Some thoughts about Donald Sterling, and America

I have some thoughts about the comments that Donald Sterling made on that phone call. Or allegedly made, or whatever. It's too many thoughts for me to just put them out in 140 character increments on Twitter, and they're too strong to simply keep them to myself. So I'm going to write them here, even though this blog is about Cleveland and this story really isn't.

Then again, I guess this story is about Cleveland in the sense that it is about America, and about humanity in general, and Cleveland is part of America and full of humans.

When I first heard the audio recording of Sterling saying those awful things about African-Americans, I wasn't particularly surprised. I knew a little bit about Sterling's history. More importantly, I knew a little bit about this country.

I've seen a lot of people say that they were shocked to learn that somebody in this day and age could still hold such abhorrent views, and say such terrible things. For those who were shocked, I have some questions:  Are you new here? You've never heard an 80 year old white man say something like that in private before?

This is not to say that all old white people are racist. I shouldn't even really have to clarify that.

It just shouldn't surprise anybody that this kind of thinking still exists in this country. It probably doesn't exist as much as it did 40 years ago, or 20 years ago, or even just a few years ago. But it exists. I mean, this Sterling tape surfaced literally just a few days after Cliven Bundy, former conservative political hero, questioned whether or not black people were better off as slaves.

It sucks, but a lot of white people still hold very antiquated views toward minorities. I've heard plenty of people say things equally as offensive as what Sterling or Bundy said in my own private life. So, instead of being outraged that one person who happens to own a basketball team thinks like that, we should be outraged that many other people also do.

And we should probably be outraged that, again literally just a few days ago, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a ban on affirmative action in Michigan. This was one year after they stripped key components of the Voting Rights Act. The Court's logic (particularly in the latter case) was that minorities are now apparently on equal footing with white people (I realize I'm oversimplifying). America, in the Court's eyes, has moved beyond having to deal with issues of race.

Clearly, America has not moved beyond race. And it's not just Donald Sterling and Cliven Bundy. It's also your crazy uncle who forwards you emails depicting the President as a monkey. It's the banks that charged higher fees on mortgages to borrowers who were black or Hispanic. It's our legal system, which punishes users of crack more severely than users of regular cocaine. This stuff is still out there. America has come a long way, but it's not all of the way there yet.

Rather than just being outraged at Sterling, we should remember the bigger picture.