Jack Tame: Fall highlights racial divide

A whoring, racist slumlord. That was GQ magazine's description of Los Angeles Clippers' owner Donald Sterling last October, a good six months before this week's extraordinary racism scandal.

A whoring. Racist. Slumlord. I mean, we've all had bad reviews, but sheesh.

Indeed, while the NBA's new commissioner has rightly been praised for his swift investigation and punishment of Sterling after recordings of his heinously racist comments were leaked to the press, the world's richest basketball league has had plenty of notice that Sterling isn't exactly Mr Tolerance.

In 2009 a former team executive sued Sterling for discrimination, accusing him of envisaging a "Southern plantation-type structure" for his Californian team. The same year, he settled with the US Justice Department for US$3 million ($3.46m), after it accused him of systematically driving black and Hispanic families out of his apartment buildings.

"Black tenants smell and attract vermin," Sterling allegedly said.

Alarm bells? Ahhh, yep.

But most of us had never heard of the incidents until this week. The Justice Department investigation went quietly unpunished by the NBA, and it took an aggrieved woman and a tape recorder to bring the sledgehammer of shame down upon Sterling's back.

Adding to his ban, his fine and the devastating publicity, full-circle justice might now be achieved by whoever replaces Sterling as the LA Clippers' owner. For all the big names, big cash and big egos already sniffing around the contract, how sweet it would be to have someone in charge who better represents the dunking masses.

Three-quarters of NBA players are black, a far higher percentage than any other major US sports league (just 9 per cent of Major League baseball players are black). Almost half its teams' head coaches are African American.

And yet of all the NBA's team owners and all the owners of big league baseball and football teams, only Michael Jordan of the Charlotte Bobcats is African American. One black owner, of 92 money-printing franchises.

Donald Sterling's hate may have created a heartening opportunity.

• Jack Tame is on Newstalk ZB Saturdays, 9am-midday.