Shock. Alarm. Outrage. The sentiments flew across the airwaves this week at the news of LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s ugly racial remarks in a private conversation.
But, in an important way, an even more appropriate response would be gratitude.
How do I get to that conclusion? It starts with back pain.
Anyone who’s had a bad case of back pain knows there’s nothing worse. I certainly thought so, anyway, when it hit me two weeks ago.
The pain courses mercilessly down your back, butt, hip and leg — like blades pressed deep into your body, with no end in sight.
Yet there’s something worse: It’s being stuck in bed with back pain and having to watch network news 24/7 — with nothing but commentary on Sterling’s ugly remarks. Every. Single. Minute.
I’m not kidding. You’d think Adolf Hitler had returned — with nukes. Or at least a Malaysian jet had gone missing. This was a feeding frenzy to put all others to shame.
And all because the owner of a basketball team had revealed his inner bigot.
Give me a break. It’s 2014. Why are we so amazed that bigots and racists still exist in America?
Aren’t we told incessantly, particularly by the left and the race-panderers, that affirmative action and other race-centric programs are justified because, after all these years, “we still haven’t fully eradicated the scourge of racism”?
This is a diverse country, remember? With 315 million people. We’ve got all sorts here. The Mother Theresas and the Ted Bundys — and the Cliven Bundys, too.
Sure, Sterling owns a sports team with mostly black players, in a heavily black league that depends heavily on minority fans. How can someone with such racial hatred be in such a position? Is this not the height of hypocrisy? And what do you do about it — given that he legally owns the team and that he’s so rich that even his $2.5 million fine won’t hurt him much?
Yes, this was a big news story — even bigger than big, since it was a sports story, too. But deserving of the kind of wall-to-wall, shock-and-awe coverage it got? Uh-uh.
After all, in this day and age, how many fair-minded Americans (the kind that mainstream news targets) think Sterling is right to be embarrassed to have his mistress seen with blacks? The guy’s a kook. A throwback. A rich blowhard. Not a candidate for president. Who cares what he says in private, in the heat of an argument, amid an ugly marital situation?
No, the reason this got such coverage was that it was apple pie: a chance for every Tom, Dick and Bill O’Reilly to show how tolerant he is.
And an opportunity for the left to say, “Aha! We told you so. Racism lives. And it’s hurtful. And ugly. Everything we’ve said about the state of America — and the need for mitigating programs (sensitivity training, multicultural education, hate-crime penalties, affirmative action, etc.) — is true.”
But there’s another reason this wacky story got such extensive attention. It’s man-bites-dog: You just don’t find too many Donald Sterlings around these days.
That doesn’t mean more racist throwbacks in the public eye don’t exist. Marge Schott’s name came up immediately. And surely far too many everyday Americans, whose remarks will never go public, voice nasty bigoted sentiments all the time.
But public racism just isn’t tolerated in America today — and the reaction to the Sterling story proves it. The result: Instances of it are rare indeed.
That’s why we should be grateful. The Sterling saga shows just how far we’ve come. In 2014, you generally can’t slur communities — blacks, Latinos, Jews, Catholics, Asians, gays — unfairly in public and expect not to pay a price. And people generally don’t make such comments, at least not publicly.
This is largely a good thing. In fact, if anything, we go too far in censuring speech.
Still, America has a ways to go. Not just in stamping out bigotry (which is impossible). But in treating “victimized” communities as equals. That means the NBA can penalize Sterling if it sees that in its interest, but blacks won’t really achieve full parity until such stories no longer are treated as huge outrages.
Blacks will have joined the club: When they’re slurred just like other groups, no one will care very much.