the sterling silver show .. anybody else watchin this ??

[frenchy]

unless you've been under a rock for the last few weeks you've probably heard about the owner of the L.A . clippers don sterling and what he said .. i've been watchin this and i'll be honest i don't like what he said but in order to understand what went on here you have to know all the facts .. most of it is just the sensational blurbs that go by .. he's a racist and he should be forced out of the nba league for what he said .. but if you dig deeper its not as simple as that .. why did he say what he said ?? from what i can gather from all this in a word .. jealousy .. plain and simple .. i think dean martin said it best years ago when he married a 23 year old and he was like 63 or somethin .. there's nothin worse than an old fool in love .. don sterling is an 81 year old man who fell for a 31 year old woman named v. stiviano .. why?? sex of course .. she propositioned him and he fell for it all hook line and sinker .. but she's no ordinary 31 year old woman .. according to friends who knew her she is doin just what they expect from her .. they're not surprised at all .. this is a woman who's changed her name 4 or 5 times over the last few years because of run ins with the law or she's tryin to reinvent herself when things aren't goin as smooth as she expects .. she fancies herself as some kind of self made business mogul when all she's really done is use sex to get what she wants which translates to a prostitute , only on a higher level than most .. she was so good that don sterling gave her two not one but two bentleys , a ferrari and a range rover along with a 1.8 million dollar house .. when don's wife found out she was livid and confronted her about it and said she was gonna have to give that stuff back because don was sufferein from dementia and didn't know what he was doin .. don's wife had been on the verge of divorcin him for years and she felt that v. stiviano was gettin part of her marital assets .. so v. told don's wife you're gonna pay for this and what did she do ?? she taped don sayin the things he said and leaked it to the media .. thats a fine payback ain't it ?? the wife confronts her so she turns on don the hand that fed her .. you wanna talk about the mistress from hell ?? and what did don say exactly on them tapes ?? he was sayin i don't care if you screw all these guys just don't bring them to my games and do it under my nose because people i know will ask me about it .. ( meanin she was supposed to be his girlfriend why was she messin around with all these other guys ) i think don thought that spendin over 2 million on her and givin her 250k in cash bought him some sort of aligience and loyalty on her part .. ( which it didn't ) yeah he did use the word black and that upset some people but he didn't call them racial names .. he just called them black .. it sounded to me more like a guy would refer to a woman who's redhead a redhead .. again i'm not condonin what he said , but i don't think he meant it the way the media is playin it .. i think he's a little old man who was jealous of the fact that his girlfriend who he paid quite a bit for was still screwin these guys who were black .. i can't say or not if he would have said the same thing if the guys happened to be big tall polocks .. don't you bring them polocks to my games ?? if he had would anybody have cared ?? but the media were like sharks smellin blood in the water .. i actually heard bryant gumbel who is a sportscaster as well as a newscaster compare this incident to the treyvon martin case ?? WTF ?? ARE YOU KIDDIN ME ?? who did don sterling kill ? in what world does this compare ?? even close ?? the only racial statements made in the whole zimmerman trial were made by treyvon himself right before he attacked zimmerman when he called him a creepy ass white cracker ..

this whole thing is the media tryin to build a story out of remark that was made IN PRIVATE from a guy who's feelins were hurt .. now i'm not sure if and when the laws were changed but what v. stiviano did was illegal .. you can't tape a conversation without someone's knowledge and then use it against them .. case in point .. back in the 90's i had my own business .. a video store and a 60 minute photo with a portrait studio and a darkroom for custom enlargements .. in about 98 i could see the writin on the wall so i sold the photo equipment while it was still worth somethin .. made my accountant go crazy cause i did make some money with it .. but i knew that digital was commin and it was gonna come in a big way and soon enough all my photo equipment would be totally worthless .. after the sale i had all that room in the back and thought about puttin in tannin beds ..i did some research and read a story about some shithead in pennsy i think it was who had tannin beds and he put in video camera's and taped just about every woman in town tannin themselves naked without their knowledge .. well somehow the news got out and they tried to arrest him .. but the thing was none of the camera's had sound .. video only so accordin to the law you couldn't tape someone's voice without their knowledge but there was no law about a video with no sound .. so they had no charges to bring him up on .. this made everyone in town livid but the law was if it has sound you're under arrest . no sound .. nothin we can do .. well he went outta business anyway like all the other video stores did but they never prosecutted him and i decided to stay far away from tannin beds .. far as i know tho bein taped without your consent is still inadmissable ..

