The question is, which is which?
I’ll let you puzzle it out; I’ll be busy retching:
And now, the latest and deplorable passengers on this distasteful Ethics Train Wreck…
Sen. Harry Reid
Reid saluted NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for his “work to swiftly move to stamp out bigotry in its ranks,” as if that had any thing at all to do with what Silver was doing. Reid’s endorsement, however, places a high elected official’s stamp of approval on the proposition that those with unpopular ideas and biases should be punished and have their property taken away from them. Reid said that the league has set a new standard for how professional sports leagues should respond to racism. Of course, Sterling did nothing racist at all, not did he attempt to, or publicly announce such intent. The “new standard” that Reid is applauding is economic penalties for non-conforming beliefs. Finally, Reid attempted to make the absurd parallel to the Washington Redskins’ controversial name: “How long will the NFL continue to do nothing — zero — as one of its teams bears a name that inflicts so much pain on Native Americans?” Reid asked
Oh, what pain, Harry, you vile, divisive, petty, silly man? Whose life is so empty, whose soul is so fragile, whose mind is so weak that he sits around saying, “ARRRGH! That NFL team in Washington named after the Boston Red Sox 70 years ago because they moved into Fenway Park from Braves Field when they were in Boston and were called the Braves and some smart PR guy said, ‘Hey–Red Sox, Red SKINS, get it? We don’t even have to change that chief logo!’ causes me such PAIN!” It’s a team nickname that some Native American activists decided that they could exploit for some skin in the power game, and the knee-jerk political correctness crowd jumped on the bandwagon. Most rational people, in contrast, including the vast majority of Native Americans, don’t care that the owner of the Washington Redskins wants to keep the name that his passionately followed and loved team—in a city that is over 80% black, by the way—has built its history, lore, marketing and merchandising on since it moved to D.C.. Fair and rational people who believe in democracy think that Congress shouldn’t be trying to force a private business owner to spend millions of dollars to mollify a politically motivated race-huckster mob. But Harry is seldom fair, and almost never rational.
This is none of Reid’s business, just as Donald Sterling private conversation with his bimbo is none of Reid’s business. But the Democratic leader of the Senate tries to use the fact that the NBA is punishing the speech of one owner as a justification for the NFL to bend another owner to Harry’s will—on a private business matter that does not involve racist words or conduct in any way.
The NAACP
The National Urban League, the National Action Network, the NAACP and the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation issued a joint statement cheering Silver’s announcement that he banned Sterling for life and that the league would attempt to force him to sell the Clippers.
That decision, the statement said, was “a bold, courageous and resolute message that the views expressed by Sterling do not represent the National Basketball Association as an organization today or the kind of organization that it seeks to be in the future.”
But Sterling’s suspension isn’t enough, the groups said, calling for Silver to meet with them to ensure Sterling “remains an anomaly among the owners and executives in the league.”
“Sterling’s long-established pattern of bigotry and racist comments have not been a secret in the NBA,” the statement said. “Yet until now, they have been tolerated and met with a gentle hand and a blind eye.”
The L.A. chapter of the NAACP designated Donald Sterling as its Man of the Year, TWICE! Whose “blind eye?”
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles announced that it will reject a $3 million pledge by Sterling to support basic kidney research at the school’s Division of Nephrology and will return the $425,000 installment it has already received. Sterling’s “divisive and hurtful comments demonstrate that he does not share UCLA’s core values,” said the school.
I’m pretty sure his money shares those values, however, as the money only wants to help cure kidney disease. Oh, wait! That’s not true, is it? UCLA has made it clear that grandstanding over leaked, private, racially-biased statements is valued more than saving lives with kidney research. Those are its values. Sterling’s money, in fact, is more ethical.
If I were on UCLA’s board, I’d be raising hell. What is the school’s medical research division’s mission—to cure disease and save lives, or to punish bigoted NBA owners? This is non-profit misfeasance, in my view. Unethical, a breach of trust. All donors should withdraw their pledges; UCLA just proved that it cares less about human lives—kidney disease strikes African-Americans at a higher rate than whites, but hey, I’m sure black families are happy to sacrifice loved ones if it will teach that mean old man a thing or two—than it does policing the thoughts of its donors. Will the school be vetting all of its rich contributors now, to make sure they haven’t told a politically incorrect joke or voted for Proposition 8?
Here’s the really hilarious part: the NBA says that Sterling’s $2.5 million will be donated to charities promoting an end to bigotry and racism. So his money is too “dirty”—note that the money isn’t the fruits of terrorism or drugs or extortion or bank heists, but just the money accumulated in lawful business by a man whose ugly private conversation was recorded and leaked— to be used to save lives, but not too dirty to be used to fight what supposedly made it dirty in the first place!
