"Being wrongfully accused, while unfair, is not the same as living a life where your skin color automatically makes you a target."
Yes. Thank you.
19
How do you publish this article without a picture of the "offending" hand sign? Do the editors think reproduction of the image in The Times could generate a wave of race hate? I, for one, am not totally sure I know what "the OK sign" is. I think I do, but I'm not sure.
If the "OK sign" is what I think it is, I can't quite figure out how it could be done "upside down" in terms of simple human anatomy. I have also never heard of the "circle game" and am left wondering exactly that that is about - and I will never know from this coverage because I can't see for myself what all this fuss was about.
Things have really gone insane when the New York Times is so cautious about - whatever it is they are apparently being cautious about - to the extent that they won't publish a photo of a hand gesture. I guess the editors are still so prim they would censor a picture of a person giving the middle finger gesture so that nobody could be sure of what that was either.
Jesus! Grow up. We can all see hardcore porn with two clicks online. A single picture of a hand gesture made in public and broadcast on live television is not a threat to our humanity.
12
"... to the extent that they won't publish a photo of a hand gesture."
It gets worse. If you do a web search, you will find that in some of the images the gesture is blurred or pixelated.
IOW, the gesture itself is censored.
Yet there is no problem finding images showing people displaying an OK sign.
BTW, you can find video clips on YouTube.
4
By going to U-Penn, playing professional baseball, being hired for MLB commentary, and writing an op-ed for the NYT, Mr. Granville shows that he has had many opportunities and successes. Not a victim, no matter how much he complains about an ambiguous hand gesture.
7
I definitely saw a player use this symbol on TV during the NCAA basketball tournament selection show. I was shocked it was not commented on in the news....
4
I remember that last year, MSNBC was televising a Coast Guard briefing on Hurricane Florence when in the background a Coast Guard member flashed the "OK" sign. Many viewers reported it to the Coast Guard, which undertook an investigation and the members was removed from duty, I believe.
Also, during the Kavanaugh hearings, a Republican operative flashed the sign which was seen on television, but was dismissed by the Judiciary Committee as "innocuous".
It's no secret that White Supremacists are among us, and use this gesture to show solidarity, even during televised hearings in Congress. We can close our eyes to this kind of thing, and insist it's meaningless, or we can address it and try to deal with the racism in our culture, both blatant and subtle. It's up to us what kind of society we want.
26
I believe your article was better than OK. (heh, sorry).
2
Vile as all bigots are, a smidgen more respect (no more than that) must be accorded the outspoken racist types (who at least have the guts to say out loud what they mean) than the dog-whistle cowards who abound in that whole culture.
5
So often a symbol or sign changes meaning without being aware of it, especially when visiting another country. Almost fifty years ago my mom and dad went on a trip to England. At first quite unknowingly they gave the "V" sign when someone let them into traffic or what have you. It was made famous by Winston Churchill during WW-II, used by protestors in the '60's as a "peace" sign, later somewhat used as a last hurrah by Nixon as he got on the helicopter to leave Washington in the aftermath of Watergate - only to find out much to their horror that the locals there took it as a raised middle finger here. Oops.
The road to hell can sometimes be trod upon with the best of intentions, with signs and portents of all sorts guiding the way. OK? Who knew? What's next?
4
I enjoyed this because it tries and fairly succeeds at explaining the complexities facing blacks in dealing with white behavior. In many ways the article is unsatisfyingly inconclusive, just as we blacks are left feeling as we feel our way forward with various species of white behavior.
6
I loved you as a baseball player and now just as much as a writer. Please write more often! I want to hear your voice.
10
This a remarkable read analyzing in terms even I can understand the gray space of racism.
8
What a great column on what it must be like to be black in America today. To always have to focus on the positive and somehow realize that the ones who diminish you for your color, are the ugly minority.
3
I'm not sure what the point of this piece is, other than to toss oil on the identity politics fire that is consuming the country, and certainly the Left. Everybody involved in the "incident" acknowledges that the interpretation of the offender's gesture rests only on suppositions, and that the same gesture has plenty of innocuous meanings along with the one they've decided to pin on the accused, but they decided "it was more likely the gesture was used in a “racist way”". The best excuse for the whole charade is that a fringe political movement has appropriated the gesture, and that the accused belonged to the right racial group (the majority in this country, BTW) to conform to the stereotype of a white supremacist. What is the fan accused of, in reality: a thought crime, adhering to the wrong ideology. The reasoning reminds of the works of Kafka.
