Donald Sterling's Entitled Mentality

Billionaire Donald Sterling's emotional rant epitomizes the paternal attitudes of Cliven Bundy who famously wondered whether black folks weren't better off as slaves picking cotton and Paul Ryan's "tailspin of culture" remarks that "generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work." Like Bundy's wonderings, Ryan wanders into the genetic superiority red herring by referencing Charles Murray, who held that that the reason "we still have poverty in the United States is that a lot of poor people are born lazy." Shades of Ann Richards silver-spooning Bush, who was "born" that way.

The argument of nature vs. nurture excuses the racist institutional system from providing the best to all of its citizens and makes the under-served scapegoats.

Little did Donald Sterling realize that he is among the under-served. In his rant, Sterling revealed that there's more than racism going on with Donald Sterling; his illogic exposed it. One thing is the "entitled mentality vs. the entitlement mentality." His rant to Stiviano exposes his attitude that he is "entitled" to treat his players as recipients of his largesse instead of what they are: men who play sports and earn their wages. In his mind, Sterling considers his players to have the "entitlement mentality" as he quite clearly lists what he "gives" to his players. After all, from Sterling's perspective, his wealth, prominence and color "entitle" him to discredit his players from wage earners to welfare recipients.

Sterling: "Who gives it them? I give it to them!"

V. Stiviano: Do you know that you have a whole team that's black, that plays for you?

Sterling: You just, do I know? I support them and give them food, and clothes, and cars, and houses. Who gives it to them? Does someone else give it to them? Do I know that I have — Who makes the game? Do I make the game, or do they make the game? Is there 30 owners, that created the league?

"...Sterling replies. "And I'm just saying that it's too bad you can't admire him privately. And during your ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE, your whole life, admire him -- bring him here, feed him, fuck him, I don't care. You can do anything. But don't put him on an Instagram for the world to see so they have to call me. And don't bring him to my games. OK?"

These are the words of an 80 year old racist who wasn't even making sense and may be in early stages of Alzheimer's. Where's the sense in his words? According to the CDC, "Starting at age 65, the risk of developing the disease doubles every five years. By age 85 years and older, between 25 and 50 percent of people will exhibit signs of Alzheimer’s disease."

Getting upset about a picture posted on Instagram and some phone calls shows that the Sterling isn't stable.

Sterling feels that he's entitled to give Stiviano "permission" to do anything with Magic but just don't do it publicly (asserting his "power" over her). It's not unusual that when people begin to recognize that they are losing control of their cognitive abilities, they try to control something or someone else. It's ironic that Donald Sterling is under-served in terms of his mental health needs.

"Entitlement" Education comes to Sweet Home Alabama

 

Again, I have to hand it to Alabama republicans, they are a....cunning bunch with steel gonads.  The red, republican, dominated State Legislature, enabled by the media,  created a weapon of mass distraction introducing a so-called School Flexibility Bill, that was supposed to let school district seek waivers from some policies.

 The House and Senate education committees will take up today a fight over who will control the state's K-12 curriculum and whether Alabama should continue using national curriculum standards known as the common core.

So while the public debate was focused on Common Core, the red republican dominated Alabama legislators were scheming in the back room... then BAM!  Here come Shock and Awe!

MONTGOMERY, Alabama --Republicans in the Alabama Legislature added a sweeping income tax credit and school choice plan to a school flexibility bill in conference committee today.
The surprise move caused a shouting match in the Senate and accusations by Democrats that Republicans were not dealing in good faith on a bill that had been debated for weeks.

In order to....justify this surprise attack on public education Alabama republicans, bless their hearts, claim this bill will provide a viable alternative to families with children stuck in underperforming schools.  Yeah right.

So instead of finding out why the public schools are failing students and taxpayers (funding), and maybe correcting the problem (equity funding), the solution for the Alabama GOP is to abandon them, and take our tax dollars with them.

Families with students in a failing school could receive state income tax credits to offset the cost of transferring to a private or non-failing public school. The credit would be equal to 80 percent of the average annual state cost of attendance for a public K-12 student.

If the red, republican dominated legislators think there are enough private, or non-failing public schools in this state to accommodate all the students who would, if they could transfer, I have a bridge in Selma to sell them.  But that's the point, they know there aren't enough schools to accommodate all students, so they are making it easier for the entitled few to have access to a quality education at the expense of the entitlement crowd.

 There is a common belief among conservatives that welfare programs by their very nature lead to the kind of so-called breakdown of democracy that Scalia finds objectionable in the Voting Rights Act case. Indeed, the most famous articulation of this view was Mitt Romney’s 47 percent remark: “those that are dependent on government and those that think government’s job is to redistribute — I’m not going to get them.” In essence, Romney warned that as the government creates welfare programs, this transforms welfare recipients into a constituency for those programs. And eventually that constituency becomes so large that it is impossible for a lawmaker to repeal those programs, or for people who oppose those programs to get elected.

Welcome to Sweet Home Alabama, where the republican dominated state legislature cares more about what students read instead of if they can read.

YeeHaw!