NAACP won't award Donald Sterling

He was set to receive 2nd lifetime achievement award.

ByDARREN ROVELL
April 27, 2014, 12:22 PM

— -- The interim president of the NAACP said Sunday morning that Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling will no longer receive a second lifetime achievement award that its Los Angeles chapter was going to give him next month.

Lorraine Miller made the announcement as a guest on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday morning.

"If you're silent about this, then you are accepting this," Miller told the show's host, David Gregory. "And people have got to say that this is not good and do something about it."

This would have been the second time in six years that the Los Angeles chapter would have been given Sterling its lifetime achievement award.

The NBA is investigating an audio recording purportedly of Sterling making racist remarks to his girlfriend V. Stiviano. Commissioner Adam Silver said Saturday that the NBA needs to confirm authenticity of the audio tape and interview both Sterling and the woman in the recording.

"We do hope to have this wrapped up in the next few days," Silver said Saturday.

In the audio recording, the man believed to be Sterling questions Stiviano, about her association with minorities. TMZ reports that Stiviano, who is black and Mexican, posted a picture of herself with Magic Johnson on Instagram, a photo that has since been removed.

"It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you're associating with black people. Do you have to?" the man believed to be Sterling says. He continues, "You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it on that ... and not to bring them to my games."

The website Deadspin released an extended 15-minute version of the purported conversation Sunday.

In that recording, the woman purported to be Stiviano asks, "Do you know that you have a whole team that's black that plays for you?"

The man, purported to be Sterling, responds: "You just, do I know? I support them and give them food, and clothes, and cars, and houses. Who gives it to them? Does someone else give it to them? Do I know that I have -- Who makes the game? Do I make the game, or do they make the game? Is there 30 owners, that created the league?"

It is not known if the recordings have been doctored or altered.

Stiviano's lawyer released a statement Sunday afternoon that stated the tapes carrying the purported voices of Stiviano and Sterling were "legitimate." The quotes came from approximately an hour's worth of recorded conversation, which Stiviano says she did not leak to the media.

In addition to the NBA investigation, the Clippers have opened their own investigation, team president Andy Roeser said in a statement.

"We have heard the tape on TMZ. We do not know if it is legitimate or it has been altered," he said. "We do know that the woman on the tape -- who we believe released it to TMZ -- is the defendant in a lawsuit brought by the Sterling family alleging that she embezzled more than $1.8 million, who told Mr. Sterling that she would 'get even.'

"Mr. Sterling is emphatic that what is reflected on that recording is not consistent with, nor does it reflect his views, beliefs or feelings. It is the antithesis of who he is, what he believes and how he has lived his life. He feels terrible that such sentiments are being attributed to him and apologizes to anyone who might have been hurt by them."

In 2009, while being accused of racism in a lawsuit brought by former Clippers general manager Elgin Baylor, the chapter also gave Sterling the award.

"For the most part, [Sterling] has been very, very kind to the minority youth community," the chapter's president Leon Jenkins explained to the Los Angeles Times at the time.

Calls placed to Jenkins, who still serves as president, were not returned.

A digital invitation of the May 15 gala celebrating the 100th anniversary of the chapter, and Sterling as one of the top honorees, was still on the organization's website as of Sunday.