What me, worry? [CNN]
Maybe we just like to see a good trainwreck from time to time.
Last night, CNN, taking time off from their tireless search for the still-missing Malaysian Airlines jet, decided to strip mine another tragedy with the interview of beleaguered L.A. Clippers (soon to be former) owner Donald Sterling. Now while the interview with Anderson Cooper was certainly meant to be apologetic, it turned ugly almost immediately.
After explaining how he “loved black people” and brushing off his statements to alleged mistress and self-preservation specialist V. Stiviano as “jealousy”, he went on to be the person he actually is: a petty, manipulative man who is simply trying to salvage the one thing he truly gives a shit about, the ownership of the Clippers.
Now as the interview goes on, Sterling decided to go on the offensive against Magic Johnson, who clearly the man hates, and here’s where he begins to be the befuddled, ignorant old racist that everyone accused him of being.
Sterling went after the L. A. Laker legend’s character and his battle with HIV (which he referred to as AIDS, showing regular old man ignorance), saying Johnson hasn’t done anything to help others.
“What kind of a guy goes to every city, has sex with every girl, then he catches AIDS? Is that someone we want to respect and tell our kids about?” Sterling asked. “I think he should be ashamed of himself. I think he should go into the background. But what does he do for the black people? He doesn’t do anything.”
Look, reasonable people couldn’t have possibly expected someone like Sterling to do anything less than what he did. Obviously he dug a deeper hole for himself, but who was he fooling? Listening to the interview, watching his gestures, it’s a fair deduction that Sterling was trying to sell a narrative here that even he wasn’t sure was going to work. But when you spend your life manipulating others from a position of authority, sometimes you just go with it, and that’s exactly what he did.
That he failed was to be expected. That people showed faux disappointment and outrage that this man did exactly what he was expected to do is also to be expected.
I believe we’re somehow addicted to outrage and offense. The media certainly thrives on delivering it to the masses who are ready to lap it up. Nothing about what Sterling said should be a shock at this point, but many of us seem to be in the business of being aggrieved, because nothing sells better on an average, mundane day like self-righteousness.
There is no redemption story in the wings for Donald Sterling, not at this point. The guy is not Ebeneezer Scrooge waiting to be visited by three ghosts out in Malibu. What’s worse? He’s not the only one who thinks this way, nor has he gotten this far in life without assistance here and there from people who claim to be nothing like him, but have no problem dining at the same table has he, or more importantly…calling him “friend”.
Those are the people you have to watch out for, not the ones like Sterling who wear their hatred and distrust on their sleeve.