29 April, 2014

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Welcome to the Finger-Wagging Olympics | TIME.com

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Welcome to the Finger-Wagging Olympics | TIME.com:



He was discriminating against black and Hispanic families for years,
preventing them from getting housing. It was public record. We did
nothing. Suddenly he says he doesn’t want his girlfriend posing with
Magic Johnson on Instagram and we bring out the torches and rope.
Shouldn’t we have all called for his resignation back then?




Shouldn’t we be equally angered by the fact that his private,
intimate conversation was taped and then leaked to the media? Didn’t we
just call to task the NSA for intruding into American citizen’s privacy
in such an un-American way? Although the impact is similar to Mitt
Romney’s comments that were secretly taped, the difference is that
Romney was giving a public speech. The making and release of this tape
is so sleazy that just listening to it makes me feel like an accomplice
to the crime. We didn’t steal the cake but we’re all gorging ourselves
on it.




Make no mistake: Donald Sterling is the villain of this story. But
he’s just a handmaiden to the bigger evil. In our quest for social
justice, we shouldn’t lose sight that racism is the true enemy. He’s
just another jerk with more money than brains.