Donald Sterling and Black America's Responsibility

 I’m not happy because none of my questions were answered. And I have a ton. Unfortunately for Black America, they aren’t for Donald Sterling or the NBA. They are for the rest of America, the 99%. I like how every is scrambling to distance their selves from Donald Sterling. However, they cannot distance themselves from all the questions and revelations I’ve had since Friday. And they are legion. 

I've known that Donald Sterling was racist. I did forget about it because I don't think of him much. What I do remember is bringing his racism up in the 90's and being met with excuses to keep supporting the NBA and pro sports from some of the same people feigning outrage today. I've supported the Clippers despite Donald Sterling for a long time. I will continue to do so without him now. 

I don't know what makes people think their team's owner is any different. His friend Dr. Jerry Buss advised him to buy an NBA team so many years ago. What if their only difference was management styles? And even if no other NBA owner is as racist, elitist as Donald Sterling, aren't there some bigger economic issues with the structure of professional sports and their main feeder system, college athletics?

This thing got so big so quick that my economics professor had to make a connection as she was describing how the Confederacy convinced poor white men to fight and die for rich white men. "Americans have a tendency to connect with their betters" But why? Why does every black person believe they are the specific black people that he doesn't want in his seats? Does she have some special charity where she puts gold digging to the side and dates middle class black men? You, the middle class black people, are more than welcome in the Staples Center. Just don’t sit in his seat and don’t touch his gold digger.

Speaking of gold digging, who made the tapes? We now know it was the mistress. Who sold the tapes? TMZ admitted to paying someone for the tapes. Obviously it was also the mistress. Who stands to benefit the most from them being “leaked”? (Tearing another team down is of no benefit to any other team, so it's not the Lakers) Sterling is actually estranged from his wife who was supposed to have been given the Clippers as a gift. Maybe she wants her team…

Some questions for Black America:
The NAACP is hoping that no one will ever question them for obviously selling a lifetime achievement award. Something tells me Donald Sterling is not the only one. How many of these ‘leaders’ and organizations are complicit in selling out our community for the maintenance of the status quo. I listened to this woman who was 'active' in the community call in to Front Page with Dominique Duprima Monday morning call for a rally and a panel... Basically, she wanted to get paid to, once again, stand up and cry for change but never enact any change.

This constant begging for justice from outside our community is disheartening. Justice is always in our own hands. I’m reminded of the common saying, “There is no justice, it’s just us.” What’s wrong with it being just us? Why can’t we be responsible for our own destiny? Whenever we encounter an employer from outside our community mistreating us, it occurs to me that we could just employ ourselves. I am reminded of how quickly we abandoned the Negro Leagues after Jackie Robinson’s success. I am reminded of the decline of HBCUs in the years following Brown vs The Board of Education.

Why speak on boycotting the Clippers? Donald Sterling owns A LOT more than The Clippers. Why wasn't their initial reaction enough? Why can’t we ever wait for a proper response? Someone tried to compare the inside out jerseys to the 1968 Olympics.  Tommie Smith and John Carlos won and made their statement from the winners stand. Why can’t we support our players for 14 more wins and let Doc Rivers and Chris Paul make their statements with trophies in their hands?

Tony Muhammad made the statement, "This is a moment in history" and the problem is that we keep waiting on "moments in history". We keep waiting on jobs instead of creating jobs. Sometimes when people talk about us walking around with our hands out, they are not talking about welfare programs. They are talking our refusal to be responsible for ourselves. This is and always has been a country of owners. On that level, we refuse to participate. We’d rather be employees instead of employers.

I keep hearing people talk about eradicating racist ideas from everyone’s minds. None of that matters. There is this crazy idea that we can force everyone to be nice or, better yet, that someone being nice or not has any effect on our success. We can't and it doesn't. This event is a call to action for Black America. We can continue to keep our hands out for whatever scraps the rest or America sees fit to drops us. Or, we can build/rebuild/create strong businesses and institutions within our community that will withstand whatever name calling/bigotry others will try to distract us with.

I will not stand by and maintain the status quo. We cannot afford to let any of the traditional institutions stand. They have all failed to serve anyone but themselves. Jason Mitchell called for the pulling of the Los Angeles NAACP‘s charter. I call for a complete abandoning of the NAACP. They’ve been for sell to the highest bidder for over a century. We can start supporting and encouraging the building of black business. That is an immediate MUST.  The current black business leaders are fine but we need more. We need enough options so that Magic’s ownership group doesn’t have to include people from outside our community.