Obama Condemns Clippers Owner’s ‘Ignorant’ Racist Remarks

U.S. President Barack Obama attends the opening session of the Nuclear Summit in The Hague, the Netherlands, on Monday, March 24, 2014. President Barack Obama gathered with world leaders in a day of delicate diplomac... U.S. President Barack Obama attends the opening session of the Nuclear Summit in The Hague, the Netherlands, on Monday, March 24, 2014. President Barack Obama gathered with world leaders in a day of delicate diplomacy, as he sought to rally the international community Monday around efforts to isolate Russia following its incursion into Ukraine. Nuclear terrorism was the official topic as Obama and other world leaders streamed in to a convention center in The Hague for a two-day nuclear summit. But the real focus was on a hurriedly scheduled meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized economies to address the crisis in Ukraine on the sidelines of the nuclear summit. (AP Photo/Sean Gallup, POOL) MORE LESS
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President Obama on Sunday said that Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s “incredibly offensive” racist comments show that racism still lives in the U.S.

“When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don’t really have to do anything, you just let them talk. That’s what happened here,” Obama said when asked about Sterling’s comments during a press conference with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, according to CNN.

The president said that Sterling’s comments prove that “the United States continues to wrestle with the legacy of race and slavery and segregation.”

“That’s still there, the vestiges of discrimination. We’ve made enormous strides, but you’re going to continue to see this percolate up every so often,” he continued.

Sterling allegedly told his girlfriend that he didn’t want her to bring black people to his games, according to audio obtained by TMZ. The National Basketball Association is now investigating the recording.

Obama said he hoped that the NBA addresses Sterling’s comments.

“Obviously, the NBA is a league that is beloved by fans all across the country. It’s got a lot of African-American players, steeped in African-America culture, and I suspect the NBA is concerned and going to be resolving this.” he said.

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  1. Avatar for buzz buzz says:

    Now the republicans will start piling on Obama for being divisive…

  2. …which will then morph into: “SEE! HE’S THE REAL RACIST HERE!!!”

  3. Not all repubs are racist but I would bet just about all racists are republicans. The faux horror aside, soft core racism has been part of the DNA or that party since the 70’s. With the President’s election we’ve been creeping towards more open displays of racist talk and actions.

    We hear some supremes talk about original intent, our racism based in the constitution’s tolerance of slavery, Dred Scott, Jim Crow and separate but unequal apparently is live and well.

  4. Is there any way to format comments so that replies immediately follow the comments that they are replying too?

    Responding to LostintheSwamp: The main problems in the Disqus era seemed to be trolls and spam, but it looks to me like they’ve thrown out the baby with the bath water. I go to Washington Monthly regularly, and they’ve got nested threads, and the spam and troll problems seem really minimal. Now that might be a function of it being a much less popular website than TPM, and perhaps TPM is a victim of its own success. However, it appears as though Josh & Co. were unaware of how important nested replies are to having any kind of discussion. Now, it’s virtually impossible, especially with the supposedly temporary limit of three total comments per thread. WTH?

  5. Avatar for lee lee says:

    Yes, two ways, but neither are what you are likely looking for:

    1. By clicking the “replying to @name” link in the reply post when in “Overlay Mode” on the article page
    2. By clicking the “n Replies” dropdown when in “Discussion Mode” (accessible only from the “continue to discussion page”)

    The Comments engine (Discourse) doesn’t have a “global” setting for your account that makes nesting comments the default display mode for all threads. It prioritises order over thread hierarchy as a broad rule.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

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