Faces (obtuse title about Don Sterling and the NBA Clippers . . . and other unnamed choices)

Advertising companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and untold work-hours trying to find just "the right face" to represent their product.  Some are famous, like Michael Jordan for Hanes or Jennifer Aniston for Aveeno.  Some start out as little known but become a household name, or at least a household face, like the guys that play in the band for Creditscore.com or Flo for Progressive or the Gecko lizard for Geico. The right face is critical to making your point.

One of the biggest news stories of the past week has been the horribly racist comments by L. A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling which were made public and created a furor in the NBA, the media, and to millions of others.  As a consequence, a discussion has erupted in public forum about the discrimination against African American players in the NBA.  Eighty percent of the players are African-American, and only one team owner is African American, less than five percent.

I understand that.  It does not seem right.  It is a legitimate concern about which a larger discussion should continue and hopefully result in some changes.

But I regret that this is the face that has been chosen to represent the injury that racial discrimination inflicts upon young black men.

NBA players make millions of dollars a year.  That does not mean that Donald Sterling should not get what is coming to him, nor does it excuse racial discrimination in any way.

But still, NBA players make millions of dollars each year.  This is not something new.  Been going on for a couple of decades now.

I spent a few days in a state correctional facility a short while back.  About eighty percent of the inmates that I interacted with were young African Americans in their twenties and thirties.  Most of these young men were from Alabama.  Most had little or no opportunity.  Many grew up in poverty, in areas where the schools were sub-standard, and opportunities for employment were slim.

And I have no doubt that all of them have been the subject of the meanest, crudest racial slurs that can be uttered.

Nothing new. It has been that way for decades. Centuries.

And as far as I know, the media has not visited one of them this year to get a good quote about racial discrimination.  And the radical chic  have not asked to come visit for a photo op either.  I guess they prefer a guest list to a DOC visitors list.

There are a few hundred African-American NBA players.  There are tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of young African-American men behind bars like the ones I spent time with a few days ago.  There are thousands more not in prison who never got in trouble, despite the lack of opportunity and seeming lack of hope.  Nobody has sought them out for a quote either.

So they have no voice. They have no face.

Because they have no money.  So they have no power.

And that's shameful.  Not just the lack of money or power.

But that it makes all the difference,  no matter what kind of face you put on it.

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