Breaking News!! Donald Sterling Is A Racist!

I’m puzzled by all of this furor that exploded this weekend involving Los Angeles Clippers’ owner, Donald Sterling.  Yes, his taped comments are reprehensible and dastardly.  (I like that word when dealing with classic silent movie bad guys, which in all the pictures of Sterling, he appears to fit the bill although he lacks the requisite handle-bar mustache)  But as we have heard ad nauseum, Sterling is not a born again racist.  This wasn’t an overnight conversion.  As the media has trumpeted, Sterling has a long history of racial discrimination.  There are lawsuits, one of them filed by the federal government, detailing Sterling’s discriminatory practices in real estate and business.  Former employees like Elgin Baylor have tried to sue him for, wait for it, racial discrimination!  This guy didn’t need a hood, nor did he need to sneak into a particular neighborhood under the cover of darkness to burn a cross on someone’s lawn.

This racist hid in plain sight in front of 18,000 people at an NBA basketball game!

And apparently, it was a not-so-well-kept secret among many people here in Los Angeles.

So if everyone knew Donald Sterling was a racist, why is this story breaking now?  And a follow up question, who stands to gain from the whole kerfuffle?  I mean, even the girlfriend with the tape recorder says she didn’t leak the recording, and in fact, she has said Sterling allegedly knew his comments were being recorded.  So what gives?

And to add a touch of irony to the proceedings, the NAACP announced today in a tweet that it will not be awarding Sterling any lifetime achievement awards next month.  Phew!  I’m glad they caught that in time before the plaque was engraved.  As Kevin Roderick said on NPR today, these awards are never given out based on merit.  It is all about the money.  Sterling writes a lot of checks to charity, probably to give himself some income tax relief, and until this firestorm erupted, every one of them was cashed, I’m sure.  When things go public, everyone grows a conscience.

This guy should get the boot from the NBA just on principle:  most of his employees are black and he obviously hates people of color, or at least doesn’t want them in the crowd at games or living in his real estate holdings or posing in pictures with his girlfriend (although he did approve sleeping with them if she should choose to do so, which to me is a bit confusing coming from a racist).

But there is a bigger question that must be answered:  if everyone knew this guy was a raving bigot, why didn’t someone take decisive action before now?  Money.  If you have money, you can pay for your ignorant views, your impolite beliefs, your moral failures by slipping a little cash under the doors of some charity or political campaign.  It is amazing the silence that can be bought for some moola.

It is also interesting to note that no one had a problem with Sterling until the Clippers were in serious playoff contention.  Over the last few seasons, the franchise has undoubtedly become quite a wealthy organization.  So no one cared when they were the laughingstock of the league, but now that they are contenders and bringing in the big bucks, Sterling is a racist and must be run out of the NBA?  Something does not add up here.

A year ago, I wrote about the Clippers and how I was rooting for them.  I like the underdog, and I was rooting for them this year, too.  I could not understand why no one gave them any respect, even with the way they have been playing.  In this town, everything is Lakers, Lakers, Lakers.  The Clippers have shown far more gumption and less dysfunction on the court than their hoity-toity co-tenants at the Staples Center.  The Lakers are the golden boys while the Clippers are the ugly stepbrothers.  Just once, I wanted the other L.A. team to at least get into the finals.  Now, with all of this distraction, I think it’s already over.  And I don’t know if I want them to win or even show up for the next game, because every ticket sold, every beer, every jersey, and of course, every victory puts money in Sterling’s pocket.  But this is not a problem that will be solved easily.  Sterling will not go quietly.  Ignoramuses rarely know when to take their lumps and slink off into the sunset.  We know this here in Los Angeles after the Frank McCourt debacle.

It is too easy to simply come out against Sterling and condemn racism.  It is too easy to commandeer the podium at the news conference and express outrage.  All the politicians from mayors to presidents have made it clear this weekend that racism must be stopped.  Tell us something we don’t know.  But there is more to this story, you can bet on it.  Yes, Sterling should be forced out as a team owner; yes, he should be penalized financially; yes, the fans are owed something for supporting the team and unknowingly lining the pockets of a bigot.  But what about all the people who knew what Sterling was like, the views he espoused, and continued to look the other way for the almighty dollar?  Given the often morally questionable behavior that is rampant in professional sports, those who have stayed quiet over the years are just as culpable.  The whole thing is a cesspool, and the city and Clippers fans must put up with the stench.

