Los Angeles Clippers turn warmups inside out before Game 4

[brooklynite]

Source: USA Today

Many people have wondered how the Los Angeles Clippers would respond the the racially insensitive comments reportedly made by team owner Donald Sterling. LeBron James said Saturday that he would consider sitting out if he was on the team, and Shaquille O’Neal wondered if the Clippers might shut down. Before Game 4 against the Warriors, the Clippers took the court as a team and made their statement.



The Clippers took off their shooting shirts and dumped them at center court.

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The team then warmed up wearing generic red shirts with no logo.


Read more: http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/04/los-angeles-clippers-donald-sterling-response

[Tempest]

1. Are they intentionally throwing the game?

They're playing like it.

[SoapBox]

7. I can't even watch...

It's another of many games for the team...do they "show up" or not...

This appears to be one of the "no show" games...playing like shit.

They may be mad...they may be angry...but, they are the best squad of Clippers players ever, so, how about focusing on business? Maybe they're angry with the millions they are getting paid!?!

...sheesh.

[greiner3]

15. I agree that professional sports teams' players are paid a hell of a lot of money;

But to equate how they feel with the money they make is wrong.

Sorry to let you in on this fact.

[jtuck004]

2. Why don't they just go start their own team, run it as a co-op? Does he own them or something? n/t

[cantbeserious]

3. Does Ownership Justify Racism?

eom

[jtuck004]

4. Ownership means its up to the owner what happens with the assets. In this country, anyway.

That ownership implies certain rights, which is why people died to try and control it early in the last century, and what a lot of the fights about our growing inequality are about.

Yet here we are.

So people can either beg him to change, which, of course, depending on his resources and attitude he may or may not, or they could become equals, no matter the cost, because freedom is worth more than anything else.

Today it's not, of course, if it means depriving us of cable and lazyboys, but one day, maybe...

[cantbeserious]

5. Well Then - The Oligarchs Now Have An Excuse To Gut Social Progress - They Are Entitled By Ownership

eom

[jtuck004]

12. They've never needed an excuse. They just don't give a fuck about anything but profit. It's all the

rather slow people around them who think that somehow they will turn their benevolent light their way, and kill themselves in a lifelong pursuit of waiting, waiting...

The people forget that the only thing those bastards have is what we gave them. Anytime we decide freedom from them is better than the uncertain existence of being kept by them, even if it means dying, we can change it.

Until then, we just wait for the buzzer and the start of the game.

[Yavin4]

6. It's not that clear cut

Yes, Donal Sterling is an owner, but he's in a high-profile, media-focused cooperation with other owners. He does not have the ultimate freedom to say and do what he wants if it negatively impacts his fellow owners.

You can own a home in an up-scale neighborhood, but you cannot paint it purple.

[Mr.Bill]

8. He is also in a heavily-regulated franchise agreement.

He can't exactly just do whatever he wants. And neither can the players. They are also contractually obligated, and obligated to their fans. I like what they did here. Good way to make a statement without disrupting business. A lot of people's jobs are at stake with any sports franchise.

[jtuck004]

11. Sure I can. All I have to do is own enough of the neighborhood. But I get your point.

But I doubt rather seriously that he gives a flying rat's ass about other owners, the people he owns in his stable, or on his plantation, or team or whatever they call it, or anyone else. He has almost $2 billion gained from being a slum lord, so if this costs him too much he will just cut it loose and go on trying to move black folk out of housing so he can profit from it.

After all is said and done he will still be a rich, right-wing racist and bigot, and still have the power to influence a lot of people to act in ways that hurt them and others.

Because he owns the assets - which others could own, if they wanted to pay the price to get them and make the decisions. Then they would be an equal and it wouldn't matter what he said, because he would have no more power they they.

Rah team.

[mulsh]

9. Talking Points Memo has the video up

[link:https://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/|

[denbot]

10. Watching the game. Clippers are playing a hard.

Getting their asses handed to them (LAC-90 GS-107 4THQ 3:03 left) but playing like pros.

[freshwest]

13. Conservative racist billionaires see people as things to be used and discarded. Read the transcript:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2614336/Obama-wades-Clippers-row-racist-comments-attributed-Don-Sterling.html

Read it all the way down. He calls minorities 'the enemy' and refers to his players with the same racist slave framing as Bundy. His attitude on people of color, and whoever he uses for sex or anything is filthy. But he's rich! So people bow down and give him money. And while the team president and others are crawfishing all over his remarks, not everyone is:



Keith Olberman says the Clippers should boycott the playoffs and refuse to step back onto the court until the NBA takes action against Donald Sterling. Olbermann went to Twitter this morning. 'time for #Clippers players to step up. Refuse to play till NBA moves against this racist jackass #Sterling. NBA can't defend him.'

This will be a good object lesson in those who are paid by this racist troll, and how far they are willing to confront the source of their income. The gloves are off now, they've been coming off for several years. It's likely they'll bow to the man who made them wealthy, even though he has no respect for them. And yes, there is something off with the woman in the story, he told her he didn't care who she had sex with, which makes her 'just what' in his eyes?

She is his mistress, he's still married to another woman who accepts him going with other women. And it's likely she's being supported to keep 'the lifestyle she's become accustomed to,' as the saying goes.

He also brags about paying $500 for sex. His mentality is like many, that everything has a monetary value and no rights. Pretty sure this guy doesn't believe in one person one vote, either. He doesn't care, so long as his crew keeps in power. This is top down tribalism.

I think the players had to have been shocked at the way he spoke of them, as if they were living on his plantation. Maybe this country needs to rethink its love of media spectacles, realize the kind of rascals that benefit from income inequality, and what this is driving us to become on a very, very personal level. This guy certainly gets it.

Another piece at the same website quotes in detail what Obama said, when apparently asked about it. The comments ranged from 'he should be doing his job and shut up' to 'he's just playing to the blacks' and 'how dare he jump into this and say anything, it's none of his business.'

Duh, he was asked! He did not ask for air time on the networks for show, like Bundy, et al. But the Koch brothers run FNN...

Nope, there's no racism! The major part of Obama's words are good advice and I can't help but think, as it's been proven before, he has a strategy to give those who want to lynch him, have all the rope they need to hang themselves.

As more of this comes out, people will need to make a decision on their fake or real beliefs in equality, a decision will affect how they are treated as well:

At a press conference with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak Sunday, Obama was asked about racist comments Sterling allegedly made about African-Americans.

'When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don't really have to do anything, you just let them talk. That's what happened here,' the President said.

Obama also said Sterling's alleged comments are an example of how 'the United States continues to wrestle with the legacy of race and slavery and segregation.'

'That's still there, the vestiges of discrimination. We've made enormous strides, but you're going to continue to see this percolate up every so often,' Obama said in Malaysia.

[jonjensen]

14. washington redskins and african americans

pastor Wilhelm neimoller said it best when they came for the jews I was not a jew so I said nothing when they came for me their was no one left to say anything! The black community alows the team washington redskins to be called that racist word they would not allow them to be called black skins or the jews allow daniel snyder to call his team an anti-Semitic slur! protect all and you protect yourself so their will be someone to say something when they come for you.