Patterico's Pontifications

3/1/2011

Black History Month Celebration… Fail!

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 12:24 pm



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

So the LA Clippers, the Ted Kennedy to the Lakers’ JFK, decided to celebrate Black History Month and announce it as follows:

This calls for a very cute facepalm:

So, they figure that the way to celebrate black history month is to have a special event for…  underprivileged kids.  You know because all black people are “underprivileged.”  I mean if Barack Obama’s kids showed up, would they be considered “underprivileged?”

And then as if that all wasn’t fun enough, they got the, um, month wrong.  Black History month just ended yesterday.

As The Blaze wryly notes: “This does not help accusations that the owner of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling, is racist.”  But I concur that mostly this just looks incompetent.

H/t: Amir Shaw.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

23 Responses to “Black History Month Celebration… Fail!”

  1. They’re NOT? Well, I imagine the children of the players are not. But they already get in for free as it is. Does not the concept of a month-long recognition of a particular race’s contributions to society implicate that they do not enjoy privilege as much as a majoritarian race?

    Perhaps they should rescind the offer.

    ERL (10b9bb)

  2. How do the kids prove they are underprivileged?

    daleyrocks (ae76ce)

  3. erl

    i do think the emphasis is a bit much… my little cousin knows more about harriet tubman than george washington. tubman was a courageous woman. but washington was the first president. its not fair that the people who have run this country have been disproportionately white, but its how it is. in terms of power and influence, washington is 100 times more important. as far as raw courage, i think i would say washington gave her a run for her money (he was risking the wrath of the british, after all), but she gets the prize there.

    She deserves to be known of. but she is not more important than him.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  4. If you’re talking just about team success under Donald Sterling, the Clippers have one of the blackest histories of any pro sports franchise. Under those parameters, any month from November to April when they’re on the court qualifies (and you know Sterling’s gonna screw up Blake Griffin somehow. You just know it).

    John (a1b69f)

  5. I think any kid dragged to a game between a 30-31 team and a 21-40 home team is automatically “underprivileged”…

    Adam B (26a1e3)

  6. I’m wondering if anyone expects anything better from the Clippers.

    JEA (926f6e)

  7. As to Washington’s courage, he routinely rode his house close to the front, had a number of bullets pierce his clothing and had more than one horse shot out from under him. On at least one occasion he rallied his men from a retreat by riding through them toward the advancing enemy. I think he faced more than the wrath of the British and showed his courage many times under fire.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  8. ______________________________________

    the way to celebrate black history month is to have a special event for…

    Since surveys indicate that over 90% of black Americans are of the left — staunchly, blindly loyal to liberals/Democrats (eg, one poll a few years ago indicated less than 5% of that populace approved of George W Bush) — it would have been just as good to proclaim “a special event for anyone lacking a lot of common sense, self-awareness, and sense of embarrassment!!”

    As for Donald Sterling, his clumsiness (or that of his organization) reminds me of the phrase “some of my best friends are Negroes (or Jews, or Asians, or Latinos, etc)!”

    Mark (411533)

  9. How do the kids prove they are underprivileged?

    My guess? Show up and be black.

    And that is how the left demonstrates their dedication to “civil rights”.

    Anon Y. Mous (cb1134)

  10. ___________________________________

    My guess? Show up and be black

    But if you’re also conservative, or perhaps even truly socio-politically centrist: “Get to the back of the bus and keep your mouth shut!!!”

    Or: “We don’t acknowledge sellouts, Oreos, or Uncle Toms!”

    Mark (411533)

  11. Donald Sterling will sell Blake Griffin for top dollar.
    He’s not a racist that I know of, but he does see athletes, black white, brown, as assets. He get plenty of good first rounders, puts an OK product out there for the days when the Lakers are traveling, or as an opponent on the road… and then he sells off the players before they get $100M out of him.

    SteveG (cc5dc9)

  12. Thanks for that link, happyfeet.

    JD (d4bbf1)

  13. ________________________________________

    he sells off the players before they get $100M out of him.

    I have a hunch that Sterling is the type who knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing.

    He was laughed at awhile back for running a large advertisement in the LA Times that hyped some homeless shelter he supposedly was going to build near Skid Row in downtown LA. It turned out to be nothing but a bunch of BS, a big ego-boosting scam.

    As for all the leftism that is rampant in the black community, the one time that situation does make me guffaw is when rightwing bigots — country-club elitists, if you will — are forced to tip toe around the minefield of political correctness run amok. That’s due in part to their suspicion that mindless leftism often breeds the response of “I’ll sue you, I’ll sue you!!”

    I recall a person (probably a Republican) pointing out in 2008 — in some online political forum (don’t recall which) — that a good percentage of black voters in California favored the proposition that upheld traditional marriage. He smirked about how “oh, that proves you can’t trust them black folk!” IOW, he exploited the outcome with a pathetic mix of both leftist and rightist idiocy.

    Mark (411533)

  14. And then as if that all wasn’t fun enough, they got the, um, month wrong. Black History month just ended yesterday.


    Hey, Bozo!!

    I wanted to celebrate the fact that their month was over!!

    Gimme a Break!

    Donald Stirling...enpoofenwiser (c9dcd8)

  15. …their suspicion that mindless leftism often breeds the response of “I’ll sue you, I’ll sue you!!”

    Uh, that’s not a tautological statement?

    Also: mindless leftism. Is there any other kind these days? Kinda like “murderous terrorist”, innit?

    Smock Puppet (c9dcd8)

  16. The very definition of tone deaf. Nothing says “celebrate” like reminding African-Americans of their disproportionate economic status.

    Of course, it is a good thing for the kids, most of whom probably won’t know, understand, or be affected by how they are being characterized. All they will know is that they’re being treated to a fun event. When they grow up and look back on it, however . . .

    Icy Texan (2987c7)

  17. I think any kid dragged to a game between a 30-31 team and a 21-40 home team is automatically “underprivileged”…

    No, I think the word you’re searching for to describe this instance would be “beleaguered“.

    Smock Puppet (c9dcd8)

  18. The problem I have with professional sports is having billionaire owners and millionaire players holding taxpayers hostage to staying in town by demanding taxpayer subsidized palaces to play in by threatening to leave for greener pastures.

    Sure, the greedy bastards have a rightg to making all the money they can, but not on the taxpayers’ dimes. How is a Miami Dolphin nose tackle worth $12 mil a year? And even then, it isn’t enough. Besides how many black kids aspiring to be a pro-athlete will actually make the big time? And racist that I may be, I wonder why blacks can demand affirmative action in, say, hiring of coaches but white boys are way under-represented in some sports as players. However I did read somewhere that one soccer team is the highest paid team in the world..Madrid I think.

    Calypso Louie Farrakhan (798aba)

  19. As to Washington’s courage, he routinely rode his house close to the front

    Um, he did what?

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  20. I remember some time in the spring of 2009 sitting in the dispatch console and watching the Joy Behar show. (The dispatcher had it on and I usually don’t throw my wieght around.) Joy maintained, to counter a point made by a conservative commentator (not present but that need not be said) that obama could not be a racist because blacks can not be reacist because to be racist one had to have power.

    It was Ms. Behar’s contention that the president of the United States was so powerless he would be unable to manifest his own bigotry.

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  21. Comment by Milhouse — 3/1/2011 @ 9:14 pm

    My error. Should have said “horse”. He often stayed close enough to the front line in battle that he could be seen by his men and shot at by the enemy. It is remarkable that he was never wounded.

    Machinist (b6f7da)


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