If you decide to listen to it, be warned: There’s no foul language, but otherwise, it’s about as offensive as you could get. It was bad enough to actually make my sphincter muscle tighten.
Reaction has been pretty swift. It looks like the NBA will take some action against Sterling and good ol’ Reverend Al is planning some kind of demonstration.
Just as it’s well within Sterling’s rights to be a racist, it’s also within the NBA’s right to punish him, and the Reverend Al has the right to try to hog the media spotlight for whatever idiotic ends he wants.
But this isn’t about Sterling or what his future holds. It’s specifically what his future doesn’t hold. It doesn’t hold another lifetime achievement award from the NAACP. For this alleged racist, I guess one is enough.
Back in 2009 Sterling received the NAACP’s “lifetime achievement award.” Even then, it was widely reported that Sterling had what Bryant Gumbel called a “troubled history” with racism.
Fast forward to today. On May 15, Sterling was slated to receive the lifetime achievement award from the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP (they announced Sunday morning they would emphatically not give him the honor now). It was to be a star-studded event – that would have the Reverend Al named person of the year, coincidentally.
He’s been sued more than once for discrimination, yet the NAACP was still planning on bestowing on him their “lifetime achievement award”? Why? In the LA Times article linked above, it mentions that he donates basketball tickets to neighborhood youth. Is there more than that involved? Has Sterling made sizable contributions to the NAACP over the years? Inquiring minds want to know.
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