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RACISM & SPORTS I: Dave Zirin, A White Man, On Barry Bonds, Baseball & Racism - "It Ain't Racism If I Say It Ain't Racism" Repub 1/5
RACISM & SPORTS
I:
Dave Zirin, A White Man,
On Barry Bonds, Baseball
& Racism –
“It Ain’t Racism If I Say
It Ain’t Racism” Repub 1/5
Originally published April 1, 2006
Tabacco, a Black man, received the following email from Dave Zirin, a White man, this morning. Tabacco will make no further editorial contribution here. Read what Zirin has to say.
On Bonds: You're Damn Right Race Matters
By Dave Zirin
Is Barry Bonds the object of a racist witch-hunt? Over
the last week I have had to publicly argue this issue
against some of the finest minds of my generation (all
right, John Rocker and Jose Canseco). In addition, I
have duked it out on talk radio, sports radio, email
chats, and various blogs. The dominant argument I hear
repeatedly, whether from Mr. Rocker or Mr. Liberal
Blogger, is that I am an idiot if I think that the
Bonds steroid-mania is all about bigotry run amok.
Unfortunately that is not my argument.
To be clear:
I don't think that everyone against Bonds is a racist.
I don't think every sportswriter who wants Bonds
punished is a racist. And I certainly don't think
anyone who believes in harsh penalties for steroid use
is a racist. One can hate Barry Bonds and also spend
Sundays singing "We Shall Overcome" with the Harlem
Boys Choir before reading select passages from Go Tell
it On The Mountain. But to argue that race has nothing
to do with the saga of Barry Bonds is to practice
ignorance frightening in its Rocker-ian grandiosity.
Of course you can always simply agree with San
Francisco Giants owner Peter Magowan, CEO of Safeway
Supermarkets and anti-union zealot, who believes that
it is a remarkable sign of racial progress that Barry
Bonds is flayed before the public. Magowan said, "I
don't believe this is a case of racism. In fact, I
think this shows how far we've come. If the media
brought this up 20 years ago, they would have been
considered racists."
Now that's progress. The media can be as racist as
they want without being called on it.
The fact is that racism smears this entire story like
rancid cream cheese on a stale bialy.
First and foremost, there are the death threats. USA
Today reported yesterday that Bonds is being deluged
with letters that threaten his life, many with
overtones about as subtle as a burning cross. Today I
was on a tremendous radio show out of Cincinnati
called The Buzz‚ and we were deluged with calls by
older African-Americans who recalled with chilling
clarity the trials of Henry Aaron. When Aaron
approached Babe Ruth's home run record, the death
threats came rolling in. Now that Bonds is just six
behind Ruth's 714, the slurs are returning 32 years
later like a white power Halley's Comet.
Dr. Harry Edwards, the famed sports sociologist,
recently said, "The same animosity and resentment that
Hank Aaron suffered through when he broke Babe Ruth's
record has been exacerbated because of the cloud of
steroid suspicion. This is a visceral response to a
black man (passing) Babe Ruth."
Then, there is the way the media is covering this.
There is no question that Bonds has spent his career
treating the press the way a baby treats a diaper. But
Bonds is not the first athlete to sneer at a reporter
or two. In fact Mark McGwire was a notoriously surly
personality who was presented to us like a grinning
Paul Bunyon. It's not who you are, but who the media
tells us you are. When it comes to Bonds, the press
has called for everything but a big scarlet S on his
chest, all of which has the appearance of a hellacious
double standard. When a prominent ESPN talk show host
says, "If [Bonds] did it, hang him", the perception is
that this is little more than a railroad job of a
prominent and outspoken African-American superstar on
the precipice of Ruth and Aaron's records.
This is why Louisiana State University professor
Leonard Moore can say with sincerity, "White America
doesn't want him to (pass) Babe Ruth and is doing
everything they can to stop him. America hasn't had a
white hope since the retirement of (NBA star) Larry
Bird, and once Bonds passes Ruth, there's nothing that
will make (Ruth) unique, and they're scared. And I'm
scared for Bonds."
Finally there is the Major League Baseball
establishment itself. This week they took the
extraordinary step of forming a commission to
"investigate and root out steroids in the game" led by
former Senator George Mitchell.
