"Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.” Billy Sunday
April 30, 2014
By: Linda Case Gibbons
So what’s the difference between Donald Sterling and a bunch of neo-Nazis, you know the ones who wanted to march in Skokie, Illinois in 1977, a largely Jewish community where one in six people were Holocaust survivors?
Or the Westboro Baptist Church who pickets American soldiers’ funerals with signs that read, "God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11,”"Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” and "God Hates Fags?”
Or Clarence Brandenburg, a Ku Klux Klan leader who hated Jews and black Americans and who spewed that hatred in a hate speech against them in the 1960’s?
What’s the difference? They were certainly as distasteful as Sterling.
The difference? Someone defended their rights.
In the Skokie case, a Jewish lawyer, Joseph Burton, stepped forward to defend the National Socialist Party of America’s right to freedom of speech and assembly. And all the cases went all the way to the Supreme Court.
But, Sterling? No one seems to think he has any rights.
These bigots, are they hateful? You betcha.’ But we have a Constitution and laws in this country which protect its citizens.
Even Donald Sterling.
No matter who wants to silence dissenting voices, the Internal Revenue Service, the National Security Agency, our government, they can’t. As Noam Chomsky said, "If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”
It’s tough to have to listen to people whose views are different, repugnant even, but that’s America for you.
Do you have to like Donald Sterling? No. Do you have the right to disagree with his words? Sure you do. But that was never the point.
The point is the alleged racist words credited to him, the ones everyone is talking about, were spoken while he was conducting a private telephone conversation. In California, friends, that’s a crime.
Alleged is important. Guilty until proven innocent, that’s important.
You already know he’s not going to live down his racist remarks. That’s a given, and he’s already been banned from the NBA for life and fined a bundle.
Don’t lose sight of the fact that this week, while everyone who was anyone rushed to express how insulted they were by Donald Sterling, everyone’s Constitutional rights were on the line.
There was no shortage of people, holier-than-thou types, who were drooling to put in their two cents, people who couldn’t wait to comment on Sterling’s racist remarks, delirious at the prospect of kicking someone who was so clearly already down.
But their opinions were never the point. Opinions are a dime a dozen. Well, maybe a nickel a dozen in Obama’s economy.
Few paid attention to the fact Sterling’s conversation was indeed taped without his consent or knowledge. Some did, of course. The decent ones like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did and Doc Rivers.
Abdul-Jabbar said "The public should be outraged that private conversations between people in an intimate relationship are recorded and publicly played. Didn’t we just call to task the NSA for intruding into American citizen’s privacy in such an un-American way?”
And the Clippers’ coach, Doc Rivers was a gentleman while expressing his dismay toward the whole business.
A child of an interracial marriage, raised in a town near Chicago in the 60’s during racial tensions, Rivers said he was "raised right,” and that his mom and dad were not going to have "race in their home, period.”
"Sports helps me, too. Sports, you don’t care what’s next to you, you just want to know ‘can he play?’ People who play sports learn that early on. That there’s no race. There’s people and I think that’s important.”
But predictably, as they always do, all the usual suspects crawled out of the woodwork, Oprah, Sharpton, Jackson. And predictably they piled on Sterling and then criticized America for being the racist country it is.
It’s unfortunate, but we’ve seen it before, with George Zimmerman, with the police wrongly accused in the Tawana Brawley case. Once these "Rabble Rousers for Race” drag people through their own particular brand of mud, the people they attack are never the same. Innocent or guilty doesn’t matter.
And the U.S. Constitution gives them the right to do it, same as everyone else.
With the Rabble Rousers for Race, there is no balance. There is no mention of anything positive about America.
Like trust fund babies, they have no clue about the struggle that others, their forefathers, went through so they could enjoy the "money,” or in this case, the rights they enjoy today.
They don’t get it that those forefathers created a place on earth like none other, a place where anyone can climb their way to the top, Oprah, Spike Lee, Sharpton and Jackson included.
