The Scope of Free Speech

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
           Noam Chomsky

In recent weeks, a row has emerged from the owner of the National Basketball Association’s Los Angeles Clippers – Donald Sterling.  He’s the longest serving owner in the NBA but due to a couple of well-publicized incidents, he has often been thought of (when he was thought of) as a buffoon.  Last week, a secretly recorded tape showcased Mr. Sterling’s backward thinking and racism.  In the aftermath, the commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silver, banned him for life and is attempting to force the sale of his club to the league so that they may seek a more suitable owner.  As ridiculous as Mr. Sterling’s comments were, I’m confused and alarmed by the action taken and the players’ reaction to the owner.

There are two major things about this whole fiasco that bother me.  The first is the nature of the comments and the league’s reaction to the same.  So that my affiliation is clear, I don’t subscribe to Mr. Sterling’s point of view.  He is like the drunk uncle at family gatherings whose embarrassing paradigm is stuck about sixty years in the past.  That said, the NBA’s actions are a bit dangerous to me.  In my perfect world, people like Mr. Sterling are taken care of by the market and its refusal to patronize his product.  However, not many people, let alone sports fans, have the courage of their convictions when their “team” is the question.  So, they want somebody else to do something.  In steps the commissioner.  

Mr. Silver laid down the law that Donald Sterling’s words, secretly recorded in the privacy of his own home, are grounds for immediate and indefinite suspension.  However, my problem has to do with the basis for the commissioner’s actions.  As Dallas Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban said, it is not against the law to be stupid and backwards.  So, what is the fallout if you make it a crime?  Some might say, what is wrong with taking action against a racist?  The problem is that it seldom stops there.  History shows us that people with the power to control the masses begin with the agreed upon.  People feel comfortable with the first salvos – who is going to defend the actions of a racist?  Yet, it is a slippery slope and I’m concerned about the precedent set.   

The other matter that I do not understand is the reaction from the players and observers.  It seems we are giving way too much attention to the thoughts and actions of an 80-year-old, publically insignificant figure that people wrote off as a joke years ago.  Players turning their jersey inside out in protest – I want to know the individual who, prior to, connected the name “Clippers” only to Donald Sterling and not the men on the court.  Players emotionally declared the level of hurt and pain this has caused.  Unfortunately, it is likely these young men have suffered in the past from racism.  This is the worst?  The private ramblings of a marginalized man has caused this much distress and emotion?  I would suggest to you this man has never been given so much attention in his life.   

I don’t have the answer to racism.  Yet the attention paid to Mr. Sterling is disproportionate to its impact.  Additionally, when an organization can punish thought and privately expressed thought at that, what does that mean?  As a Jew, I learned early that even the neo-Nazis should be able to speak their mind publicly.  Forbidden speech is emboldened speech.  The protection of speech, certainly what is said in the privacy of one’s home, is paramount in a free society.  Racists and others of their ilk, in a free society, will face condemnation and marginalization.  The actions of the NBA commissioner borders on the tyranny of the majority and in the end could prove just as destructive as the racists.