Well, OK. I guess I chose
the title just to get your attention. Nevertheless, this is probably
the most pro-Sterling article you are likely to read, even though its
purpose is not so much to defend Sterling as to condemn the jackals
(Oprah, Adam Silver, LeBron James, Al Sharpton, etc.) who are trying
to take the L.A. Clippers away from him.
So let's summarize.
Donald Sterling has a
relationship with a a woman fifty years his junior who is called, for
some reason, V. Stiviano, though that is neither the name she was
born with nor one of the many other names she has used over the
years. The nature of the relationship is that, in exchange for money
and expensive presents, she has sex with his 80-year-old carcass and
accompanies him in public to basketball games and other events and
behaves with respect to him as would a “girlfriend.” Sterling
has had many other such relationships with women in the past.
Recently, a recording was
made of a conversation between Mr. Sterling and Ms. Stiviano, and the
only thing we really know about the provenance of this recording and
its production is that Mr. Sterling was unaware it was being made.
Nevertheless, it was disseminated widely by TMZ, the gossip-news
internet site. I infer (as does everyone else who has heard it),
that Stiviano is the source of the recording.
The topic of conversation,
or one of them, is Ms. Stiviano's sexual dalliances with black men,
including famous black athletes. Sterling expresses no objection to
her relationships with these other men per se, and in fact, he
tells her to hang out with them, love them, admire them, have sex
with them—whatever she wants. He does ask, however, that she
refrain from publicizing these relationships by putting pictures of
herself and her lovers on Instagram, and bringing them to Clippers
basketball games. Magic Johnson's name is featured rather
prominently in the conversation, and he appears to be a particular
bone of contention between Sterling and Stiviano.
(One cannot but wonder
about the reaction to this chatter of Cookie Johnson, the
long-suffering wife of America's most-famous HIV survivor, but this
aspect of l'affaire Sterling has received zero attention in the
media.)
So here's the first
question: is Sterling's request really so unreasonable? This is,
after all, a purely commercial relationship, and whether you approve
or disapprove of such a relationship, the fact is that such
arrangements have existed between rich old men and pretty young women
since the beginning of time. They are entirely voluntary. And in
this case, he is not even demanding she be faithful to him. All he
seems to be asking is that she refrain from flaunting these other
liaisons and publicly cuckold him. Do what you want, he is telling
her. Just don't make me look like a jackass.
Is this so much to ask?
Let us not forget that this bought-and-paid-for “girlfriend” has
been well bought and well paid for. It has been alleged in a lawsuit
(and apparently not denied), that he recently gave her a Ferrari, two
Bentleys, a Range Rover, and an expensive condo. The guy is entitled
to something for his money, isn't he?
(An aside: two
Bentleys? I understand this is not a question a conservative should
ask---I mean, it ain't my money---but two Bentleys? The
socialist view of the two-Bentley phenomenon is that no 30-year-old
”girlfriend” of an 80-year-old-guy should have two Bentleys until
every 30-year-old “girlfriend” of an 80-year-old guy has one
Bentley, and while I am capable of arguing that this socialist view
of other people's wealth is immoral, I find myself little inclined to
do so in this instance.)
That's the first
point---that his demands on Stiviano seem eminently reasonable given
the context in which they were made. This was a private negotiating
session over the terms of the young lady's duties in her lucrative
arm-candy gig, and Sterling doesn't even seem to be asking much. And
what possible beeswax is this of Oprah? Or LeBron? Or Keith
Olbermann?
Ah, but it's the racism,
you see. That's the objection, or at least that's what we are told.
The guys she is screwing are black, and Sterling's comments about
them are race-based and ugly, and that is his real
transgression. That's why his $500 million team must be taken away
from him. That's why he can never be allowed in an NBA venue. We're
outraged, you see. We're outrageously outraged, and that's why an
enormous chunk of this man's wealth must be taken from him without
due process, or any process, though he has committed no crime and has
apparently injured no one.
Again, let's put this
incident in context.
Sterling probably doesn't
like it that his mistress screws other guys. He says it doesn't
matter, but this may simply reflect his acceptance of the reality of
their relationship and the reality of who she is. In any case, he
probably feels he is in no position to object to her other
relationships, though that doesn't mean he likes them. Sterling
may be a lizard, but lizards have feelings too, or they can. Thus,
in this private, and somewhat emotional, conversation, some of that
hurt and disappointment may leak out, and he may say some disparaging
things about the other guys she is screwing. Had they been
Lithuanians or Sikhs or Eskimos or Vietnamese guys, Sterling might
have made some nasty remarks about Lithuanians, Sikhs, Eskimos or
Vietnamese guys, but apparently she only does black guys (apart from
Sterling), so his nasty remarks are the kind typically directed
toward black guys.
And
the racist remarks themselves? What are they? I listened to the
tape, and while he does ask her not to “broadcast” her
relationships with black guys, one searches in vain for the “Yo
bitch---stay away from niggers” part. There simply isn't any such
language on the tape that has been made public. In fact, what I hear
is Stiviano's repeated attempts to goad Sterling into saying
something overtly loathsome and racist and him not taking the bait.
And
not only do I not hear Sterling saying anything loathsome, I do not
hear Al Sharpton or Diane Sawyer or LeBron James or anybody else
TELLING me what it is he said that was so loathsome. That is really
what gets my spidey-sense tingling about this sorry spectacle. Every
decent human being in America (which doesn't include me, I guess), is
outrageously outraged about the horrible, nasty, vicious, racist
things Donald Sterling said to V. Stiviano, but in the 60,000 hours
of live television coverage and commentary since the incident, nobody
will tell me exactly
what it is Sterling said that should get me as outrageously outraged
as they are. All we are told is that it's extremely nasty and
offensive and racist, and we are informed of this endlessly, but the
final step of the argument, the linking of evidence and conclusion,
never occurs.
