There was no condemnation from black players who predominate the league like the one that erupted Saturday and Sunday from current superstars, including LeBron James and Chris Paul, and from retired icons like Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. The longtime Clippers owner seems to view the Clippers players less as his super-tall buddies than as tenants on a basketball plantation. In a recording that allegedly features Sterling’s voice, he can be heard telling his girlfriend that she shouldn’t post pictures of black people (including Magic Johnson) on her Instagram account. Yet it was just this Saturday that there arose a hue and cry for the NBA to act against Sterling.
– Everyone from NBA colleagues to the NAACP to President Obama is outraged over Donald Sterling's alleged racist comments—but this is a man who made the millions that allowed him to buy the LA Clippers in the first place through decades of racist rental policies, writes Kevin B Blackistone in the Guardian. In 2003, he paid $5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging he tried to force non-Korean tenants out of apartments in LA's Koreatown; in 2006, he was sued by the Justice Department for housing discrimination including allegedly telling his employees "that black and Hispanic families were not desirable tenants" and refusing to rent to them. Where was the NBA investigation and the widespread condemnation then? The New Yorker's Ben Greenman agrees, tweeting yesterday, "It's not just Donald Sterling's ignorance that's the problem. It's the decades that ignorance has been tolerated because of wealth." And on Slate, Josh Levin takes it further, delving into what he sees as a troubling truth: "Pro basketball is a business in which most of the employees are black and the vast majority of the owners are white," he writes. And that dynamic is celebrated, with NFL announcers treating owners "like royalty." Sure, most of them probably treat their players well, "but there’s something creepy about celebrating their beneficence, as if money necessarily buys virtue." In fact, that's why Sterling "has remained ensconced in the NBA penthouse" for so long despite his racism. Click for Levin's full column, or Blackistone's.