Hmmmm. What does this tell us? That money from those with racist thoughts is unfit to fight kidney disease, but fit to fight racism? Interesting. I did not know that! Or does it tell us that in the warped priorities of the U.S. in 2014, fighting racist thoughts is a higher priority than saving lives, including the lives of African-Americans?
And remember, UCLA is giving back Sterling enough money to cover his NBA punishment of 2.5 million! So not only is the money being removed from kidney research, it also is paying the evil racist’s fine, and leaves him an extra $500,000 to, oh, I don’t know, contribute to the Klan. Thanks to UCLA’s actions, Sterling’s financial punishment is no punishment at all. This gets better and better, doesn’t it? I’m sure residents of California are pleased with the quality of thought and leadership of those who run their institutes of higher learning.
The tragic thing is, they probably are.
The Bunny Ranch
You can’t make this stuff up.
The proprietor of Nevada’s famed house of prostitution, the Bunny Ranch, has banned Donald Sterling for life from ever enjoying the professional services of it or any of his six other brothels in the state. “A lot of NBA players come here to party,” Dennis Hof announced. “Out of respect to them, we have banned Sterling from coming here.”
Yes, his distinguished business entertains liars, adulterers, dead-beat dads, spouse-abusers, mobsters, criminals, drug lords, illegal aliens and perverts of all kinds, but Donald Sterling told his mistress that he didn’t want her to bring blacks to his games (though having sex with them was fine), so he is the scum of the earth. Got it, Dennis, and my salutations to your teachers and role models in life.
Hof also announced that V. Stiviano is being rewarded a lifetime pass to his establishments, because destroying the reputation of the man who showered millions on you is the mark of a terrific human being, at least by Bunny Ranch standards. V. Has a future at the Bunny Ranch, I think.
I’m sure UCLA would take Hof’s contribution to kidney research, too.
______________________
Sources:Washington Times, CBS, Huffington Post2, HuffPo 1
Ethics Alarms 
course, Sterling did nothing racist at all, not did he attempt to, or publicly announce such intent.
******************************************************************
….Donald Sterling told his mistress that he didn’t want her to bring blacks to his games…
There seems to be a conflict between those two statements. This is not just about Sterling’s private thoughts, but his actions as well. He tried to prevent his girlfriend from bringing black people to the games with her. Are discriminatory acts, as long as the public doesn’t know about them, ok?
It’s a private, narrow, personal expression of preference. That’s no act. “I’d prefer you don’t bring black people to the games.” Is what he said. He didn’t ban blacks from games, or refuse to give them tickets. He didn’t bar their way, or prevent anyone else from bringing them. He told her what he didn’t want her to do. He took no action beyond words, and I don’t regard that as conduct.
And I never said what he said was “OK.” It isn’t “OK.” But it’s private, free speech.
Pingback: Wordpress Blogs - Wordpress Blogs .NET
Deery: The point is that Sterling’s little imbroglios with his mistress- while they expose him as a sorry individual in a number of ways- have just been used by others every bit as pitiful as himself to forward their own rotten agendas on his beaten down carcass. These people all had to have known long before that Sterling was morally decrepit. Yet, as long as he generated money for them and was free of bad publicity, he remained on their “good list”. Once his little concubine ratted on him in public over a racist statement he made to her (one of his lesser failings, BTW), it then became a matter of making money off of him in a different manner. None of these people have any moral high ground over Sterling. This is just a matter of dog eat dog. From what I can see, Daniel Hof is no less despicable than Sterling, Harry Reid, UCLA, the NBA directors and the NAACP. Of course, the Bunny Ranch can survive easily with its loss of Sterling’s custom… if it was ever there!
Seems a matter of false equivalency to me, a way to for people to shrug the shoulders and say, “forget the whole lot of them!” without having to think very critically about the matter.
These people all had to have known long before that Sterling was morally decrepit.
That’s the whole thing, they didn’t know. They probably *suspected*, but they didn’t know. As I said in a previous thread, nowadays you pretty much need a smoking gun to prove that someone is a racist, otherwise everyone is given every benefit of the doubt, no matter how horrible they might appear from circumstantial evidence. Sterling gave them the smoking gun, and thus can only really blame himself.
As for the rest, shady people do shady things, and try to move in to get positive publicity where they can. I don’t think most of them would have been on Jack’s list before the Sterling situation appeared anyway.
Deery: The only real thing you need to plaster the “racist” label on some white guy is for is for some black “community leader” with a following to accuse him… and on any pretext whatsoever. That goes away only when the victim, be he innocent or guilty, buys his way out with public genuflecting and cash. The latter in particular. If it wasn’t for this little racket, Al Sharpton would be shining shoes back in Harlem. When others do this sort of thing, it’s called extortion. When Al, Jesse or the NAACP do it, it becomes a matter of “raising social awareness”!
