Former Los Angeles Clippers owners Donald Sterling and V. Stiviano watch the San Antonio Spurs take on the Memphis Grizzlies in the 2013 NBA Playoffs Western Conference Finals
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Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
This week, I took advantage of pop culture happy hour to chat with the great Aisha Harris about Clipped, the new FX miniseries about the Donald Sterling scandal that rocked the sports world a decade ago. If you don’t remember that circus, here’s a recap: Sterling, the notoriously dirty owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. other NBA team in Los Angeles), was recorded making lewd remarks about black people by his potential mistress, V. Stiviano.
After TMZ leaked the tape, the next few news cycles were filled with extremely clumsy damage control, including Stiviano’s historic banana sit-down with Barbara Walters, which included this one Incredible communication.
Players across the league have made it clear they will not play if Sterling remains owner. Aware of the impending rebellion, the NBA took the unprecedented step of immediately banning Sterling from the league—for life. The impact of this moment is still felt throughout the NBA.
Donald Sterling has been suspended from the NBA for racially insensitive remarks, and to many who have followed him for a long time, it seems like it should have come sooner. He built his fortune in real estate while being sued again and again for discriminating against black and Latino tenants in Los Angeles. . But why not?
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Well, maybe he got away with it, because everyone gets away with it. Stop me if you’ve heard me say this before: Racism is so deeply woven into our housing market that it’s functionally definition real estate market. It determines the apartments and houses shown to potential buyers and renters, mortgage terms, the value of people’s homes and perceptions of nearby schools. Meanwhile, the bank made little ripples in the national press by settling a lawsuit that discriminated against mortgage borrowers of color. Sterling was the rare public figure in this classic case of anonymous institutional discrimination, but he was ultimately ruined when his mistress recorded him saying some very stupid things.
It all brings to mind another Donald, whose early emergence into the national spotlight came in 1973, at the age of 27, when he was accused of denying housing to black renters. Donald was not punished as a result of any of these lawsuits or investigations. Sterling was later forced to sell the Clippers, which netted him $2 billion—not a bad haul for a team he purchased for about $13 million in the 1980s. As for the other Donald? Well, you probably Googled, “If the president is found guilty, can he pardon himself?” That was the case last week.
This story was written by Gene Demby and edited by Courtney Stein.
