I’m as shocked to be writing this as you must be to read it.
The first three times your face flashed across my television screen, I did not understand all the hullabaloo. Big deal. A guy said something racist. And the players? They knew your values every time they cashed their paychecks. So, please, a bunch of rich people squabbling among themselves. Where’s the news?
Avoiding a commercial on another network, my channel-surfing husband landed on your CNN interview. “Look at that face. Really, you’ve got to feel sorry for him.” (And here’s a good reason to avoid marriage: your spouse will annihilate your superiority complex, with a kind remark right out of the blue.)
Against my will, I breathed in my husband’s words. You did not arrive into this moment a full-blown media anti-hero. Life placed you on earth as an innocent baby boy, whose mother probably said, “Look at that face.”
Sigh.
Life composed your words, which I labeled racist, as surely as Life wrote “I have a dream.” Life gave you wealth, as surely as It made Siddhartha a prince. It expressed Itself through your confusion, as surely as It radiated through Christ’s compassion.
And so, against my will, against all logic, Donald Sterling, my teacher, I love you.