No Illusions to Shatter

"Whether or not these remarks are private, they are now public, and they represent his views."
"I fully expect to get the support I need."
Adam Silver, NBA commissioner, U.S.A.

All those who believe their intimate lives are private, beware. If the National Security Agency doesn't get you, there's always the possibility that your mistress might. The NSA's mission statement is on an elevated plane of public service through intelligence gathering for the purpose of protecting American interests and by extension society at large.

"Given the nature of today's communications, the pervasive convergence we see in those communications, where everything is connected to everything, NSA has to ensure its compliance through a variety of mechanisms. We first work very hard to understand the nature of the telecommunications domain. We also work very hard to understand what our explicit authorities are in traversing that domain in the hunt for foreign intelligence. And finally, we, from the moment we design our systems, to employing those systems, to sorting through, sifting through what we might get from those systems, ensure that at every step of the process we worry not simply about what we've obtained, but whether we had the authority to obtain it and whether we've treated it in exactly the right way."

Your mistress, on the other hand, may resent it that your legal wife is suing her insultingly as an opportunistic gold digger skilled at extracting funds and valuables from "wealthy older men". And Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling is both wealthy and 'older', by about a half-century than his one-time paramour V. Stiviano.

Former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, right, and V. Stiviano, left, the woman who recorded his racist rants

What he saw in her was the allure of youth and beauty, complementing what she acknowledged in him; money, influence, power. Like the slave plantation owners of a century earlier who kept their favourite slaves as occasional bedmates, the bigoted man whose world-class sport team is reliant on the athletic skills of blacks, tolerates them as the vehicle he needs, and seeks out intimacy from a biracial black/Mexican.

Presumably, V. Stiviano, the darling of this world-class racist had an agenda in mind when she secretly taped a bedroom conversation. When intimacy takes place between an overweight, ill old man and a sprightly curvaceous young woman the result is not necessarily salacious, as this tape gives testament to, but rather a boring conversation that ensued to draw out the extent of his bigotry.

So what could possibly have been Donald Sterling's inamorata's purpose in recording evidence of his vibrant racism, and then broadcasting it through social media other than to shout out to the world what the man represented? And then watched complacently as the man who showered her with gifts of inestimably high value was crucified with a $2.5-million fine, public humiliation and a life-ban from his team and the NBA.

Revenge, it has been often said, is best served cold. And perhaps this was the incentive, having watched as the Los Angeles chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People hypocritically hailed the man for heroic public service recognition, the latest a lifetime achievement award, to man they well knew was a hateful bigot. It is no secret he has been repeatedly sued for racial discrimination.

Was it a kept woman's decision to end her alliance with a repugnant man whose virulent rants against blacks and Mexicans burdened her with guilt as a black-Mexican? To demonstrate that she decided, after all, to shed her sequined cloak of obsequious accommodation in selling herself for cold, hard cash? Giving the finger to the NAACP, that she could cynically commit to what they dared not.

"They want to know why the NAACP would give an award to someone with my track record", Mr. Sterling said several years back. After all, he did such wonderful things for the black community, giving minority children fee seats at Clippers games, taking out costly newspaper advertisements celebrating Black History Month, and all is forgiven. So what if he ejects minority tenants from his properties claiming they stink, they're smelly, lazy, and alcoholic.

"He also has, over the years we looked at, contributed to a lot of minority charities, including the NAACP", Leon Jenkins president of the Los Angeles chapter, said, justifying the organization's intention to award him with the latest lifetime achievement award. The NAACP handing out awards to a singular individual of huge wealth whose most notable achievement throughout his lifetime has been to build a reputation as a racist.

And though much has changed in the life of the two principals, with Donald Sterling no longer enjoying his celebrity seat at NBA games, and divested of his ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers, and Vanessa Stiviano is no longer his kept woman, she still carries the bags that cost a king's ransom, and drives the flame-red Ferrari that represent why she enjoyed being kept by the man she put in his place.

All in the details: She was seen carrying a multi-thousand dollar Hermes bag, Ferrari neatly parked.