Has the (long overdue) revolution of athletes against their owners begun? Â That would be awesome.
Los Angeles Clippers players are standing up to the overt racism of the team’s owner, Donald Sterling by warming up without their jerseys today.
The Internet has also been responding in exquisite fashion since the celebrity news site TMZ released a recording of Sterling making racist statements to his mixed-race girlfriend two days ago.
image source:Â http://concrete-apathy.tumblr.com/
source:Â http://doubleclutch.tumblr.com/
source:Â http://isolomon12y.tumblr.com/Â (Sterling is on the right)
And celebrity responses are being shared widely on Tumblr:
source:Â http://northgang.com
Unfiltered celebrity responses, including an early response from Snoop Dogg, below, were key in immediately framing Sterling’s recorded racist statements as an outrage. Â There is no way Snoop could have made this kind of contemptuous and unequivocal denunciation of racism on television. Â And it is hard to imagine Lil Wayne getting airtime to express his views either.
Source:Â http://instagram.com/snoopdogg
Users took these self-broadcast celebrity statements and gif-ed them and shared them across platforms, from Vine and Youtube to Tumblr, perhaps further encouraging players to respond with defiance. Â With self-publication and mass peer-to-peer sharing, an alternative, ad hoc broadcast network seems to be forming.
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