@glen: Thanks (with a touch of irony because you felt the need to say you wrote without sarcasm suggesting that you were being same: oh dear, am I becoming paranoid in my ditherage?).
Anyway, the process of socialisation is where children learn how to behave properly, what is acceptable in society and what is not. In the USA of today, racism, along with sexism, murder, mob-justice, hanging courts, theft and – increasingly – homophobia, are no longer acceptable if ever they were.

Sterling was punished by his own peers (i.e. not you or me) and that punishment may serve to complete the process of socialisation that he clearly missed out on. Call me optimistic if you will but one of the most effective instruments of socialisation there is is ostracism by one’s peers.

Racism is too ugly to be exposed in public and I have no patience at all with people who claim (mostly by screaming and shouting) that hate-speech is protected by the First Amendment. Tolerance for hate speech injects division and strife within the community, exposing the latter to disaster and annihilation. The Founding Fathers, who were civilised, thinking people having benefited from an effective process of socialisation called (I believe) The Enlightenment, were perfectly aware of that risk. They were not perfect but they were definitely way ahead of their times.

Good post Bemused and I’m not being sarcastic. You can punish him all you want but it still won’t change his heart. As a Christian would say God can only do that. I just don’t want the government involved in someone’s speech and I think that this is where we are going.

I can live with that, Glen. A racist who keeps his mouth shut on that score is just fine with me. Racism is too ugly (and most un-Christian) to be expressed out loud.

Could you imagine how many black players say racist things but since it’s unknown it’s ok. If he would have just kept his thoughts to himself he wouldn’t have been deemed a racist. Just think it don’t say it and your not a racist.

The “both sides do it” argument is – by definition – a pretty lame one, but especially so when one side of the scale is firmly planted on the ground while the other side is dangling way up in the air. That’s usually what happens on FNC.

Such arguments are typically used by 3-5 year olds in a desperate attempt to justify doing something they are only just realising may be wrong.
When used by anybody older than that, they reflect a desperate wish to somehow justify some form of unethical behavior. That’s FNC, through and through.

It’s so obvious that the racist right is eager to call out racism by those even remotely associated with the left in an effort to promote the “both sides do it” meme. They do it not out of any moral indignation; only to justify their own racism,

I thought I detected the smell of a teabagger in Donald Sterling.

I actually saw this on FN when I went slumming there over the weekend. Wasn’t his last Democratic donation in ’92?
Ahhhh, the smell of stoopit desperation is strong with this one.

I thought he might be. My silly reasoning went like this, the righties were yelling and screaming so loud that he was a Democrat. Therefore, there was something to hide. And there was. His registration in the GOP. Not that I care, my favorite druggist is a registered GOPer.

Fox Nation Cites Sterling's Dem Contributions But Ignores His GOP Voter Registration