But the probe is already being derided as a sham. How
seriously would we take an investigation into Iraq's
missing "weapons of mass destruction" if it was headed
by Dick Cheney? Would we accept an examination of
racial profiling if it was led by John Ashcroft? Of
course not. It would be a farce. And so it is with
Senator Mitchell in charge. Mitchell is on the board
of the Boston Red Sox. He is also chairman of The Walt
Disney Co., the parent company of ESPN, the main
national broadcast partner of baseball. In other
words, he has an actual material interest in keeping
the spotlight off the owners, including what they knew
and when they knew it, and keeping it on the players.
Particularly Barry Bonds.
According to one writer with a serious pipeline into
the commissioner's office, Richard Justice, the
investigation is "Totally [aimed at Barry Bonds.] He
is the number one player going for the most hallowed
record... There may be other names that come out but
this is all about Barry Bonds... Bud wants the
prescription, well more than perception, that he is
doing this the right way...I promise you he will not
get the chance to break Hank Aaron's record. I will be
willing to bet you. I think Henry Aaron and Bud Selig
will be grilling brauts in Bud's backyard."
In other words, this is all smoke in our eyes,
blurring the fact that this really about getting Bonds
out of the game before he passes Aaron. Is this
racially motivated? The question is too simplistic.
The fact is that Bud Selig is deflecting criticism off
the owners by putting the heat on the most prominent
player in the game who happens to be Black. Whether
this is conjured up in some back room or not is beside
the point. MLB owners seem willing to sacrifice Bonds
if it keeps Congress and the public off their backs.
This is why some prominent baseball people are loudly
speaking a word rarely said in the world of sports:
race.
All-star Minnesota Twin Torii Hunter, another of
baseball's dwindling African-American superstars,
called the investigation "stupid." "They can say what
they want, but there's no way they would launch an
investigation if Barry Bonds was not about to break
Babe Ruth's record," Hunter said. "It's so obvious
what's going on. He has never failed a drug test and
said he never took steroids, but everybody keeps
trying to disgrace him. How come nobody even talks
about Mark McGwire anymore? Or (Rafael) Palmeiro (who
tested positive for steroids in 2005)? Whenever I go
home I hear people say all of the time, 'Baseball just
doesn't like black people.' Here's the greatest hitter
in the game, and they're scrutinizing him like crazy.'
It's killing me because you know it's about race."
Dave Steward, a former 20 game winner and front office
exec who now is an agent, said to one reporter,
"People keep talking about how he's not supposed to
keep hitting homers and doing phenomenal things
because he's 40-plus. Well, Roger Clemens is 40-plus,
too, and nobody ever brings his name up. Why not? Is
it because he's white?"
Matt Lawton, who unlike Bonds has tested positive for
steroids, said, "If (Bonds) were white, he'd be a
poster boy in baseball, not an outcast."
None of this means that any critique of Bonds is
inherently racist or that there doesn't need to be
some way to deal with performance enhancers. It means
that the overheated rhetoric needs to cease. It means
that if baseball decides it doesn't want steroids in
its game, and wants to "clean up its own house" it
should realize that it is cheap, gutter politics to
focus on one person as if that person is the root of
all anabolic evil. They should realize that in the
current climate, it emboldens a racist fringe. If they
don't realize it, we sure as hell should.
A couple years ago, Bonds said, "This is something we,
as African-American athletes, live with every day. I
don't need a headline that says, 'Bonds says there's
racism in the game of baseball.' We all know it. It's
just that some people don't want to admit it. They're
going to play dumb like they don't know what the hell
is going on."
That is absolutely right. It's not defenders of Bonds
who are putting race on the table, but whether you are
a Bonds supporter or not, all anti-racists need to
take it off.
[Dave Zirin is the author of "'What's My name Fool?'":
Sports and Resistance in the united States. He is
speaking at the conference Socialism 2006, June 22-25,
in New York City, with Etan Thomas and Toni Smith. See
www.socialismconference.org. Contact him at
dave@edgeofsports.com]
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Republished and Unedited by
In 1981's 'Body Heat', Kathleen Turner said, "Knowledge is power".
T.A.B.A.C.C.O. (Truth About Business And Congressional Crimes Organization)