So what do we have? An elderly white billionaire whoremonger who says “something” to his concubine (maybe) that she blabs around, thus drawing in the race vultures who, like her, sense a chance for publicity and to take the old fool to the cleaners. Yep. As you say, Deery, shady folks do shady things. What we have here is a lot of shady types in a feeding frenzy.
So an owner saying to someone that he doesn’t want them bringing black people to a game is not an action?
A father saying he “prefers” his son’s African-American girlfriend not come to Thanksgiving dinner would also not be racist in your mind? Or an action?
When does speech become an action? If a owner tells his hiring director that he “prefer” that they not hire any black people, and hearing that, no black people apply, is that speech or action? Or would it be ok as long as no one knew about the directive, er preference?
To his girlfriend? Who can ignore him at at will? Of course not. It’s an expression of a desire. Is my telling my son that I wish he wouldn’t drive so fast conduct???
deery
Saying something is not an action in the same sense that doing something is an action. Thinking something is not an action either.
Just go back in your mind over your life and imagine that the worst thing you ever said or thought, something that was not meant for everyone or anyone to hear was broadcast to the world. Would you feel the same way about it then?
Saying something can be an action (i.e. fighting words, creating a hostile work environment, shouting fire in a crowded theater), so that really isn’t the point. Basically, it seems that some want to hold such actions harmless if it is between two people, and there is some sort of expected friendliness between the two parties. A kind of, “if I say something really out of bounds and racist, you are obligated not to say anything”, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
I don’t think there is an obligation to say anything, but neither is there an obligation to keep someone else’s racists thoughts a secret either. That’s the risk you run when you choose to open your mouth, with anything. I think there is even less of an obligation with a mistress who you know is taping you, and that you are turning around and suing. You are definitely taking a huge risk there.
The obligation, between friends, colleagues and loved ones, is called trust, fairness, kindness, loyalty and the Golden Rule. You would have fit right in with totalitarian requirements that family members report disloyal sentiments to authorities.
I can’t believe you wrote that.
So if someone says something completed reprehensible to you, you are obligated to keep it to yourself? You are forced to keep such views (that they almost certainly shared with other people as well) to your grave? Not buying it. Not to mention that such views may be the very thing that break such bonds, like Dog the Bounty Hunter’s son becoming disgusted about his father’s views on his interracial romance.
You would have fit right in with totalitarian requirements that family members report disloyal sentiments to authorities.
I’ve already stated that I don’t feel that someone is obliged to report such things, but nor do I feel there is an obligation for a person to keep it to themselves either. That is the risk a person takes by disclosing it, and if you want a person to keep your secrets that badly, or your views are that reprehensible, keep it to yourself, or choose very, very carefully.
In trust? A private conversation? A friend or loved one? And the sentiment isn’t the admission of a crime or plans to do wrong? Of course I have an obligation not to publicize it. What’s the matter with you?
Hmmm, ok,. Suppose you had a loved one. They took you aside, and admitted that they had very strong sexual feelings towards underage children. They never have, and according to them, never would, act on such feelings, but they had them nonetheless. They were also in a position of power and authority over a bunch of children, let’s say a coach or principal. He says he has no plans to ever act on these feelings, but he gets a thrill, in his own mind, when looking at children in their little outfits. Are you wrong if you tell someone else about this conversation?
If you think they are a danger to the children, then the criminal/likely harm exception I noted earlier applies. Otherwise? Ruin a loved one’s life and reputation based on a confidence without more? The easiest of calls.
Even though this person has confided nothing more than thoughts, and absolutely nothing actionable, you would then trust your kids with this person? Another loved one’s children? A stranger’s children? Ok. I’m glad that this would be an easy call for you, but I think a lot of people would be far more troubled, even if it was “only talk.”
That wasn’t your question. You have a duty to monitor the situation. His thoughts aren’t criminal. They aren’t unethical. They are thoughts. You would be surprised how many adults who work with children like the work because of attractions that would not be wise to reveal. Baden-Powell, who started the Boy Scouts, may well have been a repressed pedophile. Do you wonder about male coaches of female sports teams? Lots of them have “thoughts,” and as long as they stay thoughts, it’s nobody’s business. You are advocating thought crime and pre-crime.
But what to do once those thoughts are revealed? Speech can be deeply harmful, and it is not always wise to keep speech, even between confidents, strictly private. I would not condemn the person in my example who took other people aside to reveal the confidence. If you want your thoughts to be private, then you should truly keep them to yourself. But yes, once you open your mouth, you are taking a risk. It has always been thus. Or as Ben Franklin put it, “two people can keep a secret, if one of them is dead.”
Yes, it is a risk. Making a stupid statement for whatever reason brings a consequence, but do you really want to live in a world where every stupid, thoughtless, potentially risky statement results in the person hearing it telling the world? That sounds like a description of Hell.
