Donald Sterling Racist Reaction

        This past week in the NBA has been a wild week due to the playoffs and also one other unfortunate issue that the league has to deal with.  As most people have heard the news, it was reported that there was a recording of racist remarks towards Magic Johnson and about African Americans and when it was released, the voice was suspected to be Los Angeles Clippers Owner Donald Sterling.

              As the week went on the audio was released to the public and it the audio was a recording of his girlfriend V. Stiviano and suspected owner Donald Sterling.  There are many things in the audio that speak for itself and are disturbing and racist towards black people.  For instance he said that he doesn’t want her to promote black people on social media and got mad because she posted a photos with African American athletes like Magic Johnson and Matt Kemp.   Sterling is living in the past and claims that it is part of the culture and that he doesn’t want her to be perceived in a bad way.  Sterling doesn’t like black people and yet the over 80% of his team is black.  In the audio clip he says that, “I feed them, I give them clothes, houses, and cars.”  He treats them as if they are slave workers and the players are the ones making money for him.  The racist remarks go on about how Stiviano can do whatever she wants with black people privately, Sterling says “just don’t bring black people to my games.”   What Sterling doesn’t know is that his girlfriend is, is that she’s latino and black.

        Once the audio was leaked online everybody had reactions to this and twitter exploded with reactions especially coming from the basketball world.  It was so sudden but this issue of racism is bigger than basketball itself.  Magic Johnson was asked about his reaction to the alleged comments made by Donald Sterling and said that, "there is no room in society for it and no room in the league.  We play with other races and that’s what makes it beautiful.” I couldn’t agree more with Magic of how there’s just no room for racism anymore.  It’s the 21^st century, why is there still hostility and hatred towards someone based on their skin color?  Its just mind boggling and ticks me off that people in the world still feel that way in their hearts. 

        Actions following the comments made by Sterling on that tape were confirmed that it was him and first action taken against Sterling was the beginning of game 4 between the Warriors and Clippers.  The Clippers gathered center court and did a silent protest wearing their practice jerseys inside out so the word Clippers doesn’t show.  A couple days later Adam Silver and the owners talked about what is next for Sterling.  Commissioner Silver then issued a press conference and has now banned Donald Sterling for life from then NBA and fined him $2.5 million and owners are now going to try to make him sell the team.  I thought that Adam Silver did a good job handling the situation and showed what how the NBA stands together for what is right and showed that things like this won’t be tolerated by the NBA.

          With Silver getting Sterling out of the NBA it’s a matter of time before Sterling will hopefully leave.  NBA owners are going to vote and will try to make Sterling sell the team and hopefully put this behind them.  I still think that Sterling hasn’t completely lost yet because all these playoff tickets that are being sold are still making all that many in his pocket and if the Clippers keep winning it, they will only make him richer.  

What do you think about Donald Sterling's punishment ?