Here We Go Again...

First Nevada rancher and federal government denier Cliven Bundy declaims what he "knows" about "the Negro." Now Donald Sterling, a rich guy who owns a basketball team, tells his girlfriend not to show up with black guys at his games, or post photos of her with Magic Johnson (Magic Johnson!) on the Internet.

How can anyone possibly claim that we are "over" racism in this country?

In an interview with the San Jose Mercury News Clippers center Jermaine O'Neal said:

"It's just strange that he would say those things and feel that way when you have a team that is predominantly African-American, a coach who's African-American, a staff that's African-American, basically."

No, it's not strange at all if this Sterling guy thinks he owns the black guys on his team. Like the slave owners of old, he doesn't appear to have problems with blacks working for him, picking his cotton, and toting his bales. He says he doesn't even mind if they service his girlfriend:

"It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people," he is heard saying. "Do you have to?"

Stiviano says that all she did was take a picture with someone she admires. "I think the fact that you admire [Magic] -- I've known him well, and he should be admired," Sterling replies. "And I'm just saying that it's too bad you can't admire him privately. And during your ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE, your whole life, admire him -- bring him here, feed him, fuck him, I don't care. You can do anything. But don't put him on an Instagram for the world to see so they have to call me. And don't bring him to my games. OK?" 

To be fair, I suppose any man would hate getting phone calls when his girlfriend posts pictures of her with a guy people assume she's cheating with. But Sterling goes out of his way to mention that it bothers him she's associating with black people. Would he care if she posted pictures of herself with Larry Bird?

The thing is, I am perfectly willing to believe that Sterling has tried his entire life to get over this kind of racism. I'm sure he says (and believes) he's not a racist, citing as proof the fact that he works closely with blacks, hires blacks, gives blacks positions of responsibility in his organization, has a girlfriend who's part African American, and so on.

But this episode shows again what I've long maintained: most of us are just recovering racists. Saying "I'm not a racist" is, for way too many people, simply not true. It's more accurate to say, "I don't want to be racist, but my dad was and some of it rubbed off on me," or "I have racist impulses but do everything in my power to ignore them. I'm only human."

Many whites believe that racism is what Hitler and his followers preached against the Jews, or what the Ku Klux Klan was doing when they lynched blacks. That's not racism, that's genocide and murder motivated by racism. Real racism is much more subtle.

Racism, and sexism, and homophobia, creep into decisions about who your friends are, who executives promote, who store owners watch on surveillance cameras, who cops frisk on the street.

Racism is a normal human impulse: we tend to distrust the unfamiliar. We are pattern-recognizing creatures, and we immediately form opinions about groups based on what our parents and friends (members of our "tribe") say about those groups, or on observations of one or two individuals from another "tribe." This stood us in good stead when we were cavemen fighting with other tribes over basic resources needed to survive.

But that time is long gone. We will not starve or even be inconvenienced in the slightest if we give a few paltry foodstamps to underprivileged black and Latino families.

But why do so many Americans begrudge a few hundred bucks a month for the poor, and just shrug when multimillionaires like Donald Sterling get billions in tax breaks?