Black NBA Owner Held Black Only Party, Whites Turned Away; NBA Did Nothing

By Debbie Schlussel

In the wake of this week’s NBA proposed lifetime ban and $2.5 million fine for Donald Sterling, a longtime reader reminded me that I’d written about another NBA owner, a Black man, who held a party in which Whites were refused entry and turned away. And, yet, the NBA did nothing.

As I’ve already pointed out, Black racism and bigotry against Whites, Jews, Mormons, and gays is tolerated by the NBA. But a private racist conversation by a White owner is not. And here is an instance of a Black then-NBA owner whose public, deliberate racism was tolerated and ignored. Jay-Z a/k/a Shawn Carter was an owner of the Brooklyn Nets, an NBA Team, from 2003 through mid-April 2013. But, as I noted on this site, in February 2010, Jay-Z held a lavish party at the Merah club in central London, and banned White people from attending. The party, for music industry executives, reporters, and other Jay-Z ass-kissers was for Blacks only. Bouncers were instructed to refuse entry to Whites.

Reader Chris reminded me that I’d written about this, and noted:

    "Wasn’t Jay-Z part owner of Brooklyn/New Jersey Nets when he threw that racist party you wrote about? I don’t remember any NBA controversy over that."

I don’t either, but here’s a reminder from my 2010 post, “More Obama ‘Post-Racialism’ Courtesy of Jay-Z“:

    "Jay-Z was caught up in a race row when bouncers at his BRITs after-show party “banned” white people from boozing with the star. Chart legend Jay-Z threw a lavish bash but music industry executives, journalists and revellers were turned away from the roped-off area because of the colour of their skin.

    Minders were spotted banning clubbers from the private event because they were not “of colour”. . . . One clubber said: “The security guards were happy to let in all party-goers apart from the white people."

Again, this was a deliberate, public, racist act by a Black NBA owner, as opposed to a private telephone conversation. I wonder how many current NBA owners would keep their teams if we heard everything they say in private. Probably none.

And remember, this is Jay-Z, who was a drug dealer, shot his own brother, and stabbed a record executive in 1999. He was indicted in 2000 over the stabbing and was given a plead deal in which he was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor.

Yet, the NBA had no problem with this racist, violent thug owning a team. Because, hey, he’s Black!

Did Donald Sterling (who is a jerk, but so is Jay-Z and so are many NBA owners) ever stab anyone? Shoot anyone? Deal drugs? Ban Blacks from his NBA games with security guards turning them away based on skin color?

Nope.

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Neither Bundy nor Sterling are racists

 Just like the Senator McCarthy inspired communist witch hunts in the 1950’s many Americans today are engaging in the wholly irrational activity of racist witch hunting. Some see a racist behind every bush and these morons are eager to scream for blood when they think they’ve found one.

Of course there are certainly vestiges of personal racism in the minds of some folks. Racism, however, is a matter of degree.
On the one hand we still have an extremely tiny minority of people who actually harbor violent, venomous and irrational hatred for others simply because of the color of their skin. Those kinds of racists are often dangerous criminals and deserve to be dealt with and punished by society accordingly.

On the other end of the spectrum are those who simply can’t seem to eliminate all of the common age old racial stereotypes from their consciousness. That often causes them to innocently make irrational judgments or say things which might seem bigoted and shameful but are clearly not motivated by any amount of hatred, personal animosity or violence.

I would not call this latter type of person a racist. It’s not fair. If they are racists then we must logically conclude then that just about everyone at some time or another is a racist. We would have to conclude that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and yes, even Abraham Lincoln were racists.  Every one of the founding fathers and every great historical American figure that we admire today were racists by that definition of racist.

The folks who demand racial preferences based upon race are racists. The ones who today are screaming for the blood of people they deem to be racists -- the ones who see racists behind every bush -- are themselves racists by that broad definition of the term racist. Everywhere they look they see racists, even when they look in the mirror.

Poor Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher involved with the federal government standoff over grazing rights for his cattle has been savagely vilified as a racist by the American racist witch hunting mob for simply using the term “Negro” when referring to blacks. That man doesn’t hate blacks. He’s not a racist.

Need I remind anyone that the great Dr. Martin Luther King used the term “Negro” all the time. I doubt if he ever said “African American” once in his entire life. I guess that means that Dr. King was a racist by today’s ridiculous cultural standards. I’ll wager money that the term “African American” will one day have users of it branded as racists.

What the hell is an African American anyway? Is a white skinned person born in South Africa and naturalized as an American citizen an African American? No he is certainly not. Why; because he’s not black, that’s why. The white guy is an American but the black guy is an African American. It’s ridiculous.

What the hell is a “Native American” anyway? I was born in America. Doesn’t that make me a Native American? I think it does. I’m a Native American. I’m not a European American. I’ve never even been to Europe. I’m an American just like any black person born in America is an American. It insults those people to call them African Americans.

