{"id":4567,"date":"2014-04-29T17:03:57","date_gmt":"2014-04-30T00:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/?p=4567"},"modified":"2021-01-08T19:37:30","modified_gmt":"2021-01-09T03:37:30","slug":"public-opinion-and-the-nba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/2014\/04\/29\/public-opinion-and-the-nba\/","title":{"rendered":"Public opinion and the NBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sterling Banned from the NBA over private<\/em><\/strong> racist comments??? Say What?<\/p>\n

\"NewImage\"<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s not an excuse, he is an old man. He was probably raised steeped in racism.<\/p>\n

When we discuss a kid who carjacks someone amid a hail of gunfire, we say \u201cThe poor kid. He\u2019s a product of his environment.<\/strong><\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

However when a rich white man makes comments\u00a0in private\u00a0<\/em>we refuse to see that he is as much a product of his environment<\/span> as the carjacking kid. What\u2019s the difference? The white guy is supposed to know better?<\/p>\n

When these events become public we demand punishment, we deprive the rich man of income, we sanction him, and force him to sell his property (in this case a franchise).<\/p>\n

\"NewImage\"<\/p>\n

Hell I remember separate water fountains, bathrooms, and diner counters that were off limits to any person of color. I\u2019m 30 some odd years younger than Mr Sterling. There\u2019s that old hackneyed saying about Old dogs & new tricks. Perhaps that\u2019s a bit true.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not suggesting that what \u00a0he said was acceptable.<\/p>\n

The violation of his privacy<\/span> was, to my mind more unacceptable.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0The news media running with the story, ginning up anger and public outcry is flat out wrong.<\/p>\n

\"NewImage\"<\/p>\n

The players and the team should be thankful that Sterling isn\u2019t a scorched earth kind of guy.<\/p>\n

He can\u2019t do it now, but at the outset of all this insanity he could have fired the Clippers staff, then he could have fired the players. Effectively killing the team before the NBA had a chance to step in.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t follow basketball. I honestly don\u2019t enjoy it and don\u2019t see the point. The after game interviews are nonsensical and I’ve got better things to do with my time.<\/p>\n

What caught my attention was the manner in which everything came crashing down on Mr. Sterling. \u00a0How many federal cases has he been involved in over racist\u00a0behavior<\/strong>? You know, refusing to rent to non-white people because they weren\u2019t white?<\/p>\n

Only NOW because a private conversation was publicized has the NBA decided it was important to punish this guy?<\/p>\n

\"NewImage\"<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t about him actually being demonstrably racist in a public venue.<\/p>\n

It was about him being perceived as racist.<\/p>\n

If this is becomes the norm, we\u2019re seriously screwed because this heralds the death of free speech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sterling Banned from the NBA over private racist comments??? Say What? While it\u2019s not an excuse, he is an old man. He was probably raised steeped in racism. When we discuss a kid who carjacks someone amid a hail of gunfire, we say \u201cThe poor kid. He\u2019s a product of his environment.\u201d However when a … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Public opinion and the NBA”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-obscenities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4567"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4570,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4567\/revisions\/4570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}