This week we have Donald Sterling not wanting his half black former girlfriend (oh, he still married to his wife) associating in public with black players. Did I forget to mention he owns a basketball team, where a majority of players are black? Last week we had Cliven Bundy, who has some trouble with the federal government over land use rights for his cattle. Since he must be an expert in breeding, he offered up some sage wisdom about ‘the Negro.’ He wondered if the Negro would be better off a slaves than under government subsidies. He came to this revelation after he saw some old and young people ‘doing nothing’ at a housing project in Nevada. Oh, and somewhere in the middle of these two incidents, Bill O’Reilly found time to denounce Beyoncé. He was upset she is the cover model for Time Magazine’s Most Influential People issue, claiming she is a negative influence on young black girls.

Despite what a lot of news organizations like the LA Times would like to admit, racism is alive and well in America. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that every week there is at least one incident of racism that is reported in the mainstream media, and that would include Fox News. The racism will span the spectrum of newly minted media darlings line Bundy or powerful pundits like O’Reilly or rich folks like Sterling. Unlike many of the other news outlets, I’m not going to express shock and surprise about this because it happens so often. We are told these incidents are few and far between, yet week after week another racism story comes up. It might not have the social impact of Sterling or Bundy, but they happen.

The LA Times inadvertently talked about what I feel is the main story in all of these racism stories. In trying to lessen the impact of the racial event, either the subject or an entity like the LA Times will use the ‘some of my best friends are (fill in the blank).’ I started out wanting to write this article because someone on FB sent me a link to a story that ‘proved’ Bundy wasn’t a racist. There is a black man who has joined the armed militia people in protecting Bundy. If he wasn’t racist, the argument goes, why would he accept help from a black man? Some people have said Sterling can’t be racist because his former girlfriend, the one he is heard talking to on the tape, his half black. The LA Times had an editorial suggesting the reaction to the controversy is out of place. They argue we have a black president, there are rich black people in sports and entertainment, and in an interesting bit of logic suggest that a lot of the country is focused on Kanye West, Kim Kardashian and her baby, the country must be going in the right direction on race.

Here is a section of what I’m referring to, written by Paul Whitefield in the La Times on April 28:

Bundy’s musings that blacks were better off as slaves, and Sterling’s supposed racist comments (as posted by two websites but not authenticated), were swiftly condemned. That fact alone shows that this isn’t great-grandpa, or even grandpa’s America.

Want more proof? Suffice to say that, in 1950s America, would an African American man who already owns part of a storied baseball franchise — Magic Johnson — be mentioned as a possible successor to the owner of the Clippers? 

That, ladies and gentlemen, is who we really are now. That’s how far we’ve come.

It isn’t just that we have a black president. After all, we’ve had black politicians for a long time.

Now we have black entrepreneurs: Magic, Sean Combs, Oprah Winfrey, heck, even Herman Cain, just to mention a few.

And socially? We celebrate (well, OK, we’re intensely interested in) the impending marriage of a black man, Kanye West, to a white woman, Kim Kardashian. And we fawn over pictures of their baby daughter. Fifty, 60 years ago, in many states they wouldn’t even have been allowed to marry.
And black entertainers thrive; African Americans dominate professional basketball and football.

The writer does acknowledge there are racial issues against the Black and Hispanic communities, but claims that Sterling and Bundy represent a small and dying bit of our past. Let me suggest something the writer might like to think about. Yes, the mention of all the rich black people is rather interesting, but I would suggest taking the Charles Barkley math when thinking about rich in America. The players on the Clippers are rich, but the owner is richer. Think about this; it seems that Chris Paul is the highest paid Clipper with a little over $18 million dollars and the whole team is paid just over $73 million. Sterling bought the Clippers in 1981 for $12.5 million and the team is now worth $575 million. His net worth is just shy of $2 billion. So when I look at the entrepreneurs list given by the writer, I see Oprah has a worth of $3 billion, Magic Johnson only has $500 million, Sean Combs is worth $580 million and Herman Cain is worth is roughly $7 million. So of all the people listed as proof of black people making it, if you remove the Clippers from the equation, again at a worth of $575 million, Sterling is still richer than anyone other than Oprah on this list. When you compare Sterling to the richest Americans according to Forbes, his $2 billion doesn’t get him a place at the table. Bill Gates, top of the list, is worth $72 billion.

