AMERICA AT A CROSSROADS: DEMOCRACY, THE N-WORD, AND THE NEED FOR ALLIES

 

We see a new iteration of the n-word at the forefront of our current political discourse.  For

anyone who leans progressive, as each of us does to varying degrees, the last few weeks haven’t been pleasant. We’ve seen plenty worthy of being unhappy about recently:

·    An unending campaign in some states that would take us backward on electoral fairness
through voter suppression laws and redistricting plans that threaten (perhaps assure) permanent Republican rule despite demographic change that should swing legislative representation toward Democrats.

·  The dwindling stature of the Biden presidency, burdened as it is by falling poll numbers and bickering among Congressional Democrats that imperils his domestic agenda and the party’s prospects in the 2022 midterms.

·    Relative public indifference to Republican obstruction of a full-fledged investigation into
the January 6 attack on the Capitol, amid hints the Biden Justice Department may go easy on some insurrectionists out of a misguided fear of further radicalizing them; and

·    Misogyny, racism, and homophobia at high levels of the nation’s most popular professional sport.

Given this list, we almost find ourselves asking, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the theater?”

Historical Parallels

We acknowledge the nation has found itself in such a dark place before. About the tumult of 1968, journalist David Halberstam wrote that he  saw thecountry on the “verge of a national nervous breakdown” because of Vietnam and racial turmoil. Perhaps we’re not there now, but disarray abounds. Many supporters of former President Donald Trump appear willing to abandon democratic norms and institutions so he can wield power again.  

After Barack Obama’s 2008 victor some saw the ugliest of our racial conflict as behind us, a feeling that was clearly premature. Even six years ago, before Trump’s rise, many wouldn’t have believed the acquiescence of mainstream Republicans to this abandonment of democracy. 

We don’t know where this is going. The 1960s

precedents may or may not apply. After the civil rights marches Congress passed laws that improved the legal, social, and economic lives

of people of color. Yet, we have today’s political polarization, much of it rooted in racial division.

We moved in a different direction in foreign policy,

or appeared to for a while. Still, despite our Vietnam experience, we fought a 20-year war in Afghanistan from which we’ve only now extricated ourselves, complete with messy consequences for the current administration. We can’t say this will all come out right.

The Race Thing

We find nothing so disconcerting as the direction in which we seem headed on race. Barack Obama got

elected president. Kamala Harris got elected vice president. Those are positives, but look at what’s happening on the other side of the ledger.

Across the nation angry white parents attack school boards and teachers in seeking assurance their children will never learn, at least in school, the country’s terrible racial history. They’ve

found a convenient whipping boy by distorting an obscure old academic approach to race discrimination called Critical Race Theory and made it a boogey man that has become the basis for whitewashing America’s past. Meanwhile, in some states Republican legislators demand that their black and brown colleagues (and white ones so inclined) never refer to racism in legislative debates, even if a third grader could see the racist intent in voter suppression proposals and gerrymandered redistricting plans.

These Republican legislators and their right wing media comrades squeal long and loud if anyone calls out their behavior. Me, a racist? How dare you! We suggest they read Robin DiAngelo’s bestselling book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to talk about Racism. She could have subtitled the book Why So Many White People Refuse to Talk About Racism.

                                

We’ve wondered what difference really exists

between these modern deniers of racism and their Jim Crow predecessors. It’s true, they don’t regularly use the n-word in public. At least we knew where old time segregationists stood, men like Jim Eastland and Ross Barnett, many of whom used the n-word in public. Former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden didn’t in his now famous

e-mails, but the message was the same. Wouldn’t we live in a more honest, transparent society if descendants of the segregationists—the Grudens, the Greg Abbots, the Brian Kemps – discarded the fake civility and talked like they feel and act?

Not Devoid of Hope

Woodson tells of a white friend who told him the story of a young man of color – a fifth or sixth grader – with whom at school he developed a close friendship as a youngster. One day, no one could find the young black man.  His friend discovered him crying in a restroom because someone called him by the n-word. He’d been taught that if he lived righteously and played by the rules people would accept him.

The incident demonstrated that wasn’t always the case, seemingly yet another reason for despair. The

white student, now an adult, said 

that was when he first realized his black friend’s life experiences differed radically from his own. Now, as an adult, this white man attends a multi-ethnic church and has committed himself to racial justice. 

