By V. Stiviano
I didn’t believe it at first, but the old adage is true: once you go old, racist asshole, you never go back.
At first I wasn’t sure about dating a super old, super racist man. I know that might make me seem ignorant or naive, but it’s true. It was territory I’d never crossed into. Culturally, Donald Sterling was so different from me: I, a half-black, half-Mexican 31-year-old woman—he, a fully white and thoroughly racist 80-year-old owner of the LA Clippers. But he exuded a quiet confidence—almost as if he was just, like, born with the most advantageous race and gender. I was attracted to his blatant disregard for the equality of mankind and assurance that his racism would never be exposed because he surrounded himself with men exactly like him. Swoon.
Donald was mysterious in ways I could never explain. He was like a handsome, powerful plantation owner and I was his sexy young forbidden lover whom he would never give proper respect to because of my skin color, his deep-seated hatred, and our half-a-century age difference. I never thought our fundamental differences would make him so alluring.
After some courting (ha ha), we began to date. We would go to basketball games together, he would show me off to his old friends, I would tell my young friends about him and some of them even met him if they were white and if I felt like he could adequately hide his racist remarks—you know, all those typical new-couple things. It was the same as every other relationship, except totally different – all the other boys were just boys, but Donald was an old, racist shitbag.
It wasn’t always easy – we did face some hardships. There are still plenty of people out there who think that horrible elderly bigoted fucks and people who aren’t horrible elderly bigoted fucks shouldn’t date. This isn’t the 1950s, guys. I should be able to go out in public with an old-racist-shitbag and not be sneered at.
My friends couldn’t believe it. “I never pictured you dating an old, super racist assface,” they would say. I would respond, “Well, that seems close-minded of you. What does the fact that he’s an old, bigoted douchenozzle have to do with anything?” Then they would say, “You knowingly dating a racist even though you’re a minority basically is sending a message to him and everyone like him that you’re OK with…You know what, never mind. See you at the Clippers game? You got us tickets again, right?”
Don’t they understand? I would ask myself. Love doesn’t see color, or age, or deplorable bigots that can’t even stand the thought of their significant others being pictured with black men on social networking apps.
But in the end it didn’t matter; I was in love. Although after being banned for life from the NBA, I guess I can see how this might have been a bad thing. You know what? Actually, never mind. I will definitely go back.
