Musings from the CU Suite

Written by Anthony Demangone

By now, I'm sure many of you have read about Donald Sterling, the current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. 

If you haven't, here are the Cliff Notes. Mr. Sterling owns an NBA franchise. He allegedly became angry when his girlfriend brought a black person to a Clippers basketball game as a guest.  Unknown to him, she taped a very long conversation where Mr. Sterling uttered a number of racist comments against African Americans. A news organization posted the tape online.

As you can imagine, the allegations outraged countless people across the country. Sponsors are pulling away from the Clippers. The team's players are protesting. Other NBA owners are angry, and the NBA itself is investigating exactly what happened. On Tuesday, they banned Sterling for life. 

But it gets worse. Other stories are coming out about other racist things Mr. Sterling allegedly did. And said. Going back years and years. 

So now, not only is he under intense pressure, but so is the NBA. What did they know about his alleged behavior, and when? If they knew about racist behavior, what did they do? Why didn't they do more?

I won't pretend to guess how this will turn out, but I will pose these questions/thoughts.

• What are the chances that you have a racist employee or official at your credit union?
• How would you handle a situation akin to what is happening with the Clippers? 
• In today's day and age, does anyone still think they can sweep something under the rug? If "it" resurfaces again, people will want to know why something wasn't done before to stop it.

My father has a saying at times like these.  Nothing should surprise me anymore...

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