Donald Sterling Slams Magic Johnson On Anderson Cooper 360

Donald Sterling granted Anderson Cooper his first ever interview and much like V. Stiviano’s interview with Barbara Walters, it was quite bizarre. In the interview Donald Sterling discusses whether he is racist or not, still loving V. Stiviano, and has pretty harsh things to say about Magic Johnson. 

Donald Sterling on Magic Johnson 

“Here is a man, he acts so holy. He made love to every girl in every city in America and he had AIDS and when he had those AIDS I went to my synagogue and prayed for him. I hoped that he could live and be well. I didn’t criticize him. I could have. Is he an example for children? You know, because he has money he’s able to free himself [of AIDS].” 

“I think he should be ashamed of himself. I think he should go into the background. But what does he do for the black people? He doesn’t do anything. What has he done? Can you tell me? Big Magic Johnson, what has he done? What has he got? He’s got AIDS!“

“If I said anything wrong, I’m sorry,” Sterling said. “He’s a good person. I mean, what am I going to say? Has he done everything he can do to help minorities? I don’t think so. But I’ll say it, he’s great. But I don’t think he’s a good example for the children of Los Angeles.”

Donald Sterling on Black People Not Helping The Black Community

“That’s one problem I have. Jews when they get successful they will help their people and some of the African-Americans — maybe I’ll get in trouble again — they don’t want to help anybody.”

On Whether Or Not He’s Racist

“I’m not a racist and I made a terrible terrible mistake and I’m here today to apologize and to ask for forgiveness for all the people that I’ve hurt. I’ve hurt so many innocent people. I’ve hurt myself. I spoke to a girl that I was fond of and when I listen to that tape I don’t even know how I could say words like that. I’m not a racist. I love people. I always have. But those words came out of my mouth, I guess, and I’m so sorry. I’m so apologetic.” 

On Whether He Thought V. Stiviano Was Trying To Extort Him

“Forgive me for saying this but she is a good person. She is a beautiful person.  There’s 15 of her. 15 children. 15 Hispanic kids, sisters and brothers, and she supports them all. Perhaps she made some mistakes. I thought she cared for me. I was stupid. How could a girl care for a man 51 years older. She didn’t or she wouldn’t have released those tapes. But she’s not a bad person. She has to survive. I don’t know why she did what she did. I wish God would tell me. But whatever she did, good or bad, I’m the bad person for uttering those terrible, ugly words that I don’t mean.”

When asked if V. Stiviano directly asked for money Sterling says no. Then he continues, “You know, this girl, a hundred men could probably look at her and they wouldn’t even think she’s pretty but she was something special. The point that I’m making is, she was a woman who really never asked for anything. She had a way of walking by Neiman Marcus and walking by a window and saying ‘Sweetie, do you think that dress is beautiful?’ and if you’re a man you would want to go buy the dress.”  He goes on to say how he was financially generous to her because she was so nice and sweet to him.

In regards to his Magic Johnson/Black Community comments, one thing I’ve always fought against was Black people asking for hand outs from other Black people simply because they’ve gained some type of success. I’ve noticed that every time I’ve posted about someone reaching a new level of financial gain, that there is always a handful of crab in a barrel black people who want to say that “they don’t give back”. My issue is, there is a very small amount of WEALTHY (not rich, wealthy) African Americans and a lot of them do many things for the community. There are scholarship funds, schools, housing, charities, after school programs, toy & food drives, etc that successful black people have created and because you don’t hear about them doing that as much as you hear about them vacationing or buying a new house, you assume that it doesn’t happen. You have several black people that would rather sit on their butt and complain, waiting on Jay Z or Diddy to come personally hand them $5,000 than try and figure out how they too can rise to the lengths of Jay Z and Diddy. What does this do? It makes people like Donald Sterling feel like that have the black community all figured out. They see the complainers and immediately assume that we don’t do for our own. They swear they have all of the answers but do they do for the black community? No. They do for their own and continue laughing at us. This is why the complaining has to stop. Especially from those who don’t even volunteer their TIME, let alone a few dollars. 

That said, Magic Johnson is the founder of the Magic Johnson Foundation, which gets a top rating from Charity Navigator, a nonprofit corporation that evaluates charities. The Magic Johnson foundation provides funds for HIV/AIDs awareness, testing and treatment as well as scholarships and mentoring for minority students. It also provides other support to ethnically diverse urban communities and has spent several million dollars on those programs. So Mr. Sterling, that’s what he does for his community.

Enough of my rant, you can check the video clips below.  I apologize if they’re not in order.