The author's personal experience of perceived racism has no standing on whether the accused is guilty of what is, in any case, a harmless gesture. And it certainly shouldn't warrant the dragging of some random guy before the court of public opinion, and his banishment for life from a stadium that likely has a central part in his life as a hard-core fan. If making the guy sympathetic to the cause of identity politics was the goal, this will be a resounding failure.
The Covington Catholic High debacle apparently hasn't taught the Left that projecting intent and actions to those you dislike is, in essence, totally misguided.
7
Well written Doug. America always dismisses symbols of racism as ambiguous or unimportant displays of behavior. We know painfully, that daily forms of microaggressions of verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities whether intentional or unintentional communicate hostility for people of color.
School Administrator Teaneck, NJ
9
An engineering degree from Penn and 9 seasons in the Big League? I'm not sure I'm worthy to be on the same planet.
2
Mr. Glanville is a racist's nightmare, for in his achievements and insights, he's not just their "better." He's their way better.
8
Many well-deserved comments here praising Mr. Glanville's astute perspective. Now go to Twitter and read some of the reactions. The denial, dismissal, dog whistles, hostility and outright racism -- likely for the most part from people who didn't bother to read beyond the headline -- is evidence that Mr. Glanville is correct. Essentially it comes down to, "If I can't perceive it, I can't possibly exist."
I shudder to think what they're saying on 8chan. I can't bring myself to go there.
9
While performing with a virtuoso black singer recently, my colleague and I received ample applause and ovations. Afterwards members of the audience gave us compliments etc. Two women approached my friend and said,"you shouldn't be singing with her." To which my friend replied, "no? Why not? What is it that you don't like?" One of the women replied, "I don't know, but you just shouldn't, and my friend agrees"
It was obvious to me that racism played a role. We held hands, hugged, danced and those two ladies were offended, but they were aware that they just couldn't say that was the reason. Not really subtle
4
I've loved Doug Glanville's writing since the get-go. This might be his best yet, he hit it out of the park.
Too bad that no matter how many runs "we" score in the bottom of the ninth to take the lead, it's never game over.
The opponent somehow always manages to get another turn at the plate.
6
There is an unstated false premise operating here, namely that meaning is ever unambiguous. Reality is ambiguous, meaning is multi-valent. That is a feature of human sense-making in the real world.
So, yes, both or many interpretations of this & other events are plausible.
Does intent matter in making one of these contested meanings? Of course it does, as Mr. Glanville suggests, & anyone who honestly reflects on how they communicate and interpret others' communications will agree. But, does benign intent exculpate actors from meanings and consequences of their actions, including gestures & words. Definitely not. On the other hand, in a world of ambiguity is such an actor responsible for all of the meanings, reactions & feelings evoked by their statements & gestures? I think not.
When someone feels offended or threatened by an image, gesture, etc. we can accept that that feeling is real &understandable without saying that this same individual is "right" in their interpretation of "the" meaning of, say, the example of the lasso mentioned by Mr. Glanville. That actually follows from Mr. Glanville's position on ambiguity.
For instance, I accept that students' feel disrespected, threatened etc. by what they experience as micro-aggressions and do not doubt the reality of their feelings. And, I accept that those feelings should be accounted for & cannot simply be dismissed by claims to intention. But, said students aren't the only arbiters of meaning in a world of ambiguity.
4
"Reality is ambiguous, meaning is multi-valent."
The word "ambiguous" is ambiguous too. You need to distinguish between words, signs, symbols, etc. and "reality".
Words, signs, symbols, etc. mean what people agree they mean.
"Reality" does not have "meaning", however natural phenomena may have various explanations, some of which are codified as scientific theories.
See "ambiguous" in a dictionary -- if there is more than one sense, the word "ambiguous" is itself ambiguous.
2
Thank you for writing this. It is helpful in explaining a perspective for people of color. What I see in some of the comments is a lack of understanding of what racism and white supremacy are. Like most things, there are many shades. And racists and racism are not necessarily hateful. They don't necessarily mean harm. And white supremacy is not necessarily the thought that whites need to rule. Things can be as simple as thinking that all blacks are poor. It can be as simple as being uncomfortable with a black person that may be smarter than you or know things you don't know. It can be as simple as believing all black people can dance, thus expecting your black friend to lead the dancing at your wedding. It can be as simple as thinking all Asians are good in math.
Unfortunately, even these, seemingly irrelevant biases are dots on the curve.
39
This has got to be one of the most intelligent, well-reasoned and thoughtful essays I have ever read on the subject. I will be showing it to lots if friends and acquaintances in the days ahead.
I especially like the "both can be true" angle as opposed to the usual "either/or" about both the intentions and perceptions of symbols.
