So it turns out that the owner of the L.A. Clippers, Donald T. Sterling, is a loathsome racist who told his girlfriend V. Stiviano that recent photographs of her and Magic Johnson bothered him “a lot, that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people.” Naturally the media jumped on this and Sterling has been ridiculed and denounced just about everywhere. In racist Amerikkka, it’s nice to have such a clear-cut, undeniable example of racism so that even the “somewhat” racist crowd have an opportunity to prove how not-racist they are.
In addition to harboring these loathsome views, Sterling has committed some other unpardonable sins, first and foremost being just about the nastiest thing I could ever think to call anyone, a West Coast version of Donald Trump. Attentive readers of the L.A. Times will be familiar with these bizarre advertisements sprinkled about occasionally in which Sterling is touting not so much any enterprise he’s associated with, but Donald T. Sterling himself.
Here’s Irvine resident and astute blogger Kevin Drum describing the horror:
He gives away lots of money, and when he does he makes sure everyone knows about it. Ads thanking Sterling for his good deeds simply litter the Times. ... They’re all the same: they have terrible, amateur production values; they all use the exact same cutout portrait of Sterling; and they all feature photos of the people honoring Sterling that look like they were taken with a 60s-era Instamatic. These ads appear multiple times a week. Sometimes multiple times a day. Sterling is constantly being honored for something or other, and every single honor is an occasion for him to advertise the fact in the LA Times. And always with the exact same cutout photo of himself. It’s kind of creepy.
Here’s an example, taken from Sunday’s paper:
Here are a couple other examples of the light Sterling touch, always with the same stupid photo:
While we’re cataloguing the bizarre workings of Sterling’s brain, I have to mention quickly this amazing thing that Josh Marshall at TPM caught over the weekend. In 2003 Sterling sued a former mistress of his to get back the house he once gave her. Asked to identify his own handwriting, Sterling answered as follows (the questioner’s follow-up is just about the funniest thing ever):
By the way, apparently Sterling’s racist views have been public knowledge for quite a while now. In addition to this helpful Deadspin guide to Sterling’s racism going back decades, here’s comedian/rapper/entrepreneur Nick Cannon on ESPN nine months ago having difficulty defending the owner of his favorite basketball team (jump to the 1:30 mark):