Again, I'm not arguing that the NBA didn't have a right to do what they did.Sponsors dropping his team is what should happen, though. That's how this stuff needs to work.
The NBA did what any other company would do to someone that damaged it's image and brand. If you did something to make your company look bad, you'd get fired.
And this is the problem with making private conversations public: People refuse to consider the context. As I explained ot goldo above, he wasn't saying that Magic Johnson couldn't come to his games or buy tickets to them. He never said black people shouldn't show up or that they should be refused service. That's not even close to what he said and yet that's the way it's being presented. I have to wonder how many of the outraged folks out there even know what they're outraged about.
You make it sound as if just because he said something in private, he hasn't done anything that could be considered discrimination against employees or fans. He already has a track record of discrimination against minorities. The butterfly that it has come out regarding his other business dealings, does not mean it hasn't occurred in the Clippers organization.
Not just that. This racist should also have been forced to read out loud Dan Gilbert's whiney letter about LeBron until his tongue fell out, too.
There's a special place in hell for people like you, you monster!
As I said before, if Doc Rivers wants to say f-you and refuse to come back, if his players want to do more than wear their jerseys inside out and instead all bail as soon as they're able or refuse to play until they're traded, if the concession workers all walk out and quit, if the fans cancel their season tickets and refuse to show up, if the fans at home refuse to watch a game, well that's great. That's how this should play out. They're adults who can - and should have the right to - make their own decisions.
They are bound by contracts. They may want to leave, and I think one of the Clippers' players said as much, but he has a contract. NPR had some legal guy on there talking about how that was a possibility if he had something about hostile work environment or something like that. So yeah, they can want to leave, but they are restricted by their contracts. Just like Sterling is bound by his contract.
We need to tread very carefully when we punish people for what they say instead of what they do.
Why? They are both behaviors.
Yeah, I must have been drunk.
You must have.
See my explanation above as to why the suck is not a valid reason to boot the guy. And yeah, 'ruin' was a really dumb word to choose.
Of course it's not a valid reason on it's own. Taken with everything else, it's just another notch in the boot him column.
Ok, that's great. So what's next? What thing as a people do we decide that we do or don't like should we force everyone else to like or not or be punished in some way?
Whatever society decides. That's how it generally works. We have social norms, and those that violate those norms suffer the consequences. Besides, it's not like he is being criminally charged and punished with jail time. He is getting kicked out of a group. It happens all the time. You can see it in school kids. All these social cliques have similar rules and consequences. You do something that violates the group's rules, yo get ostracized from it.
Had he done something racist this would be different. He didn't. Nobody was even actually banned from the facility. He told her not to bring people but never said they'd be physically prevented from entering the arena. The bottom line is that we've seen no proof he did anything at all.
He has done racist things. Look at his troubles with his real estate stuff and discriminating against minorities. You can't just take what he said in the phone call and quarantine it. It's not like this guy is a racist, except when he is dealing with the Clippers. He hates black people renting in Beverly hills, but he loves black people when it has to do with basketball, unless his girlfriend brings them to a basketball game, then he hates them, unless they are players, but he might hate the other employees if they are black, unless they come to the game as a paying fan, etc.