The story illustrates that bad people inhabit the world and we must face them individually and

collectively. It also shows we can find hope when we find allies. Fellow travelers abound. Kindred spirits of all colors inhabit the world. They don’t hide behind false civility and will engage in good faith discussion and debate. Henry reminds us that in the past we’ve always had enough people who believed in this vision that we could keep it alive. Do we have enough now? We shall see. 

HAMMERIN’ HANK AARON: MORE THAN A BASEBALL PLAYER

 

Hank Aaron spoke to The New York Times in 1990 about the true cost of chasing Babe Ruth’s career home run record:

“April 8, 1974, really led up to turning me off on baseball.”

“It really made me see for the first time a clear picture of what this country is about,” he said. “My kids had to live like they were in prison because of kidnap threats, and I had to live like a pig in a slaughter camp…All of these things have put a bad taste in my mouth.”

I realize that if I hadn't been able to hit the hell out of a baseball, I would have never been able to lay a finger on the good life that I've been fortunate to have. Playing baseball has given me all that a man could ask for…I don't even hear much about Babe Ruth anymore, thank goodness, and I haven't received a really nasty piece of hate mail in about fifteen years.

HANK AARON

I Had a Hammer

June 12, 2007

 

The January 22 death of baseball great Henry Aaron at 86 saddened us and we recognize the importance of

memorializing his life.  Awarded the Presidential Medal of  Freedom in 2002, the nation’s highest civilian honor, Aaron symbolized excellence in his sport and dedication to human rights causes. 

Before he became a major league star, he played in the Negro Leagues. The Howe Sports Bureau credits him with a .366 batting average in 26 official Negro League games with five home runs, 33 runs batted in (RBIs), 41 hits, and nine stolen bases. After joining the major leagues, he hit 24 or more home runs every year from 1955 through 1973 and is one of only two players to hit 30 or more home runs in a season at least fifteen times.

Up From Poverty

Hank Aaron began his life in a poor section of Mobile, Alabama and grew up in a little nearby

place called Toulminville. Because his family couldn’t afford baseball equipment, he made do with balls and bats pieced together from scrap picked up on the street.

Talking about Aaron’s career without talking about racism resembles talking about apple pie without talking about apples. His baseball success represents a testimony to his character as much as to his baseball prowess. Numbers are important, like his career 755 major league home runs and the fact he’s still the sport’s RBI leader at 2,227. But ignoring racism Aaron confronted diminishes the significance of the numbers. It’s revisionism.

Aaron said, “Too bad integration didn't come sooner, because there were so many ballplayers that could have major leagues…not to take away anything from Babe Ruth or some of those other guys – they didn't play against the greatest ballplayers …”   Aaron contends those players, such as Satchel Paige,  were in the Negro League. 

In 2014, Aaron told USA TODAY’s Bob Nightengale that he kept the death threat letters received when he challenged Ruth’s record to remind himself of how far we still had to go.

“To remind myself that we are not that far removed from when I was chasing the record... A lot of things have happened in this country, but we have so far to go...”

Many remember him for records, awards, and racist abuse during his pursuit of the career home run record, but he accomplished

much more. He supported civil rights causes. After retirement as a player, he paved the way for African-American front office executives, eventually becoming a Braves senior vice president. He excelled in business and his community service record earned him countless honors. Princeton University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree.

In his words:
“The way I see it, it's a great thing to be the man who hit the most home runs, but it's a greater thing to be the man who did the most with the home runs he hit. So as long as there's a chance that maybe I can hammer out a little justice now and then, … I intend to do as I always have -- keep swinging.”

HANK AARON

I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story

 
An Exquisite Player
Hank Aaron had maybe the smoothest, easiest

swing ever. It looked effortless. Undoubtedly it wasn’t. He hit home runs because of his quick wrists, not overpowering size. He played at about 180 pounds distributed over a six-foot frame. He wasn’t an imposing figure, but no pitcher enjoyed seeing him at the plate with runners on base as his RBI numbers attest.

Aaron was the quintessential five tool outfielder. He had speed (240 career stolen bases), could hit for average (two batting titles, .305 lifetime average), hit for power (MLB career best for extra base hits), throw

strongly with accuracy, and field his position cleanly (three-time Gold  Glove winner). He captured the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1957 when the Braves won a World Series in which he hit .393.

He was a true hero because of the dignity with which he played the game and what he did off the field. He took pride in the fact he played in the Negro leagues before he reached the majors, then contributed mightily to the cause of justice for all people.

When he chased Ruth’s record, he knew he

carried a huge burden as a black man pursing a revered sport record many white people didn’t want him to break. He bore that burden with grace and dignity, despite hate mail and death threats. He never became bitter, but he never forgot either.

