We didn’t steal the cake but we’re all gorging ourselves on it.

Excellent article. By far the best comments on this situation that I've come across.

 

[BillsCarnage]

Kareem on Sterling:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Welcome to the Finger-Wagging Olympics

http://time.com/79590/donald-sterling-kareem-abdul-jabbar-racism/

What bothers me about this whole Donald Sterling affair isn’t just his racism. I’m bothered that everyone acts as if it’s a huge surprise. Now there’s all this dramatic and very public rending of clothing about whether they should keep their expensive Clippers season tickets. Really? All this other stuff I listed above has been going on for years and this ridiculous conversation with his girlfriend is what puts you over the edge? That’s the smoking gun?

He was discriminating against black and Hispanic families for years, preventing them from getting housing. It was public record. We did nothing. Suddenly he says he doesn’t want his girlfriend posing with Magic Johnson on Instagram and we bring out the torches and rope. Shouldn’t we have all called for his resignation back then?

Shouldn’t we be equally angered by the fact that his private, intimate conversation was taped and then leaked to the media? Didn’t we just call to task the NSA for intruding into American citizen’s privacy in such an un-American way? Although the impact is similar to Mitt Romney’s comments that were secretly taped, the difference is that Romney was giving a public speech. The making and release of this tape is so sleazy that just listening to it makes me feel like an accomplice to the crime. We didn’t steal the cake but we’re all gorging ourselves on it.

Preach on brotha! Is society the pot or kettle?

 

[JCSunsfan]

I thought it was rather silly in the press conference that some reporter tried to get Silver to remark on the fact that both he and Sterling are Jewish, and how that impacts the situation. Really?

By the say, should we call this the Sterling/Silver controversy? All is not golden in the NBA these days.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Doesn't matter how it comes out. If you are caught saying things that damage the product -- and he said the absolute worst things you could say to damage the NBA product -- you are culpable as a business partner and subject to the morality clause in your agreement.

Sterling isn't going to jail or anything. His 1st Amendment rights haven't been violated. He is going to suffer the way billionaires who screw over their partners suffer -- he's going to get his toy taken away from him. Oh, and he'll get about $400 million in the process; he won't notice the money, if it makes you feel any better.

Bingo.

 

[puckhead]

First amendment? What first Amendment?

The league could have let everyone else run him out of town vs trampling on first amendment rights and persecuting the guy for something he said in his own house.

Players wouldnt want to be there, coaches, media raking, etc. He would have been forced away either way. To give a lifetime ban on someone for making a racist comment?

So anyone who posts something racist on a basketball forum or facebook account should be permanently banned from all things nba too? crazy.

The NBA is not the government.

 

[Cheesebeef]

First amendment? What first Amendment?

The league could have let everyone else run him out of town vs trampling on first amendment rights and persecuting the guy for something he said in his own house.

Players wouldnt want to be there, coaches, media raking, etc. He would have been forced away either way. To give a lifetime ban on someone for making a racist comment?

So anyone who posts something racist on a basketball forum or facebook account should be permanently banned from all things nba too? crazy.

The first amendment literally has NOTHING to do with this unless The government is involved abridging his right to free speech. Did I miss something here where the US government got involved here or made laws saying NBA owners saying racist things have to be removed? If not, I have no idea why anyone would bring the 1st amendment up other then the fact that they misunderstand what the amendment regulates.

People are free to say whatever they want...they aren't free from the repercussions of those words in private enterprise.

 

[Cheesebeef]

The NBA is not the government.

It's galling to me how many people don't get the concept of the 1st amendment.

 

[HooverDam]

It's galling to me how many people don't get the concept of the 1st amendment.

It's always the people who don't understand it who are the 1st to cry that it's being trampled.

The NBA did the right thing. If a McDonalds franchisee decides to start using the N word on their marquee sign out front, McDonalds can and should take their franchise away. This isn't any different. Sterling damaged the larger brand, and is being punished.

He hasn't had his rights taken away or infringed. He'll be getting the ultimate golden parachute.