but in comes this guy mr. silver the new head of the nba and he feels he has to do somethin , even if its wrong cause the media is playin this up , so he bans don sterling for life from the nba .. of course he's gonna need a majority vote from all the other owners to make that happen .. so far most of the owners have been silent .. don sterling hasn't said much but i figured he ain't gonna bow out gracefully and finally he's said he ain't gonna go .. now don sterling is worth over 2 billion dollars which puts him in the top 300 people in the usa far as money goes so he can buy a boatload of lawyers who will fight this and probably keep this in litigation till he dies .. after all he is 81 .. havin 2 billion bucks can buy you some great medical care but they still can't keep you alive forever no matter how much cash you have .. his wife said she'd take over the team but so far i've heard that she can't cause she's a partner with don and if he's banned then she has to be banned too .. now does that make any sense ?? if don commits a crime she goes to jail too ??

so is don sterling biased ?? probably .. but not in the way most of us would consider .. there's a reason that exclusive country clubs won't let someone like you or me join unless of course we have a sponsor who will vouch for us .. why ?? because they don't want to associate with us peeons .. its been goin on since the dawn of time .. the haves and the have nots .. their kids don't go to the same schools our kids go to .. or shop at the same stores we do .. they're biased based on wealth .. and to don sterling its the old upstairs downstairs mentality .. black people are poor .. lets face it when lincoln freed the slaves most of em didn't even get that 40 acres and a mule .. even tho most black people can trace their bloodlines back in the usa longer than most whites they still don't have as much to show for it .. i think don sterling is a small jealous insensitive man .. oblivious to what the average joe goes thru .. intentionally mean and cruel ?? maybe perhaps at times .. money can do that to some people .. was that the case here ?? i'm not so sure i'm convinced of that ..if you heard the tapes its clear that v. stiviano is goading him to the point of actually taunting him .. she ambushed him plain and simple ..   there are so many ways to be biased i can't count em all .. but all of em are wrong .. you can be biased because someone is too fat .. in fact louie ck just did a show about it ( i love that louie guy , he always seems to find a way to cut right to the heart of things , crude sometimes yes but he still finds the heart ) you can be biased because people are tall and you're not or because people are short and you're tall .. or because they're bald or skinny .. the list can go on and on .. all of em are wrong .. so again i'm not condonin anything don sterling said .. but at a time like this what makes me feel the worst is nobody is talkin forgiveness .. or another chance .. or even some kind of class on culteral awareness ..some way that we can bring everybody back together as opposed to rippin everything apart .. so instead we're gonna have a lawsuit that goes on and on and just drags this out .. lebron james said if he don't go i'm gonna sit out next season .. good luck lebron , find yourself a comfortable seat cause this is gonna be some kinda landmark case .. and it will set a dangerous precedent .. you can't legislate who someone should like or admire or the way they speak in private ..this is still supposed to be a free country so that means that we have to put up with some insensitive ignorant oblivious people .. otherwise if that was the case then all the players in the nba better be careful because someday somebody might tape them callin a white ref a honkey and if they can toss don sterling out for just sayin the word black then they can and should be able to toss them out too for the same reason .. and what if they find an old video from years back of them callin a white person names ? do they get another chance ?? or is it one strike and you're gone ?? you can't have it both ways ..this can come back to bite more people in the ass then they ever figured .. this is really thin ice they're on here .. what do you guys think ?? i'm pretty sure we're all agreed that his remarks could have been worded differently .. but do you think this warrants a lifetime ban ?? do you think its even legal ?? 

[dwalt]

I don't know the "rules" of the NBA but I listened to the tape she took.  Honestly it wasn't that bad and I'm a girl.  I think this whole thing has been blown up.  We all say stupid stuff in our lives and big deal, life goes on. I'm not saying what he said was a smart thing to do in his position but to make him sell his share of the team is down right stupid.

[Wayne Goodwin]

Dwalt I apologize too you because as long as I have been here , I didn't know you were a woman . Kool beans too ya ....

[blithe spirit]

Since this was given to the media, more stuff keeps coming out about other parts of his life and how he conducts his business with the team and other businesses. I have no sympathy for the man.... as a man who makes a portion of his living off the backs of blacks I would think he would be a bit more sensitive to what he says. He is a shark himself who got himself finned by his own behavior and words. You play you pay... there can be consequences.

I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not not even going to speculate as to what other motivations are at play, but Sterling plays with the big boys and girls all the time..he has deep pockets so if that's how he wants to spend his the rest of his golden years, have it it....as to legality...the lawyers will win..cha-ching cha-ching.

[uno,dos,3]

I think you should write a book about this frenchy....oh wait! You already have written a book. 