While the writer wants to say the whole country is interested with Kanye and Kim, I don’t think they are celebrating for the right reasons. Let’s blunt, Kim Kardashian is famous for having sex with a black man, then for dating a black athlete, then marrying a half black athlete and now possibly marrying a black entertainer. For every person who calls her an inspiration, you will find someone who doesn’t care and someone who will call her a slut and a whore. I would suggest the observation is of Kardashian and not of her male companions.

All of the examples the writer uses illustrates the cold fact that when it comes to being Black and racism, we can’t come up with an overwhelming example of progress. If I asked someone to name 100 entrepreneurs, I doubt there would be many minorities on that list. The big sin many make in talking about race is trying to find The One. Have a racial incident happen in this country and the first person people will look for is the ‘racial spokesman.’ Why do minorities have to have someone speak for us in times of crisis but white people don’t? Yesterday I was watching a number of local newscasts covering the Sterling story. One station had their black sports reporter on the air with a lengthy commentary on the incident. Jackie Robinson’s daughter was in town for an entirely different event and she was asked about the Sterling incident. I know Al Sharpton has weighed in on his show. Remember, the other side uses a racial ‘best friend’ to justify the actions a little bit. The whole exercise is to find a black person to support or refute the story. Somehow if you get The One to speak, it will sit well ‘with the entire community.’

Minorities have had to practice solidarity in America and an unfortunately legacy of that is the minority leader. Politicians and business leaders would court favor with these community leaders to get projects fast tracked or to bring voters to the polls. Supposedly this was done to bring money to the impoverished minority communities but in many cases the money lined the pockets of the leaders. That brings me to the disturbing side of the Sterling issue, which makes it much more than a racism issue. It was said that the LA Chapter of the NAACP was going to give a lifetime achievement award to Sterling next month. It would have been the second lifetime achievement award to Sterling from the chapter. Why? A simple thing called money. Sterling has had a lot of racial trouble in the past few years, so it could be argued (and to me it would be a thin argument) that the LA chapter of the NAACP didn’t know of Sterling’s past troubles. They had to have known of his issues this time around. Remember, this is a lifetime achievement award, so to me that means your lifetime of work has to be taken into consideration. If you had to pay a fine because you discriminated in apartment rentals to minorities, I would say that might tarnish the image of a lifetime achievement. Ah, but when you use the magical powers of green (money) that all goes away. In a statement made by the LA chapter of the NAACP where they talked about cancelling the award ceremony, they also mentioned they were going to return the money Sterling gave to them. So, being blunt, the guy gave money to the NAACP and instead of telling him where he could stick his money, they overlooked past transgressions and were more than willing to give him the award.

The whole racism issue doesn’t bother me because I’m immune to it. You will continue to have people make racist comments. Part of why we will continue to have the comments is we are unwilling to be relentless in calling people out about it. We will give excuses, we will hope for ‘the leaders’ to absolve us, or condemn, or otherwise set the outrage for us. We will always look to The One to absolve us of our racial insecurities. We don’t have racism in America, we elected a black President. Cliven Bundy can’t mean those words he said about blacks and slavery. He has a black person protecting him. Bill O’Reilly has black guests on his show so he can’t be touting racism when he makes comments about Beyoncé.

I ask you to think about what if outrageous comments were treated seriously from the majority perspective and had to be owned. Does Bill O’Reilly speak for all of white America? How about Cliven Bundy? What about Rush Limbaugh? If they talk it isn’t assumed they speak for all of white America. If anything they speak for the right wing Republican America. I tell you what, when people start treating minorities in this country as people and not monolithic voting blocks, I will stop regarding Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck and others as the spokespeople for the Republican Party.