The Clippers will sell for north of $1B and that will increase the valuation of every team in the league. The league also gets rid of the owner who's had the worst winning percentage in American sports since he owned the team. I'm sure they've wanted to get rid of him for a long time, this is just the perfect excuse.

Now it'll be interesting to watch the bidding war between the Seattle guys and Magic Johnson and his LA guys going after the team. I for one hope they move to Seattle, LA doesn't need 2 teams.

 

[Phrazbit]

Your first amendment rights offers you no protection in private business, nor should it. The NBA has just as much of a right to say they do not want to be associated with a racist as Sterling has the right to say he does not want to be associated with black people.

 

[Cheesebeef]

It's always the people who don't understand it who are the 1st to cry that it's being trampled.

The NBA did the right thing. If a McDonalds franchisee decides to start using the N word on their marquee sign out front, McDonalds can and should take their franchise away. This isn't any different. Sterling damaged the larger brand, and is being punished.

He hasn't had his rights taken away or infringed. He'll be getting the ultimate golden parachute.

The Clippers will sell for north of $1B and that will increase the valuation of every team in the league. The league also gets rid of the owner who's had the worst winning percentage in American sports since he owned the team. I'm sure they've wanted to get rid of him for a long time, this is just the perfect excuse.

Now it'll be interesting to watch the bidding war between the Seattle guys and Magic Johnson and his LA guys going after the team. I for one hope they move to Seattle, LA doesn't need 2 teams.

the NBA ain't letting a team out of the LA market, especially one as marketable as the Clippers are right now with the Lakers franchise looking like a disaster for the forseeable future.

 

[BigRedRage]

The NBA is not the government.

I was under the impression that free speech protected the people from many areas of speech restriction as well but apparently it only protects the people from the government making laws that prohibit free speech. Comment retracted.

 

[Cheesebeef]

someone brought up gay marriage and the Orlando owner and the fact that he's got zero repercussions from his speech earlier. I think it speaks to the fact that bigotry against Gay people is the last somewhat acceptable form of prejudice left in our country that a certain segment of our population still thinks they can get away with...and apparently can with very little repercussions.

think about this...Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin and a lot of other conservatives consistently (and mistakenly) beat the 1st Amendment drum when they rallied around the owner of Chik-Fil-A and Duck Dynasty's Phil Robinson when they slandered gay people, yet we haven't heard ONE of those people say anything about Sterling's comments about black people. I wonder why that is?

 

[Cheesebeef]

I was under the impression that free speech protected the people from many areas of speech restriction as well but apparently it only protects the people from the government making laws that prohibit free speech. Comment retracted.

it's a pretty common misconception and as a poli sci major/law school dropout, it drives me up the freaking wall!

 

[BigRedRage]

someone brought up gay marriage and the Orlando owner and the fact that he's got zero repercussions from his speech earlier. I think it speaks to the fact that bigotry against Gay people is the last somewhat acceptable form of prejudice left in our country that a certain segment of our population still thinks they can get away with...and apparently can with very little repercussions.

think about this...Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin and a lot of other conservatives consistently (and mistakenly) beat the 1st Amendment drum when they rallied around the owner of Chik-Fil-A and Duck Dynasty's Phil Robinson when they slandered gay people, yet we haven't heard ONE of those people say anything about Sterling's comments about black people. I wonder why that is?

Did the orlando owner say things like he doesnt want gays in his stadium or just his stance on gay marriage? I should google his comments.