I don't know what to think about anything anymore. I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about the 'Michael Sam' thing. He has a press conference to tell the world he's gay...then says he wants to be judged as a football player....then he invites cameras into his home on draft day and kisses his (white) boyfriend on national tv.....the man on man part was uncomfortable for me...does me a bad person?  

Interestingly, a lot of black athletes were totally negative about Sam's public display of affection...I guess bigotry is in the eye of the beholder...there are still a lot of whites that react the same way when black athletes kiss their white girlfriends on tv...and so it goes. 

[P.A.]

I think most people do not understand what freedom of speech means. Political speech is all that the first amendment protects. Libel and slander laws vary from state to state. In most states those laws only apply if the person speaking is lying and causing harm. But and this is the rub Mostly you can say what ever you want like Mr. Sterling did but you are not protected from the consequences of what you say. The NBA is over 80% black so what reaction would you expect. Particularly when he talked about the Clipper players the way he did. "I feed them, cloth them, buy them cars and houses I take care of them" , Donald Sterling. He was talking like he owned a plantation and they were his slaves.
He needs to go and if he doesn't there is a very good chance there will be no NBA season next year. Most of the players have plenty of money so missing a season or two wouldn't hurt them much.

[dwalt]

Now that is funny!!  Wayne I have always been a girl.

[ProblemAgain]

frenchy, i suggest you read some more of his history. he and his wife had to pay a fine of 2.9 million due to systematic discrimination against blacks and hispanics  in the management of their housing units. they did not repair units, tried to evict tenants in spite of the rent being paid, the wife posed as a govt inspector to get inside tenants units and they told their employees that blacks caused their units to smell. also read some of the newer interviews he has done. if i was his attorney, i would sew his lips shut. he is his own worst enemy. and remember...they signed a bigass franchise agreement as part of their ownership of an nba team. in that contractual agreement, they have clauses that they approved by signing the contracts that the nba as a franchiser can revoke that franchise by a vote of the other owners. that is part of the 'protection of assets'. they are lucky in that the league will allow them to sell the franchise rather than vote and have the franchise revert to the league. it isn't like he owns a sole proprietorship mom and pop operation like donald's mufflers. if it was, he would be entitled to be just as pig-ignorant as he chooses and let the customers embrace or punish his dumb ass. (by the way, back in the day, oil companies made a pretty penny by selling franchises for their gas stations for a lump sum up front and then revoking the franchise to sell it again to other parties and repeat as needed.

and in case you missed it, one of his comments was 'i should have just paid her off'. seems he rents bedpartners the way others rent cars. and his wife has sued other women before to get assets back when he is done with them. what a set of fucking charmers.

[frenchy]

i don't know too much about his slumlord history problem.. do slumlords really discriminate against blacks still and get away with it ?? i'd think they'd be glad to have anyone to rent their shitholes as long as they paid the rent black or white or whatever .. i agree he does seem to be his own worst enemy but my point here was they're tryin to make a case for his own personal views and thats a dangerous path cause if they do it and win then its a 2 way street .. and it can bite some people on the ass .. case in point for instance .. you get a black coach and he won't play a white player . well then that coach must be a bigot lemme get a lawyer .. or the same thing in reverse .. uno made a good point too .. i was gonna actually include that one but it was gettin too long as it was but there was a black player from the miami dolphins who complained about that gay guy kissin his boyfriend on draft day so now they're sendin him to some kinda attitude adjustment camp .. as if he has no right to say seein two guys kissin disturbs him .. don't get me wrong if two guys wanna be gay fine be gay thats their right but don't try to force it on everyone else .. that may be either a popular or an unpopular viewpoint to take .. if there's a majority one way or the other it will probably be slim .. change comes slowly , but it will come .. and guys like don sterling will all die off .. and yes i know sterling signed an agreement .. does it specifically say what you can and cant say in the privacy of your own home ?? and did he actually sign it ?? again i'd rather try to get both sides to work it out than throw the baby out with the bathwater .. was it insensitive what he said ?? yeah maybe a little .. he called black people black .. he did say he paid them and fed them .. a better way to phrase that would have been to say they earned what he paid them and he did say that later when pressed by anderson cooper .. his choice of words is poor at best .. and i think he might just be losin it a bit .. so he probably is oblivious to some of the things he says .. and yeah he did say i should have just paid her off .. i thought he already had .. a 1.8 million dollar home 2 bentleys a ferarri and a range rover and 250k in cash .. i don't think he ever tried to hide the fact that everything he gave her was because she was havin sex with him .. when she met him she propositioned him .. i didn't know about his wife suein other women he had affairs with tho .. anyway he ain't gonna go quietly into that good night .. hes gonna go kickin and screamin .. and he's got enough money and lawyers to make it so .. when he bought the clippers they were in san diago .. he asked to move them to L.A. numerous times and the answer was always no .. finally he just moved them and said fine me.. and they fined him 6 million and he paid it .. them ubber rich are used to gettin their way .. this ain't gonna be as simple as silver thinks it will be ..  again i have no dog in this fight and it will go the way it goes .. i won't cry either way .. i just don't think silvers case is as strong as he believes it to be .. and some guys might actually choose to sit out the season .. i remember the football strike back in what was it 82 or 83 .. they played anyway with unsigned players .. it could happen again ..  

