The dust storm that has been kicked up around Donald Sterling continued to grow thick Sunday afternoon when the long version of his offensive recording was released by media outlets like Deadspin and TMZ, but even more so when the wife of the Sterling came out to say that the recording of her husband could have been doctored because his mistress, V. Stiviano is being sued by the Sterling family.
V Stiviano, through her attorney, Mac Nehoray, said in a statement that the leaked tape was indeed genuine. Ms Stiviano said, “the released audio tape of approximately 15 minutes is a portion of approximately one hour of overall audio recording of Mr. Donald T. Sterling and Ms. Stiviano, and is in fact legitimate.”
According to CBS News , in the audio recording obtained by TMZ , a man alleged to be Sterling questions his girlfriend’s association with “black people”. TMZ initially identified the woman as V. Stiviano, which her lawyer confirmed it.
The man, alleged to be Mr Sterling, asks that Stiviano not to broadcast her association with black people or bring black people to games. The man specifically mentions Magic Johnson, the former Los Angeles Lakers star and NBA Hall of Famer, saying, “Don’t bring him to my games, OK?”
“You can sleep with (black people). You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want,” the man says on the tape. “The little I ask you is… not to bring them to my games.”
V: I don’t understand, I don’t see your views. I wasn’t raised the way you were raised.
DS: Well then, if you don’t feel—don’t come to my games. Don’t bring black people, and don’t come.
V: Do you know that you have a whole team that’s black that plays for you?
DS: You just, do I know? I support them and give them food, and clothes, and cars, and houses. Who gives it to them? Does someone else give it to them? Do I know that I have—Who makes the game? Do I make the game, or do they make the game? Is there 30 owners, that created the league?
If this was not enough, Sterling went in on another long rant about the culture that he lives in dictates his worldly views.
DS: It’s the world! You go to Israel, the blacks are just treated like dogs.
V: So do you have to treat them like that too?
DS: The white Jews, there’s white Jews and black Jews, do you understand?
V: And are the black Jews less than the white Jews?
DS: A hundred percent, fifty, a hundred percent.
V: And is that right?
DS: It isn’t a question—we don’t evaluate what’s right and wrong, we live in a society. We live in a culture. We have to live within that culture.
V: But shouldn’t we take a stand for what’s wrong? And be the change and the difference?
DS: I don’t want to change the culture, because I can’t. It’s too big and too [inaudible].
V: But you can change yourself.
DS: I don’t want to change. If my girl can’t do what I want, I don’t want the girl. I’ll find a girl that will do what I want! Believe me. I thought you were that girl—because I tried to do what you want. But you’re not that girl.
Stiviano is currently defending herself in a civil suit filed by Sterling’s wife, Rochelle. The suit describes Stiviano as a gold digger who persuaded her husband to shower her with excessive gifts, which included a $1.8 million a home, automobiles worth at least $500,000 and $240,000 for living expenses.
Sterling’s wife contends the money came from community property that is half hers, and under California law she wants it back. Stiviano’s lawyer called the suit’s allegations “absurd.”
The backlash of Sterling’s comments have garnered responses from Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and even the President, Barack Obama.
Obama described the comments as “incredibly offensive racist statements,” to CBS News before casting them as part of a continuing legacy of slavery and segregation that Americans must vigilantly fight.
“When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don’t really have to do anything, you just let them talk,” Obama said at a news conference in Malaysia when asked to respond to Sterling’s reported comments.
Donald Sterling’s has not come out in defense of his comments.
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