I listened to the tape...he says NOTHING racist. It almost seems like she's trying to make it sound like that, but he he's baffled when she acts like she thinks he's racist, like when she asks him if he wants her to "remove the skin color out of my skin", you can hear it in his voice.

She's his trophy mistress apparently, and people he knows look down on her for going about publicly with black men and posting pictures with them on instagram, and they give him a hard time about it. He's more like a victim of prejudice in this regard. "I'm living in a culture, and I have to live in this culture", "Dennis made that comment", etc. "I want you to love them--privately. In your whole life, everyday you can be with them. Every single day of your life...but why publicize it on the Instragram and why bring it to my games?" he says. People he knows see that stuff and give him a hard time of it, so he asks her not to "broadcast". After all the point of a trophy mistress is to make you look good to your rich buddies, not get you made fun of. His motivation here is basically the same as all the sponsors pulling away from the clippers--simple concern for what people think.

Compare with what Spike Lee said:

http://books.google.com/books?id=nea...ouples&f=false



Nothing I would make a fuss over, but it's much closer to being against interracial relationships than anything sterling said.



So basically, in our country someone could call someone up, try to get them to say things that can be used against them, and even if they don't really succeed they can leak the tape and it will be spread all over by an enthusiastic media and people who don't pay attention or listen carefully. That's the real story, stuff about terrible things sterling has done, or whether he's pathetic or disgusting, or whether the nba is a business and he has a contract etc is all irrelevant. These particular tapes do not have on them what every news article I read said they did. Most of the time they felt no need to provide evidence and didn't even quote him.

I guess sports team owners aren't that important, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if this kind of things starts being a much more regular part of presidential campaigns. I remember a few instances from the last campaign. As it stands, the people willing to make these kinds of recordings and market them with misleading headlines have a hugely disproportionate and corrupt amount of influence on elections. If the american people can't learn resist the temptation to jump right into sanctimonious posturing whenever a headline and some out of context quotes fits in with their biases then we will have to have more government restrictions on the press and tougher laws against recordings and leaks.

Just look at the summary from the new yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...ng-racism.html

You shouldn’t have to be Magic Johnson to be welcome, as a black man, at a Los Angeles Clippers game—or anywhere. And yet one of the shocks, for many, of a tape recording in which a man, said to be Donald Sterling, owner of the Clippers, berates a woman identified as V. Stiviano for “associating with black people” and bringing “them to my games” is that the fight was apparently triggered when she posted a picture of herself with Magic on Instagram. (“Don’t put him on an Instagram… And don’t bring him to my games.”) Even racist white boyfriends are supposed to be proud of that.
Even supposedly premiere intellectual journals are completely mindless.

I'm afraid this is the future of politics. Forget about sterling and imagine your favored presidential candidate going up against someone awful, and getting on the wrong end of some moronic media frenzy over a hacked or leaked recording that doesn't say what everyone is wildly claiming it does, and no one bothering to look closer.