One of the NBA’s worst-kept secrets reared its ugly head last month — Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling isn’t a big fan of black people.
For that matter, he also doesn’t like Hispanics.
It took his girlfriend (who happens to be half black and half Hispanic) recording a questionable conversation in which he said he doesn’t want her to bring black people to Clippers game to finally “ban” him from the league.
But almost everyone involved in the NBA has known for years that Sterling and his views on those who look different from him are, to put it lightly, extremely archaic.
Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, Sterling put very little money into the Clippers and the team quickly became the laughingstock of the league. He was also successfully sued by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2006 for housing discrimination after he engaged in rental practices that made the lives of Hispanic and black tenants living in his buildings miserable.
Former Clippers executive Elgin Baylor (who happens to be black), sued Sterling in 2009 for employment discrimination and there are several other incidents that caused grief for the NBA.
So when Sterling embarrassed both himself and the NBA with those leaked comments to his girlfriend, it really came as no surprise. I saw many media outlets rightfully praising NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s swift banishment of Sterling and a lot of people seem to think racism in sports will slowly vanish as older generations die and we become more understanding and accepting as a society.
Except we’re not. Just look at the behaviour of Boston Bruins fans in Round 2 of the NHL playoffs. After P.K. Subban scored the overtime game winner in Game 1, social media blew up all over Boston and not in a good way.
Disgusting racial slurs of all sizes and types were directed toward Subban and the Canadiens hockey team and the most disturbing part about it was that many of these were young fans.
They Tweeted, Instagrammed and Facebooked hate for hours after Montreal’s win. It begs the question of whether we have really moved on as a society.
Sports should be the one area in society where skin colour doesn’t matter and it all comes down to how you perform on the field, rink or court.
It scares me to think that the views of a confused and out-of-touch old man like Sterling is seeping into future generations.
Racism is something that so many people think has died down but in many ways it’s now simply more hidden.
Sterling’s and those Bruins fans’ ways of thinking have no place in sports anywhere and more importantly, should have no place in our society.
