News that the NAACP was about to give Donald Sterling not his first, but SECOND Lifetime Achievement Award comes as bizarre and troubling.
It’s not like Sterling’s hate and racism was in the closet. Sterling had settled a $3 million dollar housing discrimination lawsuit. Sterling also was sued by Elgin Baylor, former Clippers General Manager. Says the LA Times:
In the original lawsuit, Baylor said that Sterling had a "vision of a Southern plantation-type structure" for the Clippers and accused the owner of a "pervasive and ongoing racist attitude" during long-ago contract negotiations with Danny Manning. The lawsuit also quoted Sterling as telling Manning's agent, "I’m offering you a lot of money for a poor black kid.”
This happened
before the NAACP offered Sterling his FIRST Lifetime Achievement Award!
So how does the NAACP see fit to offer this known racist not one, but two Lifetime Achievement Awards? Well, from Lorraine Miller, the NAACP interim president, who was on MSNBC on Sunday afternoon, we get this howler: the NAACP “clearly has to do a better job vetting” its award recipients.
Even the MSNBC host couldn’t let the natural follow up go: “Are you saying he essentially bought the award?” the host asked Miller. “No no no no, I’m not saying that at all,” Miller responded. "He’s a gregarious guy and gave what he did for the right reasons and purposes.”
As long as the NAACP can be bought by anti-Black racists, there’s little hope for true racial equality.