Donald Sterling Blows His Apology Tour

I thought it would be impossible to loathe still-Clippers owner Donald Sterling any more than I did after hearing his secretly recorded remarks in which he asked his half-black female companion to stop publicly associating with black people or bringing them to Clippers games and also threw Magic Johnson under the bus.

I also thought that maybe now that Sterling has been banned from all NBA events and is in jeopardy of losing ownership of the Clippers, he would have some sort of wake-up call about just how bad his antiquated outlook on “minorities” is. Or, at the very least, he’d be paranoid enough about his private thoughts that he would strike a more politically correct note in public. My bad.

On Monday, Sterling sat for a one-on-one interview with Anderson Cooper, his first at-length statements since the fracas. This was the beginning of an apology tour. A little late—two weeks after the fuss—but better late than never, I figured.

We—and certainly Sterling’s PR team—have seen enough successful acts of public contrition, fromTiger Woods, Kobe Bryant and Melisa Harris-Perry, to name a few, that show how this is supposed to go. A proper mea culpa includes 1) a deeply felt, “I am sorry”; 2) acknowledgment of wrongdoing; 3) acknowledgment of pain caused; and 4) a personal apology shout-out to the people most offended.

If Sterling could have managed this, maybe there was the slightest chance that his fellow owners, who have yet to vote on whether he can remain owner of the Clippers, would show mercy and let him keep the team. (Far-fetched, I know, but he’s rich and white and male; they tend to get away with things most don’t.) Maybe Sterling’s enduring legacy would be more than the sugar daddy who liked to go on racist rants with his half-black alleged girlfriend. At the very least, with a proper apology, we could all wrap up this chapter in crazy news stories and move on to other fare.

But no. No. No No! Sterling blew the interview. He has enough money to buy the best crisis-management team in the business, and because it’s so dang simple to just apologize, there was no way he should have got this one wrong. He either has the worst publicist on earth or he just ignored any and all instruction. The interview was so appallingly bad that Cooper spent half of it wearing an expression that read, “Dude, you can’t be serious.”

Sterling apologized multiple times, but the tone was off. It came across as more like, “OK, I’m saying it, now forgive me,” than something he actually meant. But no one remembers it even happened because of all his other baffling remarks, including how “the blacks” want to play golf with him and, more outrageously, his new round of remarks about Magic Johnson, whom Sterling incorrectly referred to as having AIDS, even after Cooper corrected him. (Johnson is HIV-positive. There’s a difference.) E

“He acts so holy,” Sterling said of Johnson, who he claimed advised him to remain quiet after the initial scandal broke two weeks ago. “He made love to every girl in every city in America and he had AIDS, and when he had those AIDS, I went to my synagogue and I prayed for him, I hope he could live and be well. I didn’t criticize him. I could have. Is he an example for children?"

Let me get this straight: A long-married man—whose recent public implosion is the result of the recorded conversations possibly leaked by his alleged mistress, whom his wife sued for almost $2 million—is judging someone else’s alleged sexcapades from more than 20 years ago? Pot meet kettle.

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"V. Stiviano: The Frank Underwood of Gold Diggers"

Everybody’s talking about gold-diggers again because of Clippers’ owner Donald Sterling’s lady friend V. Stiviano, who everyone keeps calling his "girlfriend", but is, in fact, his mistress as Sterling has been married for 50— five-zero— years.

But I digress…

Sterling and Stiviano’s recorded phone conversations in which Sterling asked Stiviano, who is half-Black and half-Mexican, not to take pictures with Black people or “minorities” or bring them to Clippers’ games have dominated the national news since Saturday evening when TMZ broke the story. Damn near everyone thinks Stiviano leaked the audio to get back at Sterling’s wife for accusing her of, then suing her for embezzling money and/or swindling Sterling out of around 2 million in gifts/cash, which is why Stiviano is now being called a gold digger.

It’s likely she is. She appears to be in her early 30s, her paramour is 80—likely older than Stiviano’s own father-- and married. And he’s not like Harry Belafonte old where you can look at him and see there was a time where he could get it. He’s this kind of 80:

Sterling wasn’t getting no parts of the….  and not even a second glance if he wasn’t tricking on Stiviano.

