FanGraphs Audio: A Deeply Flawed Conversation About Bruce Maxwell
Episode 772
When Monday arrived this week, managing editor Dave Cameron found it difficult to write about anything other than Bruce Maxwell’s decision to take a knee during the national anthem. When it was time to record the podcast on Wednesday, he felt similarly. The result? Hopefully, a responsible and nuanced conversation. In reality, though, probably something less than that.
Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.
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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 39 min play time.)
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Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
Dave – I’m sitting here palm-facing after listening to your audio. There’s SO many things I’d like to comment on, but I’d like to keep it short.
You say you want to encourage conversation – but then you openly say that people who claim to dislike the FORM of protest are being dishonest with themselves and what they REALLY don’t like is what the protest professes to be about. Why not just call us racist pigs and be done with it?
In theory, all this SHOULD be easy – almost EVERYONE dislikes racism, and wants fairness for everyone. Yet, people of otherwise-good-will are managing to be on opposite sides of the fence. If you HAD to, could you fathom a reason other than “people are racist”?
Along with the presumption-of-guilt you seem to hold above, I see very little attempt by people like you to understand why Kaepernick’s protest – which started as sitting and not kneeling – raises so much offense from people like me. If you really were interested in WHY it does – your podcast would have been more about asking why, and not suggesting people are closet-racists.
Haven’t seen one player out in the street marching with protesters.
That tells you everything about their so-called courage and what they think of those who are in the streets.
Just finished listening to this. I appreciate that for some people, the national anthem is not a time to protest. I would even disagree with what Dave said this podcast that if those taking a knee stood up and explained they were doing it in support of the troops (for better VA benefits, etc), nobody would complain – I am 100% certain many, many veterans would say thanks, but no thanks to that gesture.
I do think, however, that you may have misinterpreted Dave when he was saying that only thing people are upset about is the form that the protests are taking. He did not say that ALL of those opposed to the protests are just hiding their racism behind faux-patriotism. I believe what he was saying is that there is a very real and not insignificant portion of the population, who are doing just that however, and some unwittingly. What Dave was asking was for a little introspection rather than knee jerk reaction to the display (something it sounds like from Passan’s article we can all take a lesson from Maxwell).
From the start, many people were upset when athletes were sitting on bench and not acknowledging the flag/anthem, so they moved to take a knee. Not good enough for some people. Some athletes (such as Maxwell), then took it upon themselves to take a knee while holding their hand over their heart and looking at the flag respectfully. Still not good enough for some people. Then some athletes and teams started standing and locking arms (which even the president suggested was OK), but that still upsets some people.
Now, I am sure a fair amount of that is just people having different sensibilities – what offends one person, is just fine and respectful to another (an odd example of this, last night during the anthem of the football game, the camera showed a man wearing a baseball cap while simultaneously saluting), but there is also a subset of people who are acting all indignant because all the brown people are starting to get uppity. The sad part is this subset of people is not small enough, and seems to only be growing as of late, which is exactly what this larger movement is about about – equal treatment and rights regardless of skin color.
I think Dave was making the same argument that Martin Luther King, Jr. was making about “White moderates” in his *Letters From A Birmingham Jail*: Placing comfort and order ahead of justice is just as wrong, or even worse, than opposing justice outright.
What I don’t believe King mentions outright is that a White moderate is still more likely to use honest introspection to potentially change their mind, which is what Dave was explicitly proposing, and contains a moral component that doesn’t get discussed much these days, when everything is put in terms of power relationships: Being allowed to change your mind implies being allowed to hold *either* (or even a multiplicity) of opinions, so getting a critical mass of people to agree to change our society requires changing people’s minds, not casting out those who disagree (at least until enough of a majority is accumulated).
YOUTUBE
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. – April 4, 1967 – Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence Full and unabridged
That’s who he was and that’s why he was shot.
Re the MLK quote: During times of political polarization such as now, divisive protests are more inflammatory than influential. Inflammatory demonstrations are not a form of justice. They are a form of escalation with the hope that justice will follow as a result.
The relevant question becomes ‘is it ever better to value order over escalation which is intended to bring about justice?’ Too many on the left naively or ignorantly answer ‘no’ to that question through their actions and speech.
I replayed the podcast, and took some notes to see if laying out the offensive parts in print might help. They start out saying they want to ’embark upon a conversation’ and ‘to ask questions out of a sense of genuine curiosity’. Now come on – buzzword bingo aside, haven’t we heard those phrases enough to predict that such a convo will be one sided, and no questions of the other side will actually be asked; instead answers will be provided without that other side, painting them badly?
