When it was announced that CNN would be airing disgraced Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s interview with Anderson Cooper on Monday night, my plan was to write a reaction piece. We’d analyze what Sterling — who had remained publicly silent in the two weeks since his lifetime ban from the NBA for making racist remarks that were taped and leaked — had to say for himself. We’d debate whether it’s fair for someone to be barred for life from their profession because of remarks made in private — however vile they are.
But whatever public sympathy Sterling could have drummed up from the interview was shot to bits when he did the unthinkable and dug himself an even deeper hole. His total tone-deafness to racial issues is remarkable, even for an 80 year old who comes from a generation we often excuse for bigotry. Even after being publicly disgraced and punished, he still doesn’t get it.
So the idea of a serious analysis fell by the wayside after the old man torpedoed himself. Again. The good news, though, is Sterling is an inadvertent comic genius who reeled off ridiculously ignorant one-liner after one-liner that would make Borat jealous.
Here are some of his best “jokes” from the interview:
“I’m not a racist.”
“When he had those AIDS, I went to my synagogue and prayed for (Magic Johnson).”
“I don’t call anybody. I’m loyal to you.”
“He’s got AIDS!”
“What kind of guy goes to every city and has sex with every girl?”
“There’s no African-America. Never mind.”
Then he went and muddied the waters by taking the high road and offering a seemingly sincere apology to the NBA and its commissioner Adam Silver: “The league is a good league and whatever they decide, I should help them and do it.”
Still, he somehow outdid his girlfriend, V. Stiviano, who told Barbara Walters that she is Sterling’s “right-hand arm,” among other dizzy nonsense.
Sterling’s wife Shelly, meanwhile, told “The Today Show” that she thinks “he has dementia” after she saw Sterling’s CNN appearance.
Shelly Sterling’s interest in the team was terminated when her husband’s interest was terminated, but her lawyer blasted the NBA’s “self-serving interpretation of its constitution” and said that California and U.S. law “trump any such interpretation.”
It’s all an uneven mix of comedy and drama, one that will likely be lampooned on “Saturday Night Live” this weekend — if “SNL” can find a way to lampoon something that is already ridiculous.
If you can somehow get past all of the bizarre comments, at least one thing is clear: If you had given Donald Sterling any benefit of the doubt, you now feel as idiotic as he does.
Michael Lello is a contributing journalist for TheBlot Magazine.
