Donald Sterling

There's a lot going on in the world right now.  I suppose there always is, but this seems to be a particularly dangerous and deadly time, with natural disasters and international unrest.  Recently, however, most American news outlets -- newspapers, radio, television, internet -- have included a notable degree of focus on the fallout from the released tape of a private telephone conversation.  In the conversation, the wealthy owner of a sports team made comments involving race.

Since the tape was released to the national media -- at this point, the precise details of how and why the tape was made and distributed are murky -- the owner of the team has been universally condemned as racist.  Among other punishments, he will be fined, and forced to sell his basketball team.  The story has been front-page news on every newspaper, and covered on most radio and television news broadcasts, with the media in a virtual frenzy.  By some accounts, the team owner has become the most despised man in America.

Only recently, many days after the story first "broke", have people begun to question the motivations of the person who apparently secretly made and released the tape -- an act which was quite possibly illegal.  Still, the overwhelming amount of criticism is reserved not for the person who made and released the tape, but for the person who made the comments.

ANY conversation involving race has become a dangerous minefield.  Curiously, the people speaking most freely about this incident on national television are the comedians.  All others are simply jumping on the bandwagon of condemning the man and his comments without delving too deeply into the details.

If I was a public figure, or ever hoped to run for political office, or ever hoped to be hired for a job, I would be afraid to write what I am about to write.  I am NOT defending the man or his comments, but my words could be twisted to claim that I was.

The fact is that we are dealing with comments made in a private phone conversation between two people.  The man was NOT making a speech, or writing a book, article, or blog, or posting to Facebook.  He was simply having a conversation.  He did not say anything threatening.  He did not lie.  He did not slander or libel.  He stated horribly-unpopular opinions in what he believed was a private phone conversation.  (To be honest, I have not paid much attention to precisely what he said.  It was a private phone conversation.  It's none of my business.)

This is dangerously close to punishing someone for their thoughts.  Actually, I suppose punishing someone for their opinions -- opinions rather than actions -- IS punishing them for their thoughts.  (In this particular case, people point out that the team owner had a history of racism, and had actually been charged with racial discrimination in the past -- but the fact remains that at this time he is being punished NOT for past misdeeds, but for this particular conversation.)

The idea of punishing someone for their thoughts, no matter how reprehensible and disturbing those thoughts are, is, to me, even MORE reprehensible and disturbing.  I believe that the greatest hope for solving our problems and living in a certain degree of harmony with each other comes from COMMUNICATION.  Anything that interferes with that communication, or discourages that communication, poses a threat to our very survival.

I will close with a quote from the great folksinger Arlo Guthrie, whose father Woody Guthrie is perhaps best known for the song, "This Land is Your Land."  In a live performance, Arlo stated, "... when people start bein' afraid that they're going to lose a job or lose some of this or that because of what they've got to say, it's gonna start to get dangerous.  It's better to say the wrong thing than to feel like you ought not to say anything."

We cannot solve our problems by making people afraid to address them.  We cannot bring about racial harmony by making people afraid to mention race.  We cannot control our thoughts and opinions, we cannot force others to conform with our thoughts and opinions, and we should not punish others for their thoughts and opinions.

Truth is complicated.