It's Always Armageddon Somewhere

The final story, the final chapter of western man, I believe, lies in Los Angeles.”

                                                                                                                        Phil Ochs

This past Saturday, I had an all-day meeting scheduled for downtown Los Angeles near USC, and I was worried.  According to media reports, this weekend was supposed to be yet another cataclysmic disaster for traffic on downtown streets as the Lakers, Clippers, and Kings all had home playoff games scheduled back-to-back over Friday, Saturday and Sunday, along with a bicycle race that would end at the front door of Staples Center.  If I believed the news readers, all Angelinos should head for the hills, or their backyard bunkers or other suitably reinforced shelters.

Over the last year, we have had several Armageddons that never materialized in L.A.  Probably the most famous was the weekend closure of Interstate 405, known locally as the San Diego Freeway.  This was the event known as “Carmageddon,” and had the entire country enthralled, if the coverage on CNN and MSNBC was to be believed.  We were warned that L.A. fire units and paramedics would be unable to reach calls in the hills above Sherman Oaks and west Los Angeles; LAPD would be slow to respond in the area of the closure.  It was all doom and gloom, and none of it materialized, thank God.  Carmageddon was a bust.  Everything proceeded normally, and the construction company even finished the scheduled work early.  The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) reported lighter than normal traffic across the region.  The closure did result in a funny photograph of a dinner party in the fast lane of the empty freeway.  The group managed to clear out before California Highway Patrol (CHP) showed up to cite them.

Photo courtesy of Jesse Glucksman

It still seems odd to me that so much of Los Angeles history is cast in terms of the end of the world.  Earthquakes, fires, floods, crime, pursuits, and sporting events all seem to come with the “Armageddon” tag, as if we expect that the Book of Revelation could only come true in L.A.  The thing is, we survive.  We recover.  May be it is just our Hollywood sense of drama that makes us blow the prophecies of destruction and annihilation out of proportion.  However, I feel our wails of trepidation might make the rest of the country think of us as cowards, and that would be a shame.  Citizens in this city do have resilience, probably to a greater degree than we think.

Los Angeles needs to toughen its image.  Not only did our basketball teams get pushed around this weekend, and will probably be eliminated from further playoff competition, one of the events scheduled for this Armageddon was a bicycle race.  On a normal day in L.A., bicyclists are forever in jeopardy on the streets of the city.  Although there have been several high profile attempts to promote bike riding in Los Angeles—even catching the attention of The New York Times—this city is a difficult one for the bicycling enthusiasts.  This is not a flat city, and the sprawl makes a cycling commute nearly impossible.  I applaud the work of CicLAvia, but they are facing a similar uphill battle to make L.A. more bike-friendly.

The Sunday Los Angeles Times did a front page story about the revitalization of the downtown area surrounding the Staples Center and L.A. Live.  It is “No longer the 9-to-5 area its once was…” said the headline.  New lofts and apartments have gone up, some of them in old refurbished buildings that had been empty for a while, and businesses anticipated a busy weekend with all the traffic headed for the sporting events.  But the article also points out that just a few blocks north, west, east, or south, things are rather dull.  Only the usual locals come out to hoist a few in the bars and restaurants.  In short, the crowds for events stay localized in the streets around Staples.  In many ways, Los Angeles lacks a heart.  The city center does not hold, unless there is a reason to go downtown.  Great dining can be had in Pasadena, Santa Monica, even the San Fernando Valley.  There is Citywalk at Universal, Disneyland in Anaheim, and Magic Mountain in Valencia.  The question must be asked:  is Los Angeles a city or as Dorothy Parker said, “seventy-two suburbs in search of a city?”

For the record, I made it to my meeting a half hour early in light traffic.  Coming home, I hit the usual congestion going through downtown on the 110, but once I hit the 101 I was home free.  And according to the news naysayers, traffic was light throughout the area all weekend.  Things were absolutely normal, at least for L.A.  But tomorrow, tomorrow is another day.

