THE END OF SINCERITY? IS THE
CONSTITUTION OF THE NBA TO TRUMP THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES?
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© April 30, 2014
When I was an
undergraduate student at the University of Iowa, after a physics lecture, Rex
Jamison invited me to have coffee with him.
Rex was valedictorian
of his high school class at Story City, Iowa.
He was also number one in my class at Iowa as well. He would go on to become a Rhodes Scholar at
Cambridge in Great Britain, and subsequently to graduate from Harvard
University from the School of Medicine at the top of his class.
Rex and I were
acquaintances taking many of the same courses, living in Hillcrest Dormitory,
and often involved in bull sessions on various topics.
Deeply
religious at the time, a devout Irish Roman Catholic, attending mass and communion
several times a week, I suppose I wore my religion on my sleeve. Rex was not religious.
One night the bull session turned to religion and Rex had the floor. He challenged me among all our friends to justify the tenets of
Catholicism, the relevance of Papal Encyclicals, the basis of Papal Infallible Authority and the church's dogmatic teachings. I was no match for him.
Rex had been a
debater in high school, and he fairly reduced me to incredulity. He
never let up even when my responses were reduced to stutters. I felt naked with all my clothes on.
Therefore, I was
surprised when he invited me for coffee after our class in physics. I couldn’t imagine what he wanted of me as my
only contact with him was when he had an audience, when he could hold court
with his peers and demonstrate his intellectual superiority by punishing one of us with
it.
He was not a good
listener, and always seemed to have to be “on.”
My wonder was how he could feel “on” with only me as his audience.
After our second cup
of coffee, he looked into my eyes deeply, and said to me, “Jim, teach me how to
be sincere.”
I thought he was
kidding, so I laughed and said, “Right!”
“I’m serious. I watch, hell, I study you. Did you know that?”
“Noooo," I said. That felt weird. He studied “me,” me of all people, a person
he had destroyed before our peers.
“Yeah, I do. You listen to others. You listen to me. I tried to make you mad the other night when
we were discussing religion, and I could see pain in your eyes, sincere
pain, not phony pain, not contrived pain.
I got to you, but I couldn’t stop.
I also saw anger, and thought he’s
going to hit me, and you started to stutter, yeah, stutter! That was the
damnedest thing. You’re a mountain
compared to me and could crush me like a bean, and what do you do? You stutter!
“Now, that’s
sincerity, and I want to learn it, teach me, be my rabbi.”
“Rex, sincerity can’t
be taught. Sincerity can only be
felt. It doesn’t come out of the
head. It comes out of the heart.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really!”
He gathered up his
books, turned and left, looked back and said, “I’ll owe you for the coffee,
okay?”
THE END OF SINCERITY? IS THE NBA
CONSTITUTION TO TRUMP THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION?
I thought of this conversation when Adam Silver, the Commissioner of the NBA, told a press conference that Donald Sterling,
the owner of the L A Clippers NBA Basketball Team, would be banned for
life from the NBA, exacted a $2.5 million fine, and could never again step into
an NBA arena.
Donald Sterling’s
crime was having said some outrageous and despicable things about African
Americans in general and NBA players and former players, such as Magic Johnson,
in particular in disparaging language to his former mistress.
He made these remarks
in the privacy of his own home, not knowing that he was being recorded. But the remarks were of such a heinous nature
that the NBA Players Association, of which more than 80 percent are African
American, as well as NBA fans throughout the league, demanded the commissioner
come down hard on the LA Clippers owner, and they were not disappointed.
If fact, I don’t imagine
most NBA players or fans expected the commissioner to be so draconian, or his
wrath to be so personal against the Clippers’ owner. The commissioner made it emphatic that his
ultimate objective was to strip Donald Sterling of ownership of the LA Clippers
with an early sale of the franchise.
To accomplish this,
the commissioner needs three-quarters of the 30 NBA franchise owners to vote
for such an action. He claimed it was
within the NBA constitution to exercise such an action.
FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS TO FREE SPEECH – WHERE IS THE NBA IN ALL THIS?
Donald Sterling has a
history or racism, and has paid fines before for his shameful bigotry. What makes this different? Charles Krauthammer on the “Bill O’Reilly
Show” of Fox TV claims the groundswell of reaction to this tape recording is evidence
of the huge shift in public opinion in the past 50 years.
That said what is
disturbing to me is the invasion of privacy, the violation of free speech, and
the overwhelming emotional piling on that everyone seems to be engaged in without
a moment’s reflection on what it may mean – down the road – to everyone else in terms of freedom of speech.
So, Donald Sterling
is a despicable human being, but even a despicable human being under the United
States Constitution has certain rights, among which are found in the Bill of Rights with the first amendment of
those rights the Freedom of Speech.
Can the NBA franchise
owners vote a franchise owner out of his ownership because he made some racist
remarks in the privacy of his own home?
If this emotional
madness is taken to its logical conclusion, and Donald Sterling is forced to
sell because of these remarks, what does that say for the rest of us that are
not billionaires, not millionaires, indeed, working paycheck to paycheck?
Can we lose our jobs,
lose our homes, or be ostracized from our community if a son or daughter,
brother or sister, uncle or aunt, or other friend or relative uses an iPhone to
record what we say in the privacy of our own home about anything or
anybody?
Is there no sanctuary
where we can express ourselves, vent our spleens, damn the world, damn the boss, or our company, the cat or dog, neighbor next door, or down the street for any
imagined or real slight that gets our dander up?
If that is the case,
more people will be like Rex, finding it impossible to understand sincerity,
because sincerity will have died, for no one will be able to afford to say what
they think or trust anyone to keep the confidence of their most private
thoughts. It will mark the end of spontaneity.
By punishing a reprobate for
his sick mind and hostile spirit who happens to be an NBA owner, could we be
punishing us all in abstentia?
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