’)This issue of Time is going to sell well. Mothers and fathers will get it to show their kids its not a pipe dream, it is no longer theoretical. I’ll be getting one to show the children I have in the future.
“I was there. I remember when it happened. Right at the start of it all. Obama.”
Hammerin’ Hank Aaron on Jackie Robinson:
Jackie Robinson had to be bigger than life. He had to be bigger than the Brooklyn teammates who got up a petition to keep him off the ball club, bigger than the pitchers who threw at him or the base runners who dug their spikes into his shin, bigger than the bench jockeys who hollered for him to carry their bags and shine their shoes, bigger than the so-called fans who mocked him with mops on their heads and wrote him death threats.
When Branch Rickey first met with Jackie about joining the Dodgers, he told him that for three years he would have to turn the other cheek and silently suffer all the vile things that would come his way. Believe me, it wasn’t Jackie’s nature to do that. He was a fighter, the proudest and most competitive person I’ve ever seen. This was a man who, as a lieutenant in the Army, risked a court-martial by refusing to sit in the back of a military bus. But when Rickey read to him from The Life of Christ, Jackie understood the wisdom and the necessity of forbearance.
To this day, I don’t know how he withstood the things he did without lashing back. I’ve been through a lot in my time, and I consider myself to be a patient man, but I know I couldn’t have done what Jackie did. I don’t think anybody else could have done it. Somehow, though, Jackie had the strength to suppress his instincts, to sacrifice his pride for his people’s. It was an incredible act of selflessness that brought the races closer together than ever before and shaped the dreams of an entire generation.
Jackie also had to be a “can’t miss” athlete in order to be accepted. For years after baseball was integrated, a disproportionate percentage of black players were all-stars, simply because it was felt that white audiences would find it easier to accept a black star than a black benchwarmer. Much like a similar saying about women, they had to be twice as good to get half the credit.
You’ll love this Oliver
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6Lstkiexhc
HA! Thanks, Mike.
George Will has said that Robinson was second only to MLK as the preeminent civil rights figure of the 20th century. If you haven’t already, and even if you have, watch “The Jackie Robinson Story.”
He showed, like others, the stupidity and futility of the treatment being meted out to him.
Although more persecuted for his communist sympathies, Paul Robeson packing out a theatre in Britain with a tranatlantic radiocast (having been refused permission to leave the USA), was a moment when the persecutors bathed in ridicule.
What’s that saying? Success is the best revenge.
Oh, and don’t forget Jesse Owens. Rubbed it in Hitler’s face in the 1936 Olympics, 11 years before Jackie Robinson made his MLB debut.
So what was the turning point the media could finally fit Obama winning it all (which he did weeks ago) into their narrative?
Was it pumpkinhead Tim Russert finally declaring it was over?
I’m a Hick:
As big of a dick as George Will is, he is probably right about Jackie.
Gyuss,
See today’s Slate.
Was it pumpkinhead Tim Russert finally declaring it was over?
Sadly, tragically, that may have been it.
I think it was sad, ashen-faced Bill Clinton standing behind his wife as she gave her “victory” speech in Indiana Tuesday night. That picture was worth a thousand Russerts in conveying, “It’s over.”
Someone should tell him to button the placket buttons on his shirt sleeves.
Dang…I keep forgetting how totally cute he is. That’s not why I’m voting for him, of course…still, though, he is pretty darn cute.
Bloix,
I have never, ever known of a man to button his placket buttons, unless for a movie or suchlike.
It’s clownish.
I think it was sad, ashen-faced Bill Clinton…
Ashen-faced? I must have seen a different one, ‘cuz he looked like a sugar beet.
[...] Obama is in a similar situation. He is a pioneer in the biggest game of all and playing under a bizarre set of rules that have been imposed on him. It’s one thing for John McCain to shriek and whine like a little spoiled baby – he’s a scurrilous, egocentric, dishonorable, petulant man who has no reason to be President except that he thinks he deserves it. But when other organizations agree with his rules, when McCain saying you can’t vote for the guy because he’s black is okay, but Obama . . . what . . . admitting, revealing (?) that he himself is a black man is playing the race card, then the rules are whatever the winer says they are that moment. And Obama is just going to have to take it, because that’s the way this game is played. It’s not a game, of course, except for a very small group of people. And Obama is trying to get into their game, and they are, at best, reluctant to let him play. Because, like Jackie Robinson, his very presence is demonstrating that the old, white men who have been running the game for so, so long may not actually have been as able as we were led to believe. Obama as President may mean that this idea may actually be broached in polite conversation. This is going to be a lot uglier than it is now, uglier than the climax of “Rollerball“, but the best revenge Obama could have is simply to win. And he’s got a great example to follow, in that of one of the greatest Americans who ever lived. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)On Hearing the First Foul Tip of SpringMLBuntitled entry’Guitar Hero’ For Real Guitars (Updated) [...]