maufman said:
I don't think Sterling's girlfriend/mistress/whatever is an important part of the story, but I find your characterization of her as someone who was "bought and treated like a sub-human," in the absence of a shred of evidence suggesting the arrangement was less than entirely consensual, to be more sexist than the comments you are railing against. She's a grown woman who has intentionally placed herself in the public eye; she should expect her actions (and her curious relationship with Donald Sterling) to be scrutinized. Suggesting that such scrutiny is comparable to saying a rape victim "asked for it" is way, way off base.
It's clear from your posting history that you are the farthest thing from a sexist, so please take this in the spirit in which it's intended.
I may be guilty of synthesizing a conclusion here: an 80-year old man does not have a 20-year old girlfriend (and a wife) without money being at the top of the list of reasons why the relationship exists in the first place. Sterling's long history of racial insensitivity (being kind) and prior record of public statements about those lower than he in the power structure (read: everyone) informs my opinion that Donald Sterling "bought" his mistress. The $1.8M in "gifts" certainly supports that idea. As for the "treated like a sub-human", I'll agree I am speculating - but again, given what we know, it does seem likely that there's more than a little "plantation owner" in Donald Sterling's character and makeup.
She's a 20 year old woman attracted by the money and power of a billionaire. This is not a relationship born of equality. She may be doing this to "get paid" because she's a "gold-digger" but those too are assumptions and made from much less evidence than my assumptions about Sterling's motivations and/or behavior. Suggesting that she is anywhere as "bad" as Sterling is, IMO, silly and uninformed. She is, for all intents and purposes, a very young woman who was seduced by money and power and then found out WHY Sterling has to buy and pay for a very young woman like her.
Exposing him for what he is (and has been known, for a long time, to be) is not enough for me to condemn her. It is not enough to suggest that she is somehow responsible for creating a slippery slope into 4th amendment violations and the taping of everyone, everywhere. It really is not enough to condemn her for that act, given the inequity of power she was (and will continue) dealing with as this story chugs along.
My initial reply was in response to the idea that she was a "high end escort". A prostitute. Which carries its own huge set of baggage into any discussion of male-female relationships, power and money. I still think that is a highly inappropriate comparison to invoke and I do acknowledge that crystaline did not intend for it to read that way.
But this would be "cleaner" (no pun intended) if she had been a "high end prosititute" who taped a billionaire making racist remarks. That is in, in fact, a very young woman who may or may not have "after the money" complicates things, but only a little. Because you (maufman) are correct - she is largely irrelevant to this story. Not to the discussion in this thread, though, which is why I felt compelled to respond. All the posts describing her as a "gold-digger" or focusing on her motives do miss the point.
Billionaires get to do what they want. Sterling will not be held accountable or face any real consequences for his words or his thinking, as repugnant as fans or his employees or NBA talking heads find it. Because he is a billionaire, he makes the rules and he decides when to comply and he has control. So, shitting on the very young woman he bought (and probably treated poorly) is distasteful. She got used, like Sterling uses every body.
