Contemporary Event

                It’s still hard to believe that in this day and age there is still racism.  In this case its crazy to think that a NBA owner is the person how is racist. Donald Sterling, the owner of the L.A. Clippers is being called a racist after conversation that he had with his girlfriend.  In 2013, the percentage of African American basketball players was 76.3 percent. So in a league with predominantly African American, of course there was an uproar of player, fans, owners, and the rest of the NBA.

                Reports surfaced on April 27, 2014 of a conversation between Donald Sterling and his girlfriend V. Stiviano where Donald Sterling didn’t like that Stiviano had pictures with African Americans on her Instagram. During their conversation, Donald Sterling expressed that he didn’t like Stiviano public displaying with African Americans.  At one point in the conversation, Donald said “The little I ask you is not to promote it on that and not to bring them to my games”. When the player of the L.A. Clippers found that out they wanted to boycott their playoff game against the Golden State Warriors but they threw their warm-ups at center court and wore their jerseys instead. The Owner of the Warriors asked fans to boycott the game as well.

                The NBA’s Commissioner Adam Silver acted swiftly and banned Sterling for life and handed him a 2.5 million fine. Silver was rewarded with praise from around the league and the fans. Owners and players all agree the Silver did the right thing. Silver said that he’s going to do “everything in his power” to get the board to force Sterling to sell team.

                In the third section of Dark Symphony called “Andante Sostenuto”, Melvin B. Tolson “Our Human Rights Denied?” (1372) Donald Sterling is basically denying African Americans to come to a NBA game. Sterling was also denying the right to allow Stiviano to bring African Americans. At the end of poem Tolson says “with the people of the world, We advance”. (1374) This is true because after seeing how everyone reacted to what Sterling has said, everyone came together for one goal and that was to get Donald Sterling out of the NBA. When the reports first surfaced, owners and teams all protested and all wore the L.A. Clippers logo to show support and were also willing to boycott games until something was done. When Adam Silver handed out Sterling’s punishment everyone believed that was the right punishment.

                When this story hit the media, it spread like wild fire. People all over especially the L.A. Clipper’s players really took offense to what Donald Sterling had said to V. Stiviano. It’s a shame that in 2014 there is still racism and a public Figure like Sterling made comments about African Americans. People like Donald Sterling must realize that racism gets you nowhere and for human kind to move forward, you have to put small issues like race and gender behind you.  But it’s nice to see when comes to racial issues, people, no matter race come together for the greater cause and hopefully one day racism will no longer exist in the world and like Melvin B. Tolson said “We advance”

Works Cited

Botelho, Greg, Matt Smith, and Ashley Fantz. "NBA commissioner bans Clippers owner Sterling, pushes to 'force a sale' of team." CNN U.S. CNN, n.d. Web. 1 May 2014. <http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/29/us/clippers-sterling-scandal/>.

Chalabi, Mona. "Three Leagues, 92 Teams And One Black Principal Owner." FiveThirtyEight. ESPN, n.d. Web. 1 May 2014. <http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/diversity-in-the-nba-the-nfl-and-mlb/>.