I googled:

Q: You gave $100,000 to the effort to defeat the recognition of gay marriage in Florida. Why did you choose to put money behind that cause?
A: Because I believe in it. That’s just a sacred issue of respecting marriage. It was not an anti-gay thing.
I have been hung in effigy by the gay community for a long time, from when I was on President Reagan’s first AIDS commission…
From that point on, that’s when they were hanging me in effigy because I wasn’t sympathetic to all of their requests for special treatment. Because at that time it was always somebody else’s fault. And I said, “You are responsible for your actions, too, you know. Conduct yourself properly,” which is a pretty solid Christian principle. You’ve got to take responsibility for your actions. It went from there to a series of requests for special treatment…
…Call [gay marriage] something else. Call it anything you want to. But marriage is a sacred document, OK? A sacred sacrament in the church and in the world. Don’t mess with it.
Go do something else. I deal with a lot of wonderful gay people. I hire a lot of them. I use a lot of them. I respect them. They’re terrific. I am good friends with them. But you live your life the way you want to live and I’ll live mine and I won’t stick my nose in yours. But don’t keep trying to change things. That’s all.

http://www.sportsgrid.com/nba/while...cs-owner-is-vehemently-opposed-to-gay-rights/

His comments are very different than Mr Sterlings IMO. He is against gay marriage due to his religion and beliefs being that marriage is a union of a man and a woman. Hes not saying all gays should die, be slaves and stay out of my stadium. Even that website took it the same way

Hey, this isn’t nearly the same thing as Donald Sterling’s recorded hate-rant. It is, however, food for thought when discussing the NBA as a place for everyone, vis-a-vis the opinions held by the owners.

 

[elindholm]

Kareem on Sterling:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Welcome to the Finger-Wagging Olympics

http://time.com/79590/donald-sterling-kareem-abdul-jabbar-racism/

What bothers me about this whole Donald Sterling affair isn’t just his racism. I’m bothered that everyone acts as if it’s a huge surprise. Now there’s all this dramatic and very public rending of clothing about whether they should keep their expensive Clippers season tickets. Really? All this other stuff I listed above has been going on for years and this ridiculous conversation with his girlfriend is what puts you over the edge? That’s the smoking gun?

He was discriminating against black and Hispanic families for years, preventing them from getting housing. It was public record. We did nothing. Suddenly he says he doesn’t want his girlfriend posing with Magic Johnson on Instagram and we bring out the torches and rope. Shouldn’t we have all called for his resignation back then?

Shouldn’t we be equally angered by the fact that his private, intimate conversation was taped and then leaked to the media? Didn’t we just call to task the NSA for intruding into American citizen’s privacy in such an un-American way? Although the impact is similar to Mitt Romney’s comments that were secretly taped, the difference is that Romney was giving a public speech. The making and release of this tape is so sleazy that just listening to it makes me feel like an accomplice to the crime. We didn’t steal the cake but we’re all gorging ourselves on it.

Abdul-Jabbar is awesome. It's too bad that his honesty has interfered with his post-playing career.

 

[Russ Smith]

Did the orlando owner say things like he doesnt want gays in his stadium or just his stance on gay marriage? I should google his comments.

I googled:

http://www.sportsgrid.com/nba/while...cs-owner-is-vehemently-opposed-to-gay-rights/

His comments are very different than Mr Sterlings IMO. He is against gay marriage due to his religion and beliefs being that marriage is a union of a man and a woman. Hes not saying all gays should die, be slaves and stay out of my stadium. Even that website took it the same way

To be fair, Sterling didn't say all minorities should die either.

I agree it's not as bad, again that's the point of "slippery slope" you start off with something virtually all of us agree is unacceptable, and then you start down the slope to things that are "less bad".

As Cheese said one of the last bastions of it's still ok to discriminate is sexual orientation. And some people cite exactly what DeVos is saying, religion.

It's a politics thing so likely out of bounds for this board but when he says they want special rights or special rules that's where the disagreement comes in. they aren't asking for that they are asking for the SAME rights that a man and a woman have. Marriage isn't just a religious thing, there are very clear legal rights associated with marriage, it's been beaten to death in the politics area so I won't repeat it all here.

What he is basically saying is live your life the way you want to, but if I don't agree with you I will spend lots of money trying to stop you from living the way you want to.

It's a slippery slope. and it is reality, if a white player called Jason Collins the N word the white player would be treated far worse than if he called Jason Collinso a gay slur. That's just reality right now.

 

[puckhead]

I was under the impression that free speech protected the people from many areas of speech restriction as well but apparently it only protects the people from the government making laws that prohibit free speech. Comment retracted.