302
The guy is a punk and I'm glad he was banned from the stadium and exposed for what he is. But Mr Glanville is wrong to go from this incident (i.e. there will always be jerks out there) to an indictment of all of us by jumping to an assumption of continuing systemic racism.
If he has examples of "misuse of power" on an institutional level (not historical - now), let's hear about them and charge those who are responsible. Otherwise, let's attack racism where we see it and not make assumptions about where it might be lurking.
11
'If he has examples of "misuse of power" on an institutional level (not historical - now), let's hear about them ...'
Why don't you want to "hear" about Jim Crow law or segregated public services?
10
@Max I don't think Mr. Glanville is Indicting all of us. He is pointing out that white people are unlikely to see all the small racist incidents that a black person experiences. I suspect not many white people have been mistaken for the parking valet while driving their own car. A little thing, but that's his point. SO MANY little things.
30
This is one of the clearest articles about covert racism I have ever read. As a white person, it gives me a much improved perspective of what persons of color in this culture experience, and I am grateful for the author giving me this education. I believe this type of information is enlightening for anyone that does not have to experience this toxic undercurrent.
10
@Doug Glanville
That guy is an ignorant jerk and when he wakes up tomorrow and for the rest of his life he will be an ignorant jerk!
You are a great man and will always be one! You have a million friends and many more who love and admire you- that guy probably has 2!
Keep up the great work and beautiful writing!
3
A quick google search find's Trump pals like Roger Stone hanging out with "Proud Boys" also flashing the White Power sign. How is it even possible that we have the most criminal, racist President in our history, and our Democratic leaders have absolutely failed to do anything about it?
5
Racists seem to desperately need someone to look down upon to make themselves feel superior. White men whom have traditionally enjoyed a feeling of power and privilege are threatened by intelligent accomplished people of color, women, LGBT people, etc.
So sad. I am looking forward to the day when we all realize our common humanity and connection.
3
The fact that white people don't have stories like this, I think proves Mr. Glanville's point.
3
@rkh
The stories that white people have of negative interactions with other races are not allowed to be published. That does not mean they do not exist.
2
"... white people don't have stories like this ..."
Yes they do. A disturbing example is Jack London's 30-day imprisonment for vagrancy in 1894 while in Niagara Falls.
See "The Road" by Jack London, or a biography.
2
I never heard of the gesture meaning "white supremacy". I would interpret it as "I'm a moron".
2
@Charlesbalpha, I was watching clips from Laugh In the other night, where they took racism, sexism, etc. full on. It was great! And the moral of each clip pointed out that the racist or sexist person was always a moron. Always.
How I miss that show, even after all these years.
1
Excellent article, very well stated. Thank you Doug.
Well, you learn something new every day. I'd never heard about the OK sign.
Doug Glanville makes a good point about people's own personality racist sensitivity (the graph). I'm a white guy, so I'm sure there's a lot that goes over my head.
He makes a good point about the use of ambiguity to hide racism, too. The term gaslighting gets used a lot this past few years, but it's because public gaslighting is off the charts these days. That's what ambiguous racism is about. It's cowardly, because the racist can insult you to your face, then retreat to the ambiguity when confronted about it.
The person can say, "I'm not a racist. You're paranoid -- and a reverse racist."
6
"I'd never heard about the OK sign."
The fan's gesture is NOT an "OK sign". As Glanville says, the gesture is 'an _upside-down_ “O.K.” sign'.
Since the Times won't publish a photo of the gesture, you will have to do a Google images search to find it. This should work: "Doug Glanville Cubs fan hand gesture". Note that in some images on the web the gesture itself is censored with blurring or pixelation.
Anyway, Glanville contradicts himself when he says "it has been co-opted to express support for white supremacy." The gesture is not an OK sign, so the OK sign has not been "co-opted".
For examples, do Google images searches for "ok sign soldier" and "ok sign president". (There is a very good photo of Pres. Clinton using the OK sign.)
@BPD: You must have 8 or 10 comments on this article. You say you aren't defending the fan, but you sure are fighting hard against the premise of Mr. Glanville's perspective. How's that saying go?...."Thou dost protest too much."
As I recall, Doug Glanville used to write occasionally for the Times - often on issues related to his baseball career and sports in general. After reading this piece, it's time to bring him back.
5
You say "Being on guard about hate . . . is a matter of simple self-protection." But some expressions of hate can and should simply be ignored. Sometimes when I am walking I hear someone in a passing car shout something at me that I'm pretty sure is anti-semitic. But I don't give that person any satisfaction by reacting to it. The bottom line is what difference does it really make if the Cubs fan did or did not intend to make a racist gesture? Why not assume he did and just ignore him?