Los Angeles, 1984

Photo courtesy of Suzette Valle

“Faster, Higher, Stronger” (Olympic motto from the Latin:  “Citius, Altius, Fortius”)

So it was in that hot summer of 1984 that the Olympics came to town.  The Games of the XXIII Olympiad.  These were already flawed games.  Because of the 1980 United States boycott of the Olympics in Moscow, most Eastern bloc countries like the Soviet Union and East Germany, and even Cuba from our own neighborhood retaliated by not attending the L.A. Games.  Peter Ueberroth, head of the Olympic Committee, was undeterred in his mission to pull off the event.  The Games would go forward.

We were warned about hellacious traffic and gridlock.  We worried about crime with all the potential victims arriving from faraway countries.  We were told to stagger our work shifts, or stay home altogether.  Would Los Angeles be a dangerous and disappointing city in the eyes of the world?

The answer was an emphatic no.  In the final analysis, everything was good.  Traffic was astonishingly light.  Things flowed smoothly.  Although the organizers fretted, the spaceship landed on cue at the Closing Ceremonies wowing the crowd in the Coliseum.  The 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles were the most successful of the modern era, and they revitalized the tradition of the Games themselves.  L.A. was the benchmark by which all future host cities would measure their own performance.

The U.S. won 83 gold medals, 61 silver, and 30 bronze:  174 total.  No one really missed the Soviets, Germans, Libyans, Iranians or Cubans.  When the last dollar was counted and all the bills paid, Ueberroth announced a 223 million dollar profit, enough to endow several foundations, grants, and charities for years to come.  That summer, Los Angeles was rolling in green and good will.

I had just been laid off from my warehouse job at an aerospace firm in June, and therefore my entire financial support system for my college education was shot to hell.  Strangely, as is the case when you are young, I was not too worried.  I’d find a way to stay in school and keep my head above water.  I spent those months going from place to place dropping off applications.  It would not be until October that I found steady work hoisting sacks of manure in the Lawn and Garden Department at Target.  I was intent on being a musician then, and when I was not handing out my work history on a flimsy sheet of paper to anyone who would take it, I was schlepping my Rhodes Electric Piano and speaker from gig to gig in my 1978 Chevy Chevette, a car much too small and underpowered to carry such a load or have a racing stripe painted on the side.  My total take for all the music that summer was probably 30 bucks.  I could not afford to attend the Games, or even a single event.  But I was young and believed the future held all the promises in the world.

One evening shortly before the Opening Ceremonies, I was driving in the city up Sepulveda Boulevard, the longest street in L.A. at 43 miles.  My father used to tell me that Sepulveda stretched, in one form or another, clear across the country.  I’ve since learned that is not exactly true, but it sounds good.  So there I was, at a stoplight, waiting for my life to catch up with me, mentally counting my pennies to make it to September and beyond, not really thinking about games or athletes or anything other than survival.  The light turned green, but nobody moved.  A brightly lit and flashing caravan of law enforcement personnel in cars and on motorcycles rounded the corner and swarmed the intersection.  Sirens wailed and everything became intensively illuminated.  Like many other motorists, I got out to see what was happening.  A large group of runners—25, 50, 100?—came down the street followed by a line of black vehicles.  Leading the procession was a tongue of fire, the Olympic Torch.  Spontaneously, the drivers, passengers, bystanders, the entire crowd began clapping.  The applause became thunderous, echoing off the buildings lining the street.  The torch-bearer lifted the flame higher in response to the crowd, and people began yelling and cheering.

A hot summer night in Los Angeles.  My life wasn’t moving in a direction I recognized, but time would reveal that peculiar synchronicity of fate and destiny only observed in hindsight.  I would have to be patient, a lesson I had to relearn many times over the years.  I am still learning it.  I drove off into the night, thinking of that fire traveling all the way from Greece, across the centuries from antiquity, to come to the street where I live here in Los Angeles, 1984.  In that moment on the boulevard, I was certain that anything was possible.  I was not a runner or an archer, but I had my own Olympian dreams.  If I believed, if I never stopped striving, if I waited patiently, they would come.