After that intro and before questioning the inner motives of the other side, we get the inevitable ‘white southern guys…’ thrown in – ’cause we all know how bad THEY are – and then they get down to brass tacks:
‘how quickly it shifts from the thing being protested to the method of protest. To those who are really upset by the method of protest, I would suggest or ask consider reflecting internally and saying “if they were protesting this issue in a different way, would I REALLY have different feelings about it”. If instead of kneeling for the anthem, they were choosing to do it in some other way that you felt wasn’t disrespectful to the flag, but they were still kind of…in..they were forcing you to confront the issues they were trying to bring to your attention…would you always find fault with the method of the protest just because you just don’t actually like the thing they’re protesting?…so when people say I’m fine with what they’re protesting but I don’t like how they’re protesting, I’d just ask, “be honest with yourself, are you really upset with how they’re protesting, or do you just not like the issue that they’re bringing up?”.
And I’ll note again – nowhere does he show the slightest interest in asking why people are offended – he must already know the answer to the “question” he’s (not) asking – but he’s willing to suggest people introspect, because it may be due to them being racist and don’t like the topic.
Dookie — question for you and for Dave – you said: ” He did not say that ALL of those opposed to the protests are just hiding their racism behind faux-patriotism. I believe what he was saying is that there is a very real and not insignificant portion of the population, who are doing just that however, and some unwittingly.”
Can you and Dave put some numbers on that? Best effort, doesn’t need to be perfect. How many do you think are hiding their racism, and how many of those are doing it unwittingly? (and how does one unwittingly hide behind racism?) Vs how many do you think are legitimately offended by the protest for non-racial reasons?
Thanks for the thoughtful discussion – enjoyed and appreciated it.
I really appreciate this discussion, and hope more occurs that takes a wider lens to baseball and larger societal issues, especially since Dave is explicitly sensitive to trying to avoid cant on either side. Exploring baseball from an analytical perspective has truly evolved the perspectives of those who have participated, going back at least to the Usenet days, I think because the need to understand reality is so strong in those involved in the discussion.
With that in mind, a couple of counterpoints to parts of what Dave mentioned:
– Culture clash within baseball: Agree with respect to Latino players who grew up in Latino countries; how they grew up playing the game is different, and equally valid. Black players may be a different story: Back when Arthur Chu was making sensible points (“Your Princess Is In Another Castle” is a clear-eyed but also sympathetic take on lonely male nerddom), he wrote about how the black culture he observed held the “twice as good” belief (I think that goes back to Booker T Washington?); excellence was mandatory, as it was the only way out. This is how you can have players like Reggie Jackson write a book with Bob Gibson on how to play the game “the right way” (and Jackson, who admired his home runs, is especially intriguing in this respect). On the flip side, you also had white players like Dennis Eckersley “showing up” hitters when he struck them out, sometimes to loud complaint from old-timers. It’s also possible that the “right way” has a purpose other than racial enforcement, but that the assumption that an individual knows and abides by those rules is provisional if they are non-white; that would mean generosity of understanding should be extended, rather than the rule itself held to question.
– It’s true that this stoicism in baseball was embedded before modern integration, but that by itself doesn’t make it “White”, if that phrase is to mean anything other than a tautology of “this structure was put in place by people regarded as white”. More information is necessary: How was behavior enforced before Cap Anson drew the final line in the sand? Enforcing unruly behavior from young men extends to other areas of society as well, going back before the founding of the United States (colleges being one example), could this be seen as a continuum of that structure? (Teddy Roosevelt’s love of sports and training “manliness” would seem to be a nexus of both, and would fit the timeline).
– More generally, the use of “White” in the last few years needs to be more closely examined and questioned. It now seems that describing something historically done by white people gets described as “White”, where it then immediately gets conveyed to the meaning of “enforces White supremacy”, with no evidence to support the latter save for the fait accompli of using the same word to mean both things. The Enlightenment itself gets held in contempt this way, by the descriptive “Western Civilization”: The notions of independence of thought, or pure reason, and a secular morality were built after centuries of sectional fighting, and were underway before colonial expansion, but somehow that colonialism, and the Whiteness it invented, renders the entire tree as rotten. So “Western Civilization” becomes purely about colonialism, with all of its universal ideals viewed as illegitimate. Ghandi’s famous dig at the British Empire had it right: Western Civilization “would be a good idea”. The examination of Whiteness is important and necessary, but it’s vital that we not throw out the baby of the Enlightenment out with the bathwater of White supremacy.
Good points about Gibson vs Eck, etc. Showy vs stoic players come from all racial backgrounds – yet over and over people push the “White players are old, dull and controlling” angle, and “Players of Color are passionate and exciting” – but the White Establishment wants to put them in their place. It’s the same way they seem to view society, each type of pigeon in their own hole.
To me, there’s no connection between “cops shooting black men in the streets” and “Baseball players being showy”…but here it is, dragged in.
Carson and Dave – I don’t know if either of you will read this comment, but in case you do, I wanted to say that after years of reading and lurking on Fangraphs, I purchased an annual membership upon listening to this episode. Thank you for using your platform to disseminate such a thoughtful and self-aware analysis of protests against racial injustice. I’m proud to support this site.
I’m a week late, but it seems that Carson’s long winded intro was required listening because I had no idea what event the two of you were even talking about for the entire podcast.