Sports Racism

It is remotely possible that I could somehow be talked into having the teeniest bit of sympathy for Donald Sterling, the racist owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. His troubles have, after all, been caused by the release of taped private conversations. (I don't know that this matters, but I seem to recall hearing at some point that the conversations were taped at his request.) For that to happen, however, someone will have to make a far stronger 4th-amendment argument than anything I have yet heard. As far as I'm concerned, he deserves all of the penalties that have been handed down by the NBA as well as all of the social opprobrium generally.

There has been much written about the fact that Sterling's history of racism was never a secret. His fellow owners, who now feel forced to take action against him, have been quite comfortable with him for the last 35 years. I think that is probably true and speaks to the matter of institutional racism in the United States.

But rather than try to generalize about past actions, or the lack of actions, and speculate about what that all means, it is far more interesting to me to look at the world of professional sports right now, already thinking of Donald Sterling as a relic of the past. The same sports commentators who are congratulating the new NBA commissioner for his prompt action against Sterling's overt racism, apparently see no racism in the names and logos of the Washington Redskins or the Cleveland Indians.

People need to stay away from Cleveland baseball games and Washington football games, wherever they are played. At home in recent years, Cleveland has always ranked at or near the bottom of Major League Baseball attendance. At this early point in the current season, they are at the bottom. If baseball fans around the country would simply refuse to show up to Cleveland's road games, so that they drew as poorly on the road as they do at home, I have no doubt the other owners would unite to take action.

I don't know anything about the NFL, but I think I know enough about capitalist owners to think a similar boycott of Washington football games around the country would produce results.