Like selfish children, they are thankful to no one. They figure they did it all on their own. They figure they could have done it anywhere, like Iraq or Africa. They don’t update their history because history isn’t their bag, only the parts of history that brand America as a bad, bad country.
With all of this it shouldn’t be surprising that there is a growing trend toward silencing dissenting voices, but it sure is disgusting.
Oprah issued a dismissive statement about Sterling’s "plantation mentality,” while allegedly rounding up some buddies to buy Sterling’s franchise.
Al and Jesse threatened to boycott something or other, again, and left their "religion” at home, again, while focusing on the deplorable condition of blacks and racism in America…again.
Everyone piled on the guy and when they did, the bar was lowered for freedom for all of us.
This week Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced a bill that would empower the government to scour the internet, TV and other venues for "hate speech,” a banana republic move.
Question: Who decides what is "hate speech?” Nancy Pelosi? The NSA? The president? The attorney general?
Maybe the professors and students at Rutgers, the group, 55 strong, who protested a commencement appearance by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week, calling for her arrest as a war criminal for her part in the Iraq War. Would they decide?
They were only a handful, but they silenced her nonetheless because Rice decided to decline the invitation.
She said, "I am honored to have served my country. I have defended America’s belief in free speech and the exchange of ideas. These values are essential to the health of our democracy. But that is not what is at issue here.
"As a professor for thirty years at Stanford University and as (its) former Provost and chief academic officer, I understand and embrace the purpose of the commencement ceremony and I am simply unwilling to detract from it in any way.”
But she was silenced nonetheless.
And this week two students at the University of Hawaii at Hilo were told by campus officials that they could not hand out copies of the Constitution except in an tiny "free speech zone” on the campus.
So, I pondered: What’s going on in America. More than where’s the outrage at the erosion of our rights, but where is the Christianity? Where is the compassion thing. The I-have-had-blessings-and-now-will-be-the-change-I-want-to-see thing?
Heck, where is the Hope and Change?
I don’t have an answer. But I like what Kareem, Condoleezza and Doc Rivers had to say.
Hold the line, America.
April 30, 2014
By: Linda Case Gibbons
So what’s the difference between Donald Sterling and a bunch of neo-Nazis, you know the ones who wanted to march in Skokie, Illinois in 1977, a largely Jewish community where one in six people were Holocaust survivors?
Or the Westboro Baptist Church who pickets American soldiers’ funerals with signs that read, "God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11,”"Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” and "God Hates Fags?”
Or Clarence Brandenburg, a Ku Klux Klan leader who hated Jews and black Americans and who spewed that hatred in a hate speech against them in the 1960’s?
What’s the difference? They were certainly as distasteful as Sterling.
The difference? Someone defended their rights.
In the Skokie case, a Jewish lawyer, Joseph Burton, stepped forward to defend the National Socialist Party of America’s right to freedom of speech and assembly. And all the cases went all the way to the Supreme Court.
But, Sterling? No one seems to think he has any rights.
These bigots, are they hateful? You betcha.’ But we have a Constitution and laws in this country which protect its citizens.
Even Donald Sterling.
No matter who wants to silence dissenting voices, the Internal Revenue Service, the National Security Agency, our government, they can’t. As Noam Chomsky said, "If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”
It’s tough to have to listen to people whose views are different, repugnant even, but that’s America for you.
Do you have to like Donald Sterling? No. Do you have the right to disagree with his words? Sure you do. But that was never the point.
The point is the alleged racist words credited to him, the ones everyone is talking about, were spoken while he was conducting a private telephone conversation. In California, friends, that’s a crime.
Alleged is important. Guilty until proven innocent, that’s important.
You already know he’s not going to live down his racist remarks. That’s a given, and he’s already been banned from the NBA for life and fined a bundle.
Don’t lose sight of the fact that this week, while everyone who was anyone rushed to express how insulted they were by Donald Sterling, everyone’s Constitutional rights were on the line.
There was no shortage of people, holier-than-thou types, who were drooling to put in their two cents, people who couldn’t wait to comment on Sterling’s racist remarks, delirious at the prospect of kicking someone who was so clearly already down.
