It was bound to happen from the moment that Los Angeles Clippers ownerDonald Sterling called out Magic Johnson as a poor role model.
Magic Johnson wrong to respond to Donald Sterling CNN Interview
The NewYorker.com relived Magic Johnson's own crusade against AIDS and HIV in 1991 when he made the stunning announcement that he had contracted the virus while he was still a member of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Many people left him for dead, not knowing that the disease was not a death sentence. But Johnson did much more than let the public know that people who are HIV-positive aren't simply going to grow sick and die.
"Within a month of Magic Johnson's announcement, the number of people seeking HIV tests in New York City rose by sixty percent," the New Yorker reported. "A similarly sharp increase was noted in many cities throughout the nation. (New York's health department even had trouble marshalling the resources needed to accommodate the demand. By December, 1991, it took as many as seven weeks to get an appointment for a test at the city's counselling and testing centers. Before Johnson's announcement, most centers provided tests without an appointment.)"
Magic Johnson implores NBA commissioner Adam Silver to remove Donald Sterling
The New Yorker suggested that Johnson had done enough simply by becoming the most popular figure in the U.S. to be associated with HIV to bolster public awareness, but Johnson didn't stop there.
"Johnson began to speak out and he has never retreated. In 1992, he returned to play in the All-Star Game, not without some opposition, and later that year played on America's 'Dream Team' in the Barcelona Olympics. Moreover, like Koop, Johnson turned out to have deep wells of integrity. President George Bush appointed him to the National Commission on AIDS. But, as soon as Johnson realized that the commission did nothing, he resigned, contending in a highly publicized letter to the President that he had 'dropped the ball.' He wrote, 'I cannot in good conscience continue to serve on a commission whose important work is so utterly ignored by your Administration.'
Perhaps part of what turned Johnson into a successful businessman were his missions to help the sick and less fortunate.
"Johnson's businesses have thrived, and through his foundation he has donated millions of dollars, and thousands of hours of his time, to charities-including those in south Los Angeles. In 2008, Johnson worked tirelessly in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat Proposition 8 in California, saying at the time that the same-sex marriage ban was "unfair and wrong...' and that it ... "singles out one group of Californians to be treated differently-including members of our family, our friends, and our coworkers." Last year, his son Earvin Johnson III, known as E.J., announced that he was gay. Johnson and his wife Cookie (whom he married in 1991) offered public words of support (and did so in an interview on CNN and also from the biggest platform they could find: Oprah Winfrey's couch). 'I go to church,' Johnson said at the time. 'I'm a Christian, but the reality is, my son is gay. ... And I tell my pastors that, I tell other pastors that.... I love my son, nothing is going to change that. I don't care if you don't agree. If you don't want to deal with me, or you don't like me, that's on you.' "
So at least Sterling deserves credit for exposing Magic Johnson for the person he really is.
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