Infidelity Vs. Racism. Lesser Of Two Evils?

The Other Woman

The revelation that L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling made racist remarks to his mistress V. Stiviano has rightfully brought a huge uproar of indignation among basketball players and fans alike. It is almost unfathomable that the owner of a business whose star employees are nearly all African Americans could harbor such hatred of black people.

Yet while all these denunciations are occurring over Mr. Sterling's racist rants, I find it disheartening that his other moral failing isn't even being discussed, much less condemned--his affair with his mistress V. Stiviano. Mr. Sterling has been married to Mrs. Rochelle Sterling for over fifty years. Yet there are multiple pictures of the mistress all over the internet of Mr. Sterling cavorting with his mistress in their court side seats at Clippers games.

Why hasn't anybody ever condemned this immoral behavior before? Has infidelity become so commonplace that nobody wants to be accused of throwing stones at glass houses? You can almost take it for granted that practically all the NBA players have had affairs while on the road and away from their spouses (yes Kobe Bryant I'm looking at you). Probably most of the men in high power positions like NBA team owners also have had indiscretions with their girlfriends too. Is that why nobody has been willing to speak up about Mr. Sterling's blatant acts of shamelessness at every Clippers game for the whole world to see?

Adultery was once an act of unbearable indecency. It is after all one of the Ten Commandments as set by God. History didn't used to treat infidelity with such blithe disregard. Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic book "The Scarlet Letter" demonstrated the ugly consequences of committing an affair in early America. All the way up to the 1980's, having a mistress on the side was so reprehensible that it could bring down the careers of aspiring presidential politicians (I'm talking about you Gary Hart).

But in the last twenty years, with its freewheeling attitudes towards behavior, where anything goes as long as nobody gets hurt, infidelity has become not only accepted, but practically expected of people in certain positions of power. President Clinton probably set the tone when he literally lied to the nation about his affair with Monica Lewinsky and nothing happened to his presidency. He is practically a saint in the Democratic Party now despite all that baggage. Movie stars are in the news regularly for their sexual indiscretions yet the multimillion dollar contracts and fan adorations continue. The America of the 1960's could only dream of being as carefree as the 2010's. This is truly the era where one is allowed to live and let live, without judgement.

Unless of course you are accused of being a racist. Or use the N word (unless you're black). One can't even talk about the inner city without being accused of racism if the speaker is of the wrong color. Racism has truly become the untouchable subject of our society. Drug use? OK with that. Infidelity? Sure. Everybody's doing it. Out of wedlock births? That's the hottest Hollywood trend. But being stuck with the term racist is practically a societal death sentence. One automatically becomes a persona non grata of his former social circle.

So go ahead. Have an affair. Have one hundred. Nowadays nobody will look disparagingly at you anymore for that moral failure. Can it even be labeled a moral failure if nobody considers it immoral? But watch what you say about races other than your own. This will truly put the fear of God into the very fiber of your being.