Don't Be Surprised That People Still Say Racist Things

Donald Sterling (left) and V. Stiviano (right), forbes.com

lots of publicity this week for racist people. Donald Sterling, owner of the L.A. Clippers, was banned for life from the N.B.A., by the N.B.A., after a tape recording surfaced of a conversation in which Sterling made some impressively racist comments ("N.B.A. Bans Donald Sterling"). 

"BANNED FOR LIFE"- i love that phrase! it has an absolute, unyielding gravitas, like a royal decree issued forth from a throne in booming, echoing tones. am i surprised an 81-year-old white billionaire makes racist comments? child, please. "Don't be surprised that people still say racist things." am i surprised he was publicly punished for it by a group of other (mostly) white billionaires? yes!!!! (note to President Obama and Ed. Secretary Arne Duncan: can we raise funds for public education by fining someone every time they say something racist? the money would not stop flowing in for decades.) 

i realize that the N.B.A.'s decision was mostly financially motivated. Sterling hadn't exactly tried to hide his feelings towards people of color in the past; he already had a history of lawsuits against him alleging housing discrimination towards black and Latino tenants. the difference this time was the potential for monetary loss at stake- sponsors were fleeing the Clippers; other N.B.A. teams were threatening to boycott future games; and all this during playoff season. Sterling was fined $2.5 million- a slap on the pinky. the guy is worth $2 billion; now that he has to sell the team to someone else, he stands to make at least $575 million (as valued by Forbes). he's not exactly hurting for cash. 

but wait, it gets weirder. Sterling's personal assistant, V. Stiviano (a 31-year-old woman who identifies herself as mixed-race, black and Mexican), agreed to be interviewed by none other than Barbara Walters. she was the one who Sterling had been talking to in his damning recorded statements; he had told her to stop "taking pictures with minorities" and posting them on Instagram. in the interview, Stiviano defends Sterling and insists he is not racist. (she also denies being his mistress, and instead calls herself his "silly rabbit"; i'm not even going to touch that one.)

“I think Mr. Sterling is from a different generation than from the one I am. I think he was brought up to believe those things … segregation, whites and blacks,” said Stiviano.

(by the way, her statement checks two out of three boxes from my list of top 3 most annoying excuses for racist comments.)

in social work school, i learned a phrase called "cognitive dissonance". it describes the discomfort a person might experience when that person holds two conflicting beliefs at the same time. i stretch the meaning to include people who quite comfortably hold two conflicting beliefs simultaneously, whether they are aware of it or not.

both Sterling and Stiviano are fascinatingly depressing examples of cognitive dissonance when it comes to racism and oppression. both individuals chose to change their last names: Donald Sterling used to be Donald Tokowitz, son of a Jewish family. Stiviano's original family name was Perez. now i can't say for sure why each changed his/her family names, but i do know that, for hundreds of years, people living in the U.S. have changed their family names in order to blend in more smoothly with white dominant culture. in other words, if you change your last name to something that sounds less- god forbid- foreign, you just might have a better chance of succeeding with white people (who control most of the money, power, etc. in this country). 

i can only wonder at the self-hate that both Sterling and Stiviano have internalized, which is now so publicly manifesting itself as hate towards people of color. both of them insist they are not racist. "I love black people," says Sterling at one point in the recorded conversation. yet they both go on to present a perfect capsule of race relations in this country, as they discuss Stiviano's skin color. "Do you know that I'm mixed?" she asks him. later, Sterling tells her, "You're supposed to be... a delicate Latina girl (italics mine, from outrage)." NYT columnist Charles Blow has already parsed the "antebellum-level coloristic thinking" of their dialogue, so i won't press the issue. my point is this: cognitive dissonance, y'all: racism has fucked us marginalized people over so badly that we can simultaneously carry hate for ourselves (which we've absorbed as a result of white oppression), and also continue to perpetuate this oppression by passively accepting/making excuses for it (Stiviano) or committing racist acts (Sterling) on others around us.

Top 3 Most Annoying Excuses for Racist Comments

not sure if any of you have been paying attention to the Paula Deen kerfuffle lately. she's a Food Network southern food chef who is under investigation for discriminatory practices at her restaurants (a white former employee filed the lawsuit). in her deposition, she openly admitted to using the n-word, and also to planning a plantation-themed wedding for one of her sons, complete with well-dressed black servants (wtf!!?!?!). consequently, she lost her FN contract, in addition to spokeswoman contracts and a book deal w/Random House. of course, her fans rushed to support her. her defenders' comments not only annoyed me, but also reminded me of countless other people i've met in my life who have excused similar comments from their friends and family. i've distilled these excuses into the following list, heard from the mouths of both white people and people of color (but most often white people):

1. they didn't mean it.
2. they don't know any better.
3. that's just how their generation is.

oh, if i only had a dollar. i think we'd all make a lot more progress in our conversations about race if we started out by acknowledging that many people who make racist comments are not evil, just ignorant. these excuses allow us to continue being idiots, as if asking us to change our language and understanding of oppression would be, well, just too much trouble.

i believe people who continue to speak ignorantly demonstrate a refusal to (a) use their imagination/common sense; and (b) seek out ways to educate themselves. yes, imagination- if you are not a person of color, take a moment and imagine how you'd feel if the people you interacted with mocked or treated you as "other", simply based on your physical appearance (this does not even have to involve language; picture someone pulling back the corners of his eyes to make them more "slanty" as you walk by). imagine these occurrences happening not just once, but many times over the years. imagine how you would wish to be treated with respect; imagine how sensitive you might become to other people's language and actions. 

and then education: as an asian-american, it is not my job to teach you that it is not ok to call someone "china man" (though i once wasted 10 minutes of my life trying to do exactly this with a white canadian girl; i say "wasted" because i failed to get her to understand why that was offensive). a follow-up NYT article described other chefs' reactions to Paula Deen's words: Nathalie Dupree, a 73-year-old white chef in Charleston, SC, basically said she resented excuses #2 + #3 (see above) because it lumped her in with a group of people who had not made the effort to learn what is offensive to people of color. for me, excuses #2 + #3 hurt the most because i hear the implied meaning as: your feelings are not worth being heard nor validated, and we (the speakers of ignorance) will not change our behavior because you are not worth the effort and thought that would require.