They are saying there are not any silly questions in journalism, and I examined that idea as a university newspaper reporter after I requested an MLB legend concerning the much more legendary Jackie Robinson. Was Robinson picked over extra proficient Negro League gamers to combine baseball, I requested eight-time All-Star and former National League President Bill White, “as a result of he was so good?”
“Good?!” he shot again. “Jackie wasn’t good! Jackie was robust!”
White apparently hadn’t gotten the memo about there being no silly questions. “Good?!” he shot again. “Jackie wasn’t good! Jackie was robust!”
I’d prefer to consider that my query was not solely a operate of my youth but additionally proof of the way in which that civil rights historical past has been taught in the US. From Rosa Parks to Martin Luther King Jr. to John Lewis and Robinson, we’ve typically been fed a fairy-tale narrative that pits good, completely nice and unoffending Black heroes in opposition to cartoonishly imply and ignorant white individuals. And, as in all fairy tales, the great of us inevitably win.
On Tuesday, because it has since 2004, Main League Baseball is commemorating the day 78 years in the past that Robinson played his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers. However this Jackie Robinson Day lands in the midst of a conservative plot to eliminate talk of pioneering Black heroism and, extra particularly, to eliminate mention of the villainy from white people that made Black heroism needed.
The way in which that the historical past of American racism, and Black individuals’s response to it, has typically been taught is deeply flawed. It’s the equal of selling PG-rated variations of R-rated historic occasions. However now the Trump administration is on a marketing campaign to outright change the reality of our historical past with deliberate distortions and lies, give a G ranking to even probably the most disturbing American historical past, and basically outlaw the telling of the reality.
Contemplate a current edit the Nationwide Park Service made to a webpage that niceifies Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad had been described as selling “the resistance to enslavement by way of escape and flight” however was edited to recommend that it was part of the “American civil rights movement” that bridged “the divides of race.”
The hell it did.
The earlier language was restored — it was deleted by mistake, the park service stated — however a descendant of Tubman was proper to ask, “Why do they need to erase our Black historical past? Why are we such a menace to sure People?” It wasn’t exhausting to reply her personal query: “The reply is racism.” On one web page managed by the Nationwide Park Service, in line with The Washington Put up, the phrase “enslaved African People” was changed to “enslaved workers.”
As talked about in a earlier column, anyone on the Protection Division, reportedly responding to President Donald Trump’s and Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth’s anti-DEI fixation, briefly eliminated a webpage that described Robinson’s time in the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant.
Years earlier than Rosa Parks would do the identical, Robinson had refused a bus driver’s order that he transfer to the again of a bus. Not solely did he not settle for the humiliation of being assigned to the rear, however in an argument that ensued, he instructed one other soldier, “If you call me a n—– again, I’ll break you in two.”
Perhaps if I’d heard extra about that Robinson after I was a toddler, then I’d have identified how silly it was to explain him as “good.”
When my household visited the Jackie Robinson Museum in Decrease Manhattan final week, we noticed a quote on show that reveals the self-discipline — or, as White put it, the toughness — that Robinson maintained. Not only for his sake, however for his individuals’s sake.
Perhaps if I’d heard extra about that Robinson, then I’d have identified how silly it was to explain him as “good.”
Lower than six months into his time within the majors, he instructed a author for the New York Put up, “Loads of occasions, I wished to haul off when anyone insulted me for the colour of my pores and skin…If I misplaced my probability, the Negro would possibly lose his probability, too… The entire thing was greater than me.”
The museum portrays him as a sophisticated determine who didn’t match neatly into any of the containers that we’ve positioned Black civil rights activists into. He was too conservative for some Black individuals, too outspoken for some white individuals, and finally, it appears, it could possibly be as exhausting to pin him down because it was to tag him out throughout a steal try. Malcolm X, who had been a fan, got here to consider Robinson was too accommodating to white individuals, however Robinson would later stand with the Black Panthers in Brooklyn, New York, as they challenged police brutality.
In ballparks throughout the nation right this moment, we’ll see gamers carrying No. 42 and we’ll see glowing tributes about Robinson’s contributions to the sport and to the nation. There could also be some point out of his legendary toughness within the sport. If that’s the case, I hope it’s made clear how robust he was off the diamond, too — and the way the evils of racism and segregation made his toughness needed.
