Opinion

OP-ED: NBA Slut Shaming Tactics, Donald Sterling & Racism Win NBA Finals

Published

12 years ago

June 18, 2014

With the American sports fan demanding swift action, the threat of an NBA player revolt and nervous sponsors quaking, new NBA Commissioner Adam Silver understandably panicked. Pathetic best describes the manner in which the NBA chose to handle former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s racist rant exposed by TMZ.

Metaphorically, Commissioner Silver grabbed Sterling by the scruff of the neck and kicked him out of the NBA’s exclusive club. However, a careful look at what happened over the last two months has me shaking my head. The NBA, Donald Sterling and racism pulled one over on us all.

Using the tactic of “Slut Shaming” where holier than thou types shame a promiscuous girl, by exposing her promiscuous deeds is no way to fight racism in America. In my opinion, a better way to handle an 80 year old man with a history of racism would be to allow God, to do what He does best. Teach without the need to expose or shame.

I met an 18-year-old panhandler in 1976 San Francisco. This good-looking White boy named Steven, told me that he had hitch-hiked down from Portland Oregon and was sleeping under a bridge. For self-serving reasons, I allowed him to live in my apartment where we became good friends fast. I liked him, but he liked girls.

Occasionally, Steven’s father would call to check on his son and always expressed his appreciation for my hospitality towards his son. He even extended an invitation for me to visit Portland.

Spring 1979 I called Steven but talked with his father instead. He told me Steven was on another hitch-hiking excursion. I told him that I was at the Portland Greyhound Bus station.

Excited to hear I was in town, he said he was coming down to pick me up and that I would be staying at his place. Never thinking to state that I was Black, I described myself as being on crutches and having a San Francisco Giants travel bag.

Hoping I could spot him first, an older White man walk passed me and stared. I, like so many other Blacks would describe that stare as a go back to Africa stare. This same man returned with a big smile. He introduced himself as Steven’s father and of course I was confused. I had seen that look too many times to be wrong though I was only 23-years-old.

The first night in his home he prepared me a drink while he popped a couple of TV dinners in the oven. We finished eating, drinking and after several hours of talking, he insisted I sleep in his bed and that he would sleep on the sofa bed.

Steven arrived a few days later and while the two of us were laughing too loud his father asked if I had a driver’s license. I replied yes and he allowed me to take Steven to a pool hall.

“Allen, my father never lets anyone drive his car”, Steven said.

Despite the fact that I began to add up the many times Steven’s father treated me like royalty, I was clueless to what this man was doing.

A few months later, Steven’s 65-year-old father died from a slip and fall on his property. I accompanied his family back to his home after the funeral and his ex-wife revealed what I had no clue of concerning the history of this man.

“Allen, I don’t know what you did to my ex-husband but he was always very prejudice against blacks”, she whispered.

Shaming Donald Sterling was like giving the medal of holiness to the self-righteous perpetrators of slut shaming. However, while Donald Sterling continues to cry crocodile tears, I do not recommend that the “United Negro College Fund” hold its breath. A large gift from the Donald Sterling Foundation is not in the mail.

The Donald Sterling Trust sold the Los Angeles Clippers worth an estimated $500 million according to Forbes before this matter was revealed, for the sum of $2 billion in less than two months. It appears that Shelly Sterling saw a clear lane to slam-dunk on us all with a Blake Griffin style facial.

Since when does the perpetrator of racist rants get to pocket a billion dollars after taxes in one transaction? Apparently, when the NBA’s overzealous pursuit to punish an 80-year-old rich White man’s racist rants is its answer to racism.

What is really sad is that while racism still rules the hearts of too many, NBA teams doubled in value according to a Forbes recent recalculation of NBA team values in light of the Clippers sale.

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Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

3 days ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.