Donald Sterling: The Racism Pay Off

MY TURN-When it comes to racists, I've always been a traditionalist. I go for Mississippi's Ross Barnett or Alabama's own George Corley Wallace, who were always up front about their lack of comfort being around Negroes. 

But now I must stand corrected, because when it comes to being a more effective racist, one must take their hat off in awe of Donald T. Sterling, who up until a certain faux pas- he inadvertently allowed to go public- was considered a successful pillar of our Los Angeles community, where his Sterling Charitable Foundation supported many of the colored folk we now know he personally could not stand to be around.  

With a Barnett or a Wallace, you always knew where you stood, but since it has become politically incorrect to continue to deny African Americans and Latinos equality under the law, crypto-racists like Sterling have had to work a whole lot harder to mask their nascent racism with charitable gifts to organizations supposedly working to attain one nation under G-d, with liberty and justice for all ... which we somehow never seem to be quite able to achieve.  

You would be mistaken if you thought the Sterling Foundation was alone in its paternalistic endeavors to help our poor and unfortunate Black and Brown brothers and sisters finally achieve a state of equality in our society that Sterling's recent actions show he clearly has no belief in. 

Foundations like Sterling's, Broad's, Gates', and the Walton's just think it's good for business to pacify what they see as the inherently inferior masses. If this wasn't true, somebody might have already taken notice of the fact that we are 60 years after Brown vs. Board of Education with a system of public education that is significantly more segregated today than it was back in 1954.  

For some reason I find rich people's foundations buying off their consciences by "good works" to be reminiscent of the selling of indulgences for sins sold long ago by the Catholic church, which some say was a major reason for the Protestant Reformation. Hell, it got to the point in the 1500s where you could buy a pre-approved pope signed indulgence for sins you hadn't even committed yet.  

Could that be what's on Sterling's mind and his motivation for the Sterling Foundation? Nah, the Catholic analogy doesn't work because Sterling's a Jew. But what kind of a Jewish name is Sterling?    

Probably was Silver, but maybe his mishpucka who adopted the name were just trying to pass? Might his hatred for the brothers be just an extension of his own self-hatred and his misfortune at being something other than real English sterling?   

And then again did NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's immediate public bitch slapping of Sterling really have more to do with Sterling's telling the truth about how their class of people really think about minorities, rather than Sterling's virulent racist views that people of color still have to suffer in 2014? 

Wait a minute! Adam Silver and Donald Sterling- could they be related? A silver by any other name is just as sweet. And sweet it might just be for Don Sterling, since he is said to have bought the Clippers in 1981 for a reported $12.5 million. Now with people like Oprah Winfred being whipped into a frenzy to bid on the Clippers to get it away from that bad racist Donald Sterling, the reported valuation of the Clippers is now hovering at about $1 billion. 

Could this whole racist gambit have just been a Donald Sterling hustle to add another billion to his already billionaire status? Nah.

 

(Leonard Isenberg is a Los Angeles observer and a contributor to CityWatch. He’s a second generation teacher at LAUSD and blogs at perdaily.com. Leonard can be reached at [email protected]) 

-cw

 

CityWatch

Vol 12 Issue 36

Pub: May 2, 2014