This is an ethics blog. If you measure in your mind a world where people cannot trust anyone against a world where people allow others to make mistakes when they speak and be given the benefit of the doubt which one would you rather live in?
The world is risky enough. Why make it even worse?
That is the world we have always lived in. The only difference is people no longer can lie about it, and must live by their words. If such thoughts and speech is as widespread as people believe, then as such revelations become commonplace, pretty soon no one will care, and people would no longer need to cower, but instead stand by their statements. Wouldn’t that be a better, more honest world?
When betrayal of trust becomes commonplace and widespread we’ll have a better more honest world?
Run that past me again.
One of the great lessons of my young manhood (and one which has apparently eluded every generation after me!) is the importance of keeping the confidences of a member of the opposite sex- particularly if you’re a guy who’s close to a female. However, that truly applies across the board. There is no question in this event of anyone planning or even contemplating an illegal or unethical action. Therefore, it’s a private matter that should have remained private. You could well argue that Mr. Sterling could have been more discerning with his remarks. Yet, what prompted them was likely no more than a “lover’s spat”. You might also note that it is not wise for a elderly man to have an adulterous relationship with a younger woman to begin with, as cohabitating females of this nature are rarely in it for the love and are more likely to be treacherous. Be that as it may, it was still a betrayal of a private conversation. No doubt, our little Anna Nichole Smith wannabe will seek to profit off of the publicity. So, too, will the professional hucksters in the media and the race baiting crowd. Add the Democrat rabble rousers to the list, also, as they’re not about to pass up an opportunity to brand Sterling as a rich, racist Republican right out of their book of fables.
There is a dramatic imbalance that renders your comparison invalid. A father has a powerful influence over his son; he can withhold financial support and drastically limit his opportunities for failing to obey his racist standards. Between girlfriend and boyfriend, there is no inherent power imbalance; between two adults, this is not an issue. Ms. Stiviano could simply leave Sterling for his bigoted views. She could get a job and support herself. She faces only the (horrible) consequence of maybe not getting discount tickets to a basketball game.
Is asking your *girlfriend* to not bring certain guests (on your dime, regardless the reasons), really equivalent to a father’s implied threat of being cut off if his son dates outside the proper race? That Sterling is married and has a girlfriend shows that he is a hypocrite for wanting to limit her company. But he clearly was not coercing Ms. Stiviano financially, if she felt she could publicly shame him for racial bigotry without fear of being destitute.
I was thinking an adult son, so the comparison still holds. The son too could walk away and cut all ties if he chooses to do so.
So what? He’s already known as a pretty despicable guy and, to all who bothered to look (or cared), was long known to be. How does this little bout of racism all of a sudden turn him into Mao Tse-tung? It occurs to me that a lot of black guys are making an exceptionally good living by working for him. Likewise, I doubt there is any dearth of black fans in the arenas when the Clippers play. Now… if Sterling- for whatever private reason- didn’t want his playmate to bring her black friends to the game with her, how does that make him the Grand Imperial Wizard? Sure, he’s a lowlife. So are many of his associates. So are the ones who took his money and are now turning on him because he’s become politically incorrect. Lots of lowlifes here. For many, their race attitudes are the least of their failings.
I’m waiting for the lawsuits that will be filed against Sterling by persons claiming he owes them for loss of income, present and future, stemming from sale of the team at a fire sale price (to a new owner whom you can bet will have Al Sharpton’s approval before the new owner’s name is leaked.) We know it’s all only about grabbing money and power, a convenient opportunity to shake-down a rich white guy. I.e., racism.
Is someone trying to do the same to Putin, perhaps?
And now a political angle rears its ugly head, too. Lots of opportunities.
Gad, deery’s position presents symptoms of what Putin aims to take advantage of. Steven, we must stop this viral infestation, before the entire industrialized world is ripe for the taking by Putin clones everywhere – a living hell of Oceanias, Tattlesvilles and Sheeplelands. Folks like deery are way, way too willing to subject themselves to mob rule. I think we need to hunt down deery, arrest him and isolate him from society. But then, we would only be doing what HE wants. Such is hell; “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered” (Thomas Paine).
Shakedowns are now a fact of life! So are a lot of other ugly things besides as the concept of trial by public intimidation and humiliation for profit strengthens its grip on America’s throat.
If Sterling is banned for life from the NBA, what incentive does he have to pay that fine?
Good question. Is there any law that would compel him to sell anything having to do with the NBA of which he is already a full or partial owner? Not long ago, the question would have been regarded as absurd. Not anymore. Privacy is not a true right in the Brave New World.
I suspect a method of enforcement is in the contract somewhere…
I remain very bothered by the “force a sale” issue, and I think the rest of the owners will as well, what with the whole “homophibic” stuff (he didn’t like the idea of redefining marriage) from one of the other owners…