Coach Norman joins outcry vs Sterling
“It’s black slavery all over again!”
These words stuck in my mind after a 10-minute interview with Talk ‘N Text coach Norman Black recently.
Norman was having difficulty comprehending how a racist like Donald Sterling, who detests African-Americans and looks down on them, could own a team in the NBA.
Black said he was appalled when he learned about the very offensive statements the Los Angeles Clippers owner made, a recording of which was aired in the US entertainment network TMZ.
Sterling prohibited his girlfriend V. Stiviano, a black American-Mexican, from “associating publicly with minorities” after she had posted a photo of herself with NBA great Magic Johnson on Instagram.
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“How could he own an NBA team when majority of the people working for him are colored. How could he even be involved in sports, when sports is supposed to be colorless,” said Black, who believes that Sterling’s involvement with the Clippers, a team he has owned since 1981, is strictly business.
“It hurts,” said Black. “I’m sure his players are hurt because they now know they are only a commodity owned by Sterling from which he could earn—just like slaves of a long-forgotten era.
“I thought discrimination no longer exists in this day and age. Apparently it still does.”
Black recounted his own experience many decades ago when he was still playing high school basketball in Baltimore, Maryland.
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“We were on a basketball tour of the countryside and we stopped in one restaurant to eat,” he recounted.
“The waitress refused to serve me because I was black.”
The entire team walked out of the place and looked for another place to eat.
“There is no longer room in our present society for Sterling’s kind of attitude,” Black stressed even as he praised NBA commissioner Adam Silver “for doing a great job” in handling the controversy.
Silver banned Sterling from the league for life and fined him a maximum of $2.6 million.
“Whatever sanctions [Sterling] gets, he deserves!” Black said.
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Former and present league owners, and no less than US President Barack Obama, have condemned Sterling’s racist statements.
In due time, Sterling may even be forced to sell the Clippers franchise
Oprah Winfrey, one of the world’s richest women, and world boxing champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. have expressed interest in buying the franchise.
Sterling said, however, that he has absolutely no plans to sell.