And trick he did. According to the LA Times, Stiviano’s gifts (as listed in the wife’s lawsuit) “included a 2013 Range Rover, a 2012 Ferrari and TWO Bentleys… Moreover, Stiviano allegedly received $1.8 million from Mr. Sterling to buy a duplex [in her name] near the Beverly Center in December 2014 with additional $240,000 for maintenance and living expenses.”

She’s about to cake up even more. According to another report by TMZ—who seems to be getting a grand kick out of this ordeal— Stiviano is rumored to have 100 more hours of additional recorded conversations. Sterling allegedly called his (I assumer former) mistress last night to inquire “How can we make this go away?”  She referred her ex-beau to her lawyer, likely to talk about a millions of dollars check.

Ca-ching.

As a feminist, I think I’m supposed to be against gold-digging women. I’m not sure. There’s no official rule-book called, “How to Be A Good Feminist”, and the unspoken rules seem to change daily. So not knowing what the official party line is, I’ll offer my own take, which might surprise people: I’m not really against it… when it’s done right (my caveat.)

Let's be adults here. Men who have money and flaunt it like a peacock’s plumage  largely do so to attract women-- attractive women-- who like said money. In exchange for expensive purchases and hopefully a lifestyle upgrade, said woman overlooks man’s gigantic flaws, strokes his ego, serves as a trophy, and provides great pleasure. Each consenting adult knows what’s going on—even if it’s never directly stated. And both pay—sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively— to “play”.

Is it for me? No. I like being perceived and treated as an equal partner in my romantic interactions, and you can’t even pretend you are when you’re the digger (a mistake a lot of women make, bringing their situations to an abrupt halt.) Also, I have a few friends who don’t call themselves “gold diggers”, but not never would they “mess with a broke n****.” And by “broke”, they mean any guy making less than maybe a couple mil. I’ve heard plenty of stories—not mine to tell— of what they did (or do) to stay in the good graces of their sponsors/ providers. It’s not all fun and games, and there’s a lot of disrespect and turning a blind eye involved.

Take for instance, Stiviano spending four years ****ing a man who thinks Black people like half of her and one entire side of her family aren’t even good enough to be photographed with. Let’s not even get into the fact that whatever tricking he did on her, his wife—who he’s not really estranged from if she’s suing his mistress over chump change* — he did 10x over that on his wife. Baby Girl got a fly condo. I’m sure the Mrs.  has a fly mansion, and  likely some ten-thousand square foot vacation homes—note the plural—too.

Biting my tongue when people say dumb sh** or I’m not being treated right doesn’t suit my temperament. Obviously. It fits for Stiviano and some of my friends. Apparently. We have different priorities. Great.

I don’t knock the hustle. Usually.

My biggest complaint with gold digging isn't that women do it, but that so many sell themselves short for a price far less than "gold". Too many suffer through someone they're not remotely interested in and they trade old/ugly man sex and mediocre treatment for bags, shoes, maybe some rent money and vacations, all of which are known as depreciating items. (And all of which are also spending change to a man with means.)

When a guy gets bored with the arrangement and is ready to be onto the next, way too many paper-chasing women pack up their designer ish that’s worth pennies on the dollar at re-sale, and go back to where they came from to look for the next trick. If the woman’s “lucky” (in this context), she had a baby and so maybe she’s financially secure off child support, that is as long as the guy doesn’t cry broke to the courts (that means you Luda) and  he pays up (not you, Papa Knowles) and he stays flush (not you, Bow Wow). T he kid – and its reprehensible to have a child to secure your financial future--- is no guarantee.

This is not the way it’s supposed to be done. You’re supposed to leave better than how you arrived. And with more than an upgraded wardrobe. You’re supposed to be set and secure, and with enough money to make more money (the purpose of money that everyone forgets or wasn’t taught) so tricking is your one-time come-up, not your way of getting by for the foreseeable future. Got it?

If you are going to be a gold-digging girlfriend/mistress, then be the best you can be and in Yeezus name, get something real out of it like Stiviano. This chick is playing chess, not checkers. She will leave this messy situation with a lovely place to live in her name, and at least a few million dollars in her account – in addition to the quarter million already sitting there— to buy her silence.

Call her a gold digger all you want. Call her morally corrupt if it makes you feel better. But don’t call her stupid. She isn’t.  This chick is operating like Frank Underwood in this piece.