Former President Barack Obama summed up the feelings of many when he said of Aaron, “He never missed an opportunity to lead.”  Yes, Henry Aaron did it all.    

CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS, STATUTES, AND INCONVENIENT TRUTHS: SLAVERY, JIM CROW, AND ADOLF HITLER

A debate that sometimes flares into violence now rages in the United States over Confederate monuments and statues. The deaths of African American men and women in police custody like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor have provided new urgency to an already invigorated movement for removing such monuments and statutes from city streets, government buildings, and college campuses. We stand squarely with those who would destroy or relegate such structures to museums or other places that can put them into proper historical context.

We acknowledge an arguable distinction between monuments honoring Confederate officials and military officers and symbols of the Confederacy on one hand and those recognizing founding fathers of the nation who enslaved people, but did not rebel against the United States.  Monuments honoring Thomas Jefferson and George Washington require a different conversation and we defer that to another day. We concern ourselves now with people who took up arms against the country.

We fear supporters of keeping Confederate monuments prefer forgetting inconvenient truths about what those monuments represent. Today we remind them.

It was About Slavery

The War Between the States, as supporters of the Lost Cause like calling it, was fought about one thing: The South’s desire to preserve slavery and expand it into the western territories. In the early 1800s, as Americans marched westward and new states sought admission into the Union, the South realized it had a problem. If those territories entered as free states, soon the South would find itself out gunned in Congress. The number of representatives and most importantly, senators, from free states would outnumber those from slave-holding states. The South would lose its hold on power in the national government. The South couldn’t have that, since it risked the end of slavery.

Too many Americans have forgotten (or never knew) two things about slavery -- how brutal it was and how important it was economically. When we wrote recently about the movement that would make Juneteenth a national holiday, we identified museums that tell the story of slavery’s horrors. We’ve noted before how

Professor Edward Baptist’s book The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism provides a thorough understanding of both slavery’s brutality and its economic dimensions. The book describes in chilling detail murders, rapes, and physical abuse that went along with slavery and explains the relationship between the peculiar institution and development of the United States as a world commercial power. It will disabuse any reader of the notion the Civil War (its proper name) was about anything else.

The Monuments and Jim Crow

Advocates of keeping Confederate monuments glossed over when most were

erected. It wasn’t immediately after the Civil War when supporters of the Lost Cause might have focused on memorializing their heroes. Only a few went up in those years. In fact, many monuments went up after reconstruction as part of an organized campaign against recently freed enslaved persons that promoted Jim Crow segregation and, later, resistance to the civil rights movement.

       

 

Richmond, Virginia, for example, installed a statue of  Confederate President Jefferson Davis on its famous Monument Avenue in

1907. The statue of Robert E. Lee removed in 2017 from a street in New Orleans went up in 1884. The Lee statute in Charlottesville, Virginia that sparked violence in 2017 was installed in 1924. South Carolina began flying the Confederate battle flag above its state capitol in 1962, as a protest against school desegregation. USA Today reported thirty-five Confederate monuments erected in North Carolina after 2000.

These historical facts suggest erecting monuments to Confederate leaders had more to do with intimidating blacks and the civil

rights community than with preserving “heritage” as monument supporters so piously claim. Students of history know context means everything. Context in this instance speaks volumes about the message the monuments were established to send.

Hitler?

Yes, Adolf Hitler. Frankly, we’ve been surprised many people appear hesitant about comparing

the  memorializing of confederates who fought against the United States with German and Japanese leaders during the Second World War. Well, we’re not. We’re not because we don’t see a distinction. No American city or university would erect a statue of Hitler. The United States military wouldn’t name a base after Erwin Rommel, the general who

commanded German forces resisting the D-Day invasion at Normandy. How about a monument honoring Japanese Admiral Yamamoto, mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbor?

Yet, statues in cities and on college campuses and the names of military bases honor defeated, treasonous Confederate officers. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Braxton Bragg, and other Confederate battle commanders fought as hard against the United States as Rommel and Yamamoto. Davis sought destruction of the United States just as Hitler and Japanese Emperor Hirohito did. A distinction is artificial and intellectually dishonest.

If we have made harsh pronouncements on

this issue, so be it. Some principles require expression with moral clarity and certainty, unadulterated by diplomatic or cultural nicety. For us, this is such an issue.

We stand by our assessment. None the less, we remain interested in contrary views. We’ve stated ours, so let us hear from you about yours.