On Saturday, the Los Angeles Clippers beat the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the NBA playoffs by the the score of 111 to 109. It was a thrilling seven game series that was packed with drama and exceptional plays.The players who led the way were Chris Paul, Blake a Griffin, Deondre Jordan, Matt Barnes, Jamaal Crawford, and J.J. Riddick.
The teams new owner, Steve Ballmer cried, Billy Crystal gave Chris Paul a long and caring hug and the San Antonio star Tim Duncan and Chris shared a lengthy embrace since Chris has known Tim since he was 11 years old.
There is a tremendous amount of negative press today about professional athletes and none more negative than that of the Los Angeles Clippers and their previous owner Donald Sterling. You remember Donald Sterling, don't you? He was the bigot who told his girlfriend, V. Stiviano, that he didn't want Black people coming to his games that were played by teams filled with Black players.
In 2015, there are still old white men who believe that Black men should be treated like slaves and chattel. Donald Sterling is one of the most dehumanizing individuals who, through his tenure as the Clippers owner and his ongoing business practices, treated African Americans as though they were the scum if the earth. If there ever was a slave master mentality present in 2015, it was definitely displayed by Donald Sterling.
Not only was Sterling a terribly racist person and team owner, he is a terrible landlord who had his wife portray a building inspector so that he could evict African American tenants from one of his buildings in order to rent to Asians who he deemed cleaner tenants and willing to pay more to rent his slum apartments.
Another one of the most dehumanizing displays of extremely crude bigotry that slave master Sterling demonstrated was that after Clipper games he would bring white women into the team's locker room to examine the player's "packages" as they exited the shower, as if they were thoroughbred horses at an auction.
If you want to know what this does to the self esteem of African Americans, just remember the little girl in Baltimore who cried for Freddie Gray as she expressed her grief for not having food or school books. Remember Congressman Elijah Cummings who cried during a CNN interview because during the riots in Baltimore, he felt helpless in his position to do anything to help his
people.
But this is about the Los Angeles Clippers and the players because these men, led by their African American coach, Doc Rivers, did what Black people have been doing from the time that they were taken from their homeland until today. They bore the brunt of their inhumane and degrading treatment, held their heads high and reached within themselves to display their true worth as human beings by rising up and doing their very best, and in most cases exceeding expectations.
The men, Black and White, on this team did not cower from the humiliating circumstances created by their idiotic past owner, nor did they allow his well reported shenanigans to come between them. They came together as a team and forged ahead in spite of
the turmoil around them. The worst that the Clipper players did was to wear their warm-up jerseys inside out during one game and then went out and won.
We all know that this is "just basketball" but it does say something about what African Americans are going through today and is definitely indicative of their struggle when dealing with the views and opinions of a society of good people who are pained to remember the past and those bigots who would prefer that it continues.
Maybe the people of America can take a cue from the Clippers and come together to defeat that insidious monster amongst us called racism. It is everywhere in our everyday lives and only Donald Sterling was the only white man so far, due to white privilege, to be blatantly stupid enough to openly display it.
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Mad Man
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