The funny thing about privilege is… that like air we breathe, most walk about utterly unaware of its existence. These people cannot see… what they cannot see.
Overnight, Paul wrote about why (statistically) he feels it is not fair to add black baseball champions into the MLB / Hall of Fame record books. His argument boils down to… these players didn’t face absolute top competition in the days of the segregated Negro Leagues. That may be so — but had they been ALLOWED to play in the AL and NL, starting in 1900 — and perhaps through to today, they would have dominated. This is not idle conjecture. Look at the NBA and NFL.
[The fact is, from 1900 on, whyte players didn’t have to face the best competition — from people of color. They were the ones who got a pass.]
I’ll explain that argument another day, but I write to assail the idea that because we as a nation CHOSE to prevent a class of people (from playing), we also chose to keep held down, throughout society — at the bottom rungs of that society — from finding a way out of poverty by playing baseball (or back then, basketball, either)… we should be allowed as whyte society… to forever minimize their abilities.
That is Lunacy, stacked on lunacy… borne of the privilege that says once we get to the top, no one else may ever be accepted as… worthy of recognition.
Had Josh or Satchel been allowed to play in the majors, the records would have long ago fallen.
And the names of hundreds and hundreds of people of color, who never got a chance to play… would have long ago supplanted most of the whyte names.
Ruth and Cobb would be out of the top ten entirely.
But more important, we would not have frozen an unjust system into the record books, essentially through eternity.
It is very late in coming, this correction — but it is… a small measure of… restorative… Justice.
Sit down, you idiot, Paulie. And you get zero credit for admitting what all knew for a century: Cobb was an odious racist. Just… sit down.
Powerline Lies... 