5
Whether a gesture or word or symbol is racist obviously often depends on the context. A pilot ready to take off who flashes the ok sign most likely is not making a racist gesture. Photoshopping a picture of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry to make it look like they are holding a monkey obviously is a racist. But displaying a picture of monkeys at the zoo is not. Given the context, the ok sign flashed by the Cubs fan likely was intended as a racist gesture. Nothing new here.
1
The gesture reminds me of the quenelle, which was used by the French soccer player Nicolas Anelka during a goal celebration. The quenelle is a modified Nazi salute. I've now googled the gesture used by the Cubs fan and it does seem very suspicious to me. Thank you to Doug Glanville for his terrific and always thought-provoking op-ed pieces. BTW, I lived in Teaneck at the same time Glanville did. It was a great town.
Nooses have nothing to do with rodeo, or rodeo cowboys.
I've known lots of racists who thought that, because of their use of euphemism, they could plausibly deny their racism. Like the southern states defending "separate but equal", everyone knew they were lying, including themselves.
@Frank O Right. But, how can you say that first sentence. What is a lasso but a rope with a noose at the end of it. So, your statement is false.
While fully understanding he diplomacy in Mr. Glanville's approach, i couldn't help thinking that his position and argument, as framed by the exploitation of ambiguity, wasn't a tad too docile in tone. It took the Cubs less than day to reach their conclusion and take decisive action. Maybe he had no choice realizing NBC Sports might function as just another corporate plantation.
1
The only good thing about racism is that it doesn't have to be a terminal disease. We can change our minds, but to do that we have to see that it is there. It's not always easy and not always kind to see this, still we will all be better of if we do.
1
'... unbeknown to me, a fan behind me wearing a Cubs sweatshirt made an upside-down “O.K.” sign with his hand.'
The blame should be on NBC for putting a fan in the camera frame without asking the fan for permission. NBC disrespected the fan, and the fan reacted accordingly.
Indeed, this whole episode could have been avoided if NBC had paid more attention to the background. Checking the background is a basic principle of photography.
2
@ BPD: ...and they should have had more lifeboats on the Titanic. You’ve missed the forest for the trees! Read it again.
5
This is an elegant, illuminating, and enlightening essay.
16
I had no idea that this was even a "thing" for white supremacists. How sad that racism perverts even this innocuous gesture as part of its lexicon.
We have Trump to thank for over racism "OK" again.
7
When accused of playing the race card, quickly retort 'Then quit dealing it to me!'
4
@PR
No.
The phrase means to select race as one of many possible interpretations. Your retort assume precisely the opposite--that there are no other possible interpretations--and therefore makes no sense.
You can redefine the expression out of existence if you will (plenty of that has gone on; e.g. what was "equal opportunity" in the 60s became racial preferences), but the point remains and will find other expression.
3
"Ambiguity, as I say, has always been a friend to racism."...."Obama was born in Kenya."...."There are very fine people on both sides".....We know exactly what signal was being sent. We know exactly what was meant. And it is way past time that anybody who continues to support the disgusting piece of slime is painted with the same brush.
6
My I say this? Doug Glanville is the most intelligent, thoughtful, articulate former baseball pro turned sportswriter alive - in this context or any other. I try not to miss his columns, infrequently though they appear. Please keep writing.
As someone who grew up in the deep south during the early to mid-1960s heyday of George Wallace, Lester Maddox, Bull Connor and their ilk — a Jewish kid no less — I have my own deep understanding of the ways that ‘context’ can color the meaning of racist and anti-Semitic taunts. The ever popular ‘y’all come back now, ya hear?’, delivered with a certain snarl and sneer, means ‘don’t darken my door again.’ So does ‘why, some of my best friends are...’ A useful corollary is ‘as long as they know their proper place...’
In the Jim Crow south, the art of plunging the knife with a seemingly friendly smile on your face is a well-established, carefully practiced art. Only the déclassé wear the robes, burn the crosses and carry the blackjacks. The ‘good people’ know how to enforce the same discriminatory codes with a menacingly friendly smile; call it ‘respect for the rule of law’ (knowing ‘the law’ has got racial and religious discrimination baked in); and cloak it all under the cover of “state’s rights.”
It continues to this very day.
16
I agree about Doug Banville. I always learn something from his columns.
@chambolle
Our backgrounds are identical. Pleased to meet you cousin.
This is the first time I have seen a column written by Mr. Glanville. I will never miss another.
2
@chambolle
Great comment on a great essay. Your first paragraph gives me an excuse to mention another stellar Glanville essay, which had no comment option. It appeared in March and was about spring training for late-career ballplayers.
