Words from the web
Donald Sterling, the longtime owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, was barred from the NBA for life and may be forced to sell the team for making racist remarks, the league commissioner, Adam Silver, announced Tuesday. Do you agree with the punishment? What do you think of the situation overall?
“Americans are too thin-skinned.”
“Oh yes, thinking being racist is wrong is “‘thin-skinned’.”
“He was absolutely wrong in what he said and deserved the punishment. Just wondering why when Al Sharpton makes a racist comment it’s accepted. Double standard. Racism is racism no matter what color skin you have.”
“The NBA pretty much had to go nuclear on him or risk the loss of all credibility. I think we’ve learned a valuable lesson that we can all apply to our day to day lives: if you are the billionaire owner of a NBA team and you don’t like black people, it’s a good idea to keep that opinion to yourself.”
“Who cares?”
“Exactly. Who cares? The NBA is a private business that can punish it’s employees or franchise owners any way they want. That’s an actual right. If you owned a business you could fire someone for saying stupid stuff too.
“The fans should decide if they want to support the team or not. Let the free market decide.”
“We still have freedom of speech in this country. If the fans decide not to go to the games, that’s their personal decision.”
“The fans aren’t against the team. They don’t want to support the racist owner of the team. It’s a Catch 22. The players are stuck in a tough moral position where they’re going for a championship, but have to play under the ownership of this guy. They don’t like the situation just as much as the fans don’t like it, but they want to win a championship for themselves, not the owner.”
“When it comes to the free speech argument, a lot of people totally misunderstand what it means. Free speech was meant to keep the government from prosecuting people for openly criticizing them or their policies. It does not mean we as citizens of America can say whatever we want to each other without any type of repercussions from other citizens. Sure, the guy can say or think whatever he pleases, doesn’t mean he won’t or shouldn’t face any type of backlash.”