Common mistake.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Did the orlando owner say things like he doesnt want gays in his stadium or just his stance on gay marriage? I should google his comments.

I googled:

http://www.sportsgrid.com/nba/while...cs-owner-is-vehemently-opposed-to-gay-rights/

His comments are very different than Mr Sterlings IMO. He is against gay marriage due to his religion and beliefs being that marriage is a union of a man and a woman. Hes not saying all gays should die, be slaves and stay out of my stadium. Even that website took it the same way

this is true and a reason I'm not calling for his head...but who knows what this guy says off the record. most bigots are smart enough to keep what's what to themselves...until someone catches them and seeks to profit off it.

that being said, I believe the religious intolerance above is one of the last bastions of bigotry in this country as it's still seen as somewhat socially acceptable behavior from segments of the population. slowly but surely that's changing and for the better, IMO.

 

[BigRedRage]

To be fair, Sterling didn't say all minorities should die either.

I agree it's not as bad, again that's the point of "slippery slope" you start off with something virtually all of us agree is unacceptable, and then you start down the slope to things that are "less bad".

As Cheese said one of the last bastions of it's still ok to discriminate is sexual orientation. And some people cite exactly what DeVos is saying, religion.

It's a politics thing so likely out of bounds for this board but when he says they want special rights or special rules that's where the disagreement comes in. they aren't asking for that they are asking for the SAME rights that a man and a woman have. Marriage isn't just a religious thing, there are very clear legal rights associated with marriage, it's been beaten to death in the politics area so I won't repeat it all here.

What he is basically saying is live your life the way you want to, but if I don't agree with you I will spend lots of money trying to stop you from living the way you want to.

It's a slippery slope. and it is reality, if a white player called Jason Collins the N word the white player would be treated far worse than if he called Jason Collinso a gay slur. That's just reality right now.

well to be fair, not everyone is born black. Most choose to become that way.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Abdul-Jabbar is awesome. It's too bad that his honesty has interfered with his post-playing career.

yup. Kareem makes very good points.

 

[Dback Jon]

Did the orlando owner say things like he doesnt want gays in his stadium or just his stance on gay marriage? I should google his comments.

I googled:

http://www.sportsgrid.com/nba/while...cs-owner-is-vehemently-opposed-to-gay-rights/

His comments are very different than Mr Sterlings IMO. He is against gay marriage due to his religion and beliefs being that marriage is a union of a man and a woman. Hes not saying all gays should die, be slaves and stay out of my stadium. Even that website took it the same way

But he is saying that gays are second class citizens - and has spent millions nationwide to force his bigotry on others.

His "efforts" on the AIDS commission basically resulted in the deaths of thousands of gays - he felt that gays deserved to get the disease, and the Government should do nothing to help the dirty gays, who only wanted special treatment.

Reagan/DeVos and the rest of them have blood on their hands, because they were HAPPY that AIDS was killing off the Gay Community.

He is as bad as Sterling.

 

[BigRedRage]

But he is saying that gays are second class citizens - and has spent millions nationwide to force his bigotry on others.

His "efforts" on the AIDS commission basically resulted in the deaths of thousands of gays - he felt that gays deserved to get the disease, and the Government should do nothing to help the dirty gays, who only wanted special treatment.

Reagan/DeVos and the rest of them have blood on their hands, because they were HAPPY that AIDS was killing off the Gay Community.

He is as bad as Sterling.

Perception is reality for the beholder.

No one likes my previous joke.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Perception is reality for the beholder.

No one likes my previous joke.

I'm not sure the joke was constructed properly. i got it, but the execution of it was a little off.

 

[Cheesebeef]

But he is saying that gays are second class citizens - and has spent millions nationwide to force his bigotry on others.

His "efforts" on the AIDS commission basically resulted in the deaths of thousands of gays - he felt that gays deserved to get the disease, and the Government should do nothing to help the dirty gays, who only wanted special treatment.

I'd be curious to see a link to the above.