When an alarming amount of people believe that discrimination is largely confined to the isolated incidents that make national headlines as opposed to recognizing the potential for wider impact, then there is a bigger problem.
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ESPN contributor Bomani Jones sees humor in all the controversy that has emerged since Donald Sterling’s private conversation with a mistress was released in two parts over the past weekend.
“You listen to the call and you’re just like ‘wait a minute,’ you would rather your woman sleep with Magic Johnson than take a picture with him? What!?” Bomani said on a during phone-in on the Dan LeBatard show.
And Bomani has a point, LeBatard certainly agreed. To both of the esteemed journalists, the strange things that Sterling said were indeed hilarious. It’s hard to disagree, too.
Between Sterling’s reaction to being reminded that his girlfriend is black, the fact that he actually has a girlfriend that isliterally half is age, the wide-eyed creepy way in which she spoke and baited him into making certain comments, the fact that he wasn’t even sharp enough to realize that he was not engaging in a genuine conversation and the cringe-worthiness of it all, there’s a lot to laugh at.
“Why is no one else seeing the funny in this?” LeBatard asked.
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It’s a good question and one that is simple to answer. Jones, in particular, can laugh at the lighter side of this controversy not only because there is one but also because there’s irony in the fact that out of all the things Sterling has done in the past, this will be the nail that will shut the coffin of his reputation.
Jones’ amazement at all the furor is even more understandable when considering that he raised alarm bells about Sterling long ago. In a “Page 2″ article for ESPN in 2006, Bomani wrote an article titled “Sterling’s racism should be news.” Of course, it wasn’t.
“Sterling may have been a joke, but nothing about this is funny,” Jones wrote eight years ago. “In fact, it’s frightening and disturbing that classic racism like this might still be in play.”
What’s even more disturbing? Sterling was sued for housing discrimination by 19 plaintiffs in 2003, according to The Associated Press… And the coup de grace? Neither that case, nor the more recent one, has qualified as big news.”
If there was one thing to add to Bomani’s list of reasons for having a big laugh at Donald Sterling’s scandal with “V. Stiviano,” it would be frustration.
For him, and for guys like LeBatard who have also spoken about racist acts that have been similarly downplayed in the past, there is real reason to feel insulted any time a story like the one that has dominated headlines for the past five days comes around.
There is reason to feel a genuine sense of disgust at the manner in which some have engaged in what Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has labeled ”the newest popular sport of Extreme Finger Wagging” in a manner that so clearly demonstrates that they don’t understand the severity of the acts that they are condemning.
Because the truth is, as Jones and Kareem point out, Donald Sterling’s comments over the tapes weren’t even thatoutrageous and most of his remarks are points that are passively made on real issues of society and culture.
That’s not to say that he is not racist, or that he does not have racist ideals, but if there was ever any indicating of it, these tapes were hardly the most convincing pieces of evidence.
Instead, his beliefs that “Black tenants smell and attract vermin” to his properties and that Hispanic tenants “smoke, drink and just hang around the building” really are.
And the fact that the quotes that were attributed to him, which confirmed those beliefs, flew under the radar until TMZ got on Sterling’s case is an obvious point at which to be appalled. Because this is where the laughs stopped for Jones.
“So when all these guys get up here and stand on their soapbox and wag their fingers and start talking about ‘we won’t tolerate this racism, we won’t tolerate what Donald Sterling says’ what they’re not tolerating about what Donald Sterling said is the fact that it was impolite and what he said was gauche,” Jones said on the Dan LeBatard show.
“That’s what their problem is, but when Donald Sterling was out here toying with people’s lives on matters of life and death, the media, the NBA, the sponsors and all these people now who want to get patted on the back for what good people they are didn’t say a mumbling word.”
And for Jones, as well as all others who have been bemused by the media’s reaction to this particular matter, their anger can be traced to a problem that Jon Stewart perfectly outlined on Monday night.
“Here’s the thing about racism in this country. The reaction to Sterling and [Clive] Bundy, the overwhelming condemnation, makes it clear that we have made enormous progress in teaching everyone that racism is bad,” Stewart said on “The Daily Show.” “Where we seem to have dropped the ball is in teaching people what racism actually is.”
And he is right. Because when you have the US Supreme court striking down tenants of 1965′s voting rights act and Fox News personalities declaring racism to be dead in response, when it takes a league to hear a tape released by a gossip-centric site to be appalled by an owner’s behavior after years of said owner fighting discriminatory law suits from the US government, when an alarming amount of people believe that discrimination is largely confined to the isolated incidents that make national headlines as opposed to recognizing the potential for wider impact, then there is a bigger problem.
Because if big flashy headlines call for criticism more than actual acts of bias, to any degree, the issue might not just be racism. Even worse, it might be that people truly don’t understand what racism is at all.
This post originally appeared at Elite Daily. Reprinted with permission.
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JOSEPH MILORD: A Journalism & Media Studies major at Rutgers University, Joseph began his writing days as a blogger in his sophomore year before a twist of fate saw him cross paths with Elite Daily. He hasn’t looked back since, only forward towards fulfilling his obsession with words through many more articles for the voice of generation-Y.
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