Obama wades into row over alleged racist remark
Print Edition
PRESIDENT Barack Obama yesterday joined leading US sports figures in condemning racist remarks allegedly made by the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, one of the NBA’s top basketball teams.
The gossip website TMZ on Saturday posted an audio recording it says shows billionaire Clippers owner Donald Sterling telling his girlfriend to refrain from bringing black guests to see his team play. Sterling, 80, was reportedly angry about a photograph that the woman, identified only as V. Stiviano, posted on the social media site Instagram with retired Los Angeles Lakers basketball legend Magic Johnson.
“It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you are associating with black people. Do you have to?” Sterling allegedly says in the nearly 10-minute recording. “You can sleep with (black people). You can bring them in. You can do whatever you want. The little I ask is not to promote it on that ... and not to bring them to my games.”
Later in the audio, the woman identifies herself as “black and Mexican.”
“In your lousy ... Instagrams you don’t have to have yourself walking with black people,” says the male voice.
Obama, the first African American president and a keen basketball player and fan, interrupted his diplomatic initiative in Asia to condemn “ignorant” and “incredibly offensive” racist remarks.
“I don’t think I have to interpret those statements for you. They kind of speak for themselves,” said the president, speaking in Malaysia.
“When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don’t really have to do anything, you just let them talk.”
Obama also made a wider point about racism in the United States, which he said is still wrestling with the legacy of slavery and segregation.
“We just have to be clear and steady in denouncing it, teaching our children differently but also (remain) hopeful that part of why some statements like this stand out so much is because there has been a shift in how we view ourselves,” he said.
“The audio recording posted by TMZ is truly offensive and disturbing,” said National Basketball Association commissioner Adam Silver, who promised to move “extraordinary quickly in our investigation” of the controversy.
Silver said the league plans to interview Sterling and the woman on the tape.
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