[ProblemAgain]

the deal with the franchise agreement is that as long as the owners of the other franchises vote him out, he's out. they don't have to put forth any reason whatsoever. it is a franchise, not a proprietorship. he's lucky to the tune of about a billion dollars that they allow him to sell and that the league doesn't just redo the schedule and have zero clippers games. everyone keeps dragging in unrelated bullshit like the adventures of michael sams. different people...different issues. the sterling situation has little to do with what particular word he used whether it was black, african american or tierod. it has to do with the attitude and opinion he was babbling about the same as that ass clive bundy. it isn't the name you use, it is the way you view a group of people and the way you treat them. from an englishman:" we call them frogs because they are so immoral. they are always leaping about into and out of each other's beds" 

[frenchy]

well again i'm not tryin to say his way of life is right or how more or less moral he is than the rest of us .. i was just sayin that he's got a lot of money and can buy as many lawyers and litigation to keep this ban in court for years .. it may be a franchise but i seriously doubt they can just take his team away for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER .. i do believe they can try but they would have to have some kind of clause in that nba league contract that would support his remarks being just cause ..and thats where all the litigation would come in .. did he authorize what he said or was he taped without his approval ?? its not gonna be as simple as we'll just take your team away .. not so cut and dry ..to to be honest i'm a bit confused as to why his wife would be so little as to try to sue the mistress over a mere couple of million if don gave it to her .. if she does divorce him and is worth half of what he owns she'd get a billion dollars .. i'd say she's at least in her 70's , how long does it take to spend a billion dollars that she might miss an extra million or so that she'd go thru all this ?? she clearly didn't think any of this thru did she now ?? 

[Wayne Goodwin]

I rarely follow anything in sports . I have never heard of the man or anything about these people . I have heard of the team .  I feel informed now . Frenchy write your book about yourself it would be a big seller . These day I don't really know what ya call a black . In life growing up I only knew the N word , Nergo  , colored people , African Americans . Now Black but what context ya put it in .  Could any of you feel you could hang around me because I am fat . I feel anyone would shy away from me because of me being fat . Learn to know me , might . Would that be some kind of racial or taken that way out of context to stir up people . Just don't know . When I wason the transet bus taking me home from the doctor . We pivked up a blind black man . He sat there listening to us talk . My cousin said  the word ribs . He spoke up and asked where he got them . He didn't know us or what color we were . As far as being racial .. people should treat each other as one . Leave the white black out of it . Maybe some day will come when being racial will did out when racial minded people die out .

Nowwhat I just wrote is ramblin words . If I make no sence just ignore me . I'm just not informed as some of you are .

 

[Karin M Fichtner]

Wayne, you are right.  Prejudice rears its ugly head in many ways.  I have been picked on all my life for being tall.....fat....."Teacher's Pet"....."Goody Two-Shoes".....poor.....and I have had to learn to put my big girl pants on and take it.  That's life.  People are crass and unfeeling.  And bullies.  Kids learn to bully by watching their parents doing it.  Now I am an old lady, and I've survived the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.....and the bullying continues.  My age, gender, experience, accomplishments......don't buy me one smidgeon of respect.  Now it's my politics and religious beliefs that I get crucified for.  Indirectly.....in the name of "tolerance".....I get called "bigoted, stupid, uneducated, (apparently, I speak with a Southern accent, too, even though I hail from Minnesota) cruel, insensitive, hating women (that one kills me; I AM a woman!!), devoid of culture, lacking in compassion, homophobic, and, apparently, a village idiot because I am a Christian.  I'm watching Muslims treated with kid gloves, while Christians are getting hammered.....losing jobs and companies they themselves created.....because of stating their religious beliefs.  Michael Sam is called a hero........Tim Tebow was ridiculed publicly. 

It makes no sense, Wayne.  People are cruel; that's all there is to it.  And the playground kids who picked on you when you were little.....take just as much pleasure from tormenting you when they grow up.  We just have to square our shoulders and hold our head high and try not to stoop to their level and respond in kind.