But their opinions were never the point. Opinions are a dime a dozen. Well, maybe a nickel a dozen in Obama’s economy.
Few paid attention to the fact Sterling’s conversation was indeed taped without his consent or knowledge. Some did, of course. The decent ones like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did and Doc Rivers.
Abdul-Jabbar said "The public should be outraged that private conversations between people in an intimate relationship are recorded and publicly played. Didn’t we just call to task the NSA for intruding into American citizen’s privacy in such an un-American way?”
And the Clippers’ coach, Doc Rivers was a gentleman while expressing his dismay toward the whole business.
A child of an interracial marriage, raised in a town near Chicago in the 60’s during racial tensions, Rivers said he was "raised right,” and that his mom and dad were not going to have "race in their home, period.”
"Sports helps me, too. Sports, you don’t care what’s next to you, you just want to know ‘can he play?’ People who play sports learn that early on. That there’s no race. There’s people and I think that’s important.”
But predictably, as they always do, all the usual suspects crawled out of the woodwork, Oprah, Sharpton, Jackson. And predictably they piled on Sterling and then criticized America for being the racist country it is.
It’s unfortunate, but we’ve seen it before, with George Zimmerman, with the police wrongly accused in the Tawana Brawley case. Once these "Rabble Rousers for Race” drag people through their own particular brand of mud, the people they attack are never the same. Innocent or guilty doesn’t matter.
And the U.S. Constitution gives them the right to do it, same as everyone else.
With the Rabble Rousers for Race, there is no balance. There is no mention of anything positive about America.
Like trust fund babies, they have no clue about the struggle that others, their forefathers, went through so they could enjoy the "money,” or in this case, the rights they enjoy today.
They don’t get it that those forefathers created a place on earth like none other, a place where anyone can climb their way to the top, Oprah, Spike Lee, Sharpton and Jackson included.
Like selfish children, they are thankful to no one. They figure they did it all on their own. They figure they could have done it anywhere, like Iraq or Africa. They don’t update their history because history isn’t their bag, only the parts of history that brand America as a bad, bad country.
With all of this it shouldn’t be surprising that there is a growing trend toward silencing dissenting voices, but it sure is disgusting.
Oprah issued a dismissive statement about Sterling’s "plantation mentality,” while allegedly rounding up some buddies to buy Sterling’s franchise.
Al and Jesse threatened to boycott something or other, again, and left their "religion” at home, again, while focusing on the deplorable condition of blacks and racism in America…again.
Everyone piled on the guy and when they did, the bar was lowered for freedom for all of us.
This week Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced a bill that would empower the government to scour the internet, TV and other venues for "hate speech,” a banana republic move.
Question: Who decides what is "hate speech?” Nancy Pelosi? The NSA? The president? The attorney general?
Maybe the professors and students at Rutgers, the group, 55 strong, who protested a commencement appearance by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week, calling for her arrest as a war criminal for her part in the Iraq War. Would they decide?
They were only a handful, but they silenced her nonetheless because Rice decided to decline the invitation.
She said, "I am honored to have served my country. I have defended America’s belief in free speech and the exchange of ideas. These values are essential to the health of our democracy. But that is not what is at issue here.
"As a professor for thirty years at Stanford University and as (its) former Provost and chief academic officer, I understand and embrace the purpose of the commencement ceremony and I am simply unwilling to detract from it in any way.”
But she was silenced nonetheless.
And this week two students at the University of Hawaii at Hilo were told by campus officials that they could not hand out copies of the Constitution except in an tiny "free speech zone” on the campus.
So, I pondered: What’s going on in America. More than where’s the outrage at the erosion of our rights, but where is the Christianity? Where is the compassion thing. The I-have-had-blessings-and-now-will-be-the-change-I-want-to-see thing?
Heck, where is the Hope and Change?
I don’t have an answer. But I like what Kareem, Condoleezza and Doc Rivers had to say.
Hold the line, America.