And now the savage pack of American racist witch hunters have viciously descended upon 80-year-old Los Angles NBA Clippers owner Donald Sterling for saying in a private conversation taped without his knowledge -- in private mind you -- that he was disappointed with his former mistress for consorting openly with “black people.” For this unforgivable transgression, Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, has banned him from the NBA for life.

The whole nation wants his blood. But this guy doesn’t hate black people. He pays black people millions of dollars to play basketball on his team. He invites black people to his daughter’s wedding. He’s just burdened with a few negative stereotypes about blacks. He may be bigoted to some extent but he’s no racist. He probably doesn’t have a violent thought in his mind about blacks.

The people who want his blood are the ones who are un-American.
They’re guilty of American racist witch hunting.

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What's going on in Egypt?

Since the coup of July 3, 2013, Egypt's de facto ruler Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has pursued a clear and uncompromising policy toward the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt's Islamists.

Sisi has blocked any return to politics for the Brotherhood, instead seeking to maneuver them into open confrontation with the authorities. He has dismissed any genuine distinction between the Brotherhood and the more extreme and openly insurgent jihadist currents.

In so doing, Sisi and his colleagues upturned what had slowly become conventional wisdom in the West and part of the region – namely, that the Muslim Brotherhood was a legitimate political organization, and that their rise was possibly benign, and probably inevitable.

So far, Sisi's policy has been relatively successful. It has provoked a campaign of mass civil disobedience by the Brotherhood and its supporters, as its instigators probably knew it would. The authorities in Cairo are also dealing with an ongoing problem of terrorism in northern Sinai. The jihadist groups sometimes manage to strike west of the Suez Canal.

But in terms of power, none of this poses any threat to the field marshal's continued rule.

In recent days in Egypt, a series of developments have further reflected the stark and uncompromising nature of Egypt's counter-revolution.

On Monday, a court in the town of Minya passed death sentences against 683 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and the government of ousted president Mohamed Morsi. Among the condemned were Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie. Badie, as the most senior official of the Brotherhood in Egypt, was arguably the most powerful man in the country during the rule of the Brotherhood.

He and 682 others were convicted on Monday of attacking a police station in Adawa on August 14, 2013, and killing a police officer, Mamdouh Kotb Mohamed Kotb, following the breakup by the Egyptian authorities of the Brotherhood protest at the Rabaa Square in Cairo.

The verdicts must be ratified by Egypt's grand mufti before they can be carried out. June 21 has been set as the deadline for ratification. It is likely that a large proportion of the death sentences will be commuted. Of 529 death sentences handed down in March against supporters of the Brotherhood, 37 were this week confirmed.

In addition, Egyptian authorities this week ordered the banning of the April 6 youth movement.

Established in 2008, the group played a prominent role in the toppling of former president Hosni Mubarak in January 2011.

The Court for Urgent Matters confirmed the ban on the group's activities, charging it with engaging in "espionage and defamation of the state." The April 6 movement is set to appeal the ban.

Presidential and parliamentary elections in Egypt are scheduled to take place in the coming months.

Sisi is likely to be elected president in polls set for May 26-27. Parliamentary elections will take place later in the year. The Tamarod movement, which supported the coup, has said that it will run as a party in the elections.

Meanwhile, the Brotherhood's campaign of civil disobedience continues to fizzle on. One man was killed in clashes between supporters of the movement and police at a funeral in the Nile Delta. Brotherhood supporters also tried to block a main highway in the greater Cairo area, leading to 12 arrests.

Western countries are expressing concern at the draconian measures adopted by Sisi. US Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee, has refused to sign off on military aid to Egypt following the announcement of the 683 death sentences this week. Germany summoned the Egyptian ambassador to Berlin to protest the sentences.

Certainly, Sisi's approach is paradigmatically different from the Western response to the "Arab Spring" unrest of 2011-12.

Former US secretary of defense Robert Gates, in his recent book of memoirs Duty, describes how President Barack Obama overrode the advice of his most senior national security officials when the unrest against Mubarak began.

Concerned, Gates contends, not to appear on the "wrong side of history," and influenced above all by security advisers Denis McDonough, John Brennan and Ben Rhodes, the president called Mubarak to demand his resignation.

This act made Mubarak's fall inevitable. It also set the tone for what then became received wisdom on the inevitability and desirability of this fall, and set in motion the events that led to the Muslim Brotherhood's subsequent triumph.

Sisi and his colleagues, by contrast, have taken the view that with regard to the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies, politics must mean the continuation of war by other means.

This conclusion is shared by Sisi's key regional backers – Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – and by Israel. It derives from the understanding that the Brotherhood itself, like other totalitarian movements, regards politics as a method of waging war by other means, and therefore any effective response to the movement must involve a similar approach.

The new political dispensation set to emerge this year will not represent a shining example of democracy for the Arab world. It is likely to combine authoritarian and representative elements, and to be accompanied by a smoldering Islamist attempt at insurgency.

It will, however, conclusively draw a line under the possibility of the emergence of a Sunni Iran on the Nile. For this, Sisi will continue to enjoy the quiet gratitude of opponents of Iran in Jerusalem, Riyadh and elsewhere in the region.

SOURCE

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