Donald Sterling Los Angeles Clippers disgruntled owner was handed a lifetime ban after he used racial slurs recorded in a recorded conversation with his girlfriend.
A leak of an audio recording purportedly reveals Donald Sterling Los Angeles Clippers boss telling V. Stivianon, Sterling's girlfriend 'not to bring black people to his team's basketball games,' CBC.ca reported.
Following a ban from NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, Sterling was ordered a hefty fine, and the LA basketball team's boss refused to sell his team; this was one of the conditions stated by Commissioner Silver. Players and affiliates of the league have praised Mr. Silver's decision.
Reports highlighted that after news of the racist rant that mentioned LA Hall of Famer, Magic Johnson, a number of advertisers had abandoned their interest in LA Clippers. Johnson also said that he would not attend any Clippers games, if Sterling was still calling the shots.
terling reportedly said on the phone to Stivianon, "It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you're associating with black people. Do you have to?" Apparently, the conversation was a recorded call.
"You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it on that ... and not to bring them to my games."
That remark received a raging twitter reaction with celebs and former NBA players joining in on slamming Sterling for what Oprah Winfrey called, 'plantation mentality.' She also tweeted, 'We're off the plantation.'
The comment resonates with Winfrey's role in the movie, Color Purple, a critically acclaimed film about Winfrey's portrayal of how people were treated on a southern cotton plantation. She was joined by Arsenio Hall, a comedian who was a talk show host between the 80s and the 90s.
The National Basketball Association responded to the recording as "disturbing and offensive" on Saturday before urging Sterling to leave the NBA. The dispirited comments first appeared on TMZ on Friday.
Sterling has not responded to the allegations.
U.S. President Barack Obama had this to say about the 'Donald Sterling Los Angeles Clippers Racist Remarks Debacle': "When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don't really have to do anything. You just let them talk." He inferred that the comments from Donald Sterling were 'the vestiges of discrimination," still rampant in the U.S.
Incidentally, Sterling has not responded to the allegations.
With Reports From CBC, FoxSports