Since
the tape was released, plenty of stories have surfaced about Sterling
and about his views on black people. There was trouble with federal
authorities some years ago, and Sterling was heavily fined for his
efforts to avoid renting apartments to black tenants. Rollie
Massimino, who once was considered for the Clippers coaching job,
tells of standing courtside with Sterling and being told, “I don't
know why you think you can coach these niggers.” At this point, we
can fairly stipulate that Sterling is an anti-black racist who will
occasionally express that racism in a very crude and offensive
manner.
Based
on the recording, however, and on his stewardship of the Clippers,
what he is being accused of are merely thought-crimes. There is not
even an allegation that he discriminates against blacks in the way he
runs the team. This is the NBA! Even if he wanted to, how could he?
Thus, his head coach is black, as are most of the players to whom he
pays tens of millions each year. In the public sphere (as opposed to
what he thinks, or what he may say in private conversations), what
has he ever done as the owner of the Clippers to disqualify him from
owning a team?
We are
not trying to decide whether to give him the Nobel Peace Prize. All
of us can agree he doesn't deserve it. We are trying to decide
whether he should be stripped of a piece of property worth $500
million because his views on race, and the way he expresses them
privately, are way out of step with contemporary mores. And do not
be deluded by the unctuous pronouncements of NBA Commissioner Adam
Silver. This “suspension” is a taking. According to Silver,
Sterling is to have NO voice in the management of the team and is
barred from NBA arenas. When every aspect of “ownership” is
taken away, in what sense can Sterling still be said to be an owner?
If Sterling is barred from any connection with the Clippers, and all
management decisions are now to be made by the league itself, what is
to stop Silver from simply folding the franchise and destroying the
thirty years of wealth Sterling has created for himself and his
family?
Sterling
did not suddenly become a racist in a recent conversation with V.
Stiviano. He's had these views, and expressed them, for years.
Nobody in the NBA cared enough to impose any sort of league
discipline on him. And in the larger world, Sterling is a
sought-after contributor to Democratic politics and liberal causes.
He has apparently been bankrolling the NAACP in Southern California
for years, and was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by that
organization. Neither George Wallace nor David Duke ever got one of
those plaques.
And
certainly, he represents no danger to the prospects for racial
harmony in America. At 80 years old, with prostate cancer, he is not
exactly the voice of the future, is he? And since he does not (and
cannot) engage in racial discrimination in the NBA, he is not a
threat to the present either. He'll be dead soon. Soon he won't be
able to offend LeBron James anymore. Most significantly, the
outraged reaction to his taped remarks proves that Donald Sterling is
out of touch with most of his countrymen. Doesn't the reaction to
this story, across America, prove that this is not a racist nation?
So what is the point of destroying Donald Sterling?
But
there is a point to this exercise, and there is a reason. The reason
is that America has changed, and that dissent from politically
correct views is no long permitted, even in private. There can be no
debate, and there can be no tolerance. The Left in America has
changed, and those who are not sufficiently evolved must be silenced,
or destroyed, or both. Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty must have his
TV forum taken away. Government use of snipers on Cliven Bundy's
ranch is justified, according to the NYT, because Bundy has incorrect
views on race. Brendan Eich must be fired as CEO of Mozilla because
he once donated money to the Prop 8 campaign in California.
Universities must punish students who voice incorrect ideas. Little
old Mormon ladies must be knocked to the sidewalk on their way to
church because the LDS believes in traditional marriage. Other
Mormons who supported traditional marriage must lose their
livelihoods. Ayaan Hirsi Ali cannot be permitted to speak at
Brandeis and Condoleezza Rice cannot address commencement at Rutgers.
Pro-life students who set up tables on campus to persuade their
fellow students must be shut down and have their literature
destroyed. “Climate-change deniers” cannot be published in
America and are banned from the BBC. Hundreds of Romney and McCain
campaign offices are trashed by vandals (while almost no Obama
offices are). Israeli academics are banned from international
conferences of scholars.
At the
federal level, the same process is occurring as the apparatus of
government is converted to promote the political ends of the Obama
Administration rather than our nation's laws. Here again, the goal
is not to persuade, or to win an argument, but merely to silence the
opposition. The IRS prosecutes conservatives and denies them equal
tax treatment. The EPA, the ATF, the FEC, and the Justice Department
enforce only those statutes their leftist administrators approve of,
that embody their notions of “social justice.” The message for
the rest of us is simple. Shut up. Keep your head down.
None
of this happened ten years ago (or to the extent it was attempted, it
rarely succeeded). But now a man must have half a billion dollars
taken away from him because Al Sharpton disapproves of things he said
to his mistress in private.
The
Donald Sterling story has nothing to do with racism in America. It
has to do with the rise of mob rule and the destruction of the rule
of law. Law, if it is law, applies to everyone equally and protects
everyone equally. It protects Donald Sterling just as it protects
Rosa Parks. The attack on Donald Sterling is an attack on our
freedom and our rights as individuals, and it is being executed by
the caring, nurturing, intolerant Left which now decides which of us
will be permitted to speak, and what we will be permitted to say.
This is totalitarianism. This is mob rule, and it is taking over
America.
Copyright2014MichaelKubacki
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