So many millions of us spent great swaths of our childhoods endlessly spinning baseballs off our fingertips, dreaming of reaching the exalted destination Glanville inhabited for a decade or so.
We hunger for dispatches such as Glanville’s. They are rare. My own boyhood hero, a Hall of Famer who batted left, threw right, and has a tough last name to spell, was not given to public reflection — not one bit. To this day, it remains impossible to gauge what pleasure he took in heroics that The New Yorker’s Roger Angell calculated would be difficult to countenance in a boys’ novel.
No problem. Being unable to carry a tune, I’m not eager to sing in public.
Near the end of his spring training essay, Glanville captured the passage of past-peak years in one sentence:
“In retrospect, I found that the uniform does not get metaphorically ripped off your body, but slowly falls off, year by year, stitch by stitch, unraveling to reveal the indiscriminate work of time.”
What a wonderfully circumspect report from the land of baseball. And a dazzling metaphor to think about at the ballpark and far beyond.
I look forward to future dispatches from Doug Glanville.
Trust your gut. The gesture was neither ambiguous nor vague. I can hear people now saying that "to a hammer everything is a nail.” But this guy made a clear gesture to a black person with the intention of (1.) disrespecting and denigrating that person and (2.) giving himself plausible deniability. Bzzzzz! Thanks for playing. You lose, racist dude.
8
I learned to cut through racist ambiguity when I did an internet search of "race disparity study" or "audit study race". Economists, sociologists, and psychologists have been documenting how whites respond in identically staged situations interacting with either a white or non-white person. From mortgages to car sales, blacks on average take an objectively measurable hit during every interaction with whites. The span of this research is breathtaking and damning. And it's not merely symbolic; it explains the real costs paid in treasure, pain, and opportunity every day. Even more insidiously, the whites in these studies have no idea that they treat blacks disparately.
6
This is nothing new. It is the privileged white guys playbook. When I was growing up in the South in the 50's and 60's it took a different form, but the principle was the same. Then, it was common for whites in positions of authority to refer to African-Americans by the euphemistic form of the n-word, 'nigra', instead of the then more proper 'negro', or 'black'. It was, I recall, a favorite term of the openly racist Governor George Wallace of Alabama. Sadly, I never recall hearing him or anyone else who used that term called on it, for using it was surely an obvious racial taunt.
4
Racists are stupid people and their pride with finding like thinking fools is pathetically ridiculous. However, these people will use whatever authority given them to prevent people who the stereotype as targets of the bigotries from living normal lives and achieving what they have earned. Keeping innocent people from their malicious behavior is a never ending endeavor.
1
The only thing worse than racism or being a racist is being too dishonest or cowardly to admit it and hiding behind and lying about hand gestures and coded language. If you think your views have merit, own them. Or recognize that you're a coward AND a racist.
3
Racists are sneaky and deliberate. They’re this way to sniff out others of their kind. They feign innocence when called out, then they slither off somewhere and lick their imagined grievances.
5
Hand gestures most likely fall under protected speech via the 1st Amendment, thus this person cannot be arrested for displaying the gesture. But, oh how I wish Mr. Glanville would have turned around and given the guy the middle finger.
2
May I simply observe this was a most impressive piece. WOW!
7
Such a wonderful truth teller.
3
"They apparently determined that there was sufficient evidence to conclude the fan’s intentions were malicious." Really? Apparently is now the bar of proof. Later he writes the fan will be okay. Maybe, but maybe not. What if the fan is not a racist but has been labeled (de facto) a racist by the Cubs Corporation and the writer? How can he now be "ok"?
Yes there are racists, and in this era of hyper sensitivity logic and reasoning seem to be rare commodities to be used, or not used, depending on the point one is trying to make.
Absent any evidence to the contrary, the writer has expressed only his opinion which appears to be insufficiently supported by empirircally verifiable facts.
7
@ricocatx You don’t get it.
How about this form of prejudice, not racial, to check on how you feel about you being the target?
As in: “You don’t get it. Of course you don’t...you’re from Texas/the South”. Signed, a New Yorker
...Now do you get it?!
The author fails to make a causal connection between actual repression and the use of symbols, overt or subtle, in this case in 2019.
3
@Em
Evidence of what the writer posits. Your dots are just too far and few in between to allow you to see a pattern. It is the fallback on privileged ppl to ask for further proof when their experience questions the validity of POCs experience. Every time I tell my counterstory to the prevailing white experience, I feel like I am opening up my veins and my story feel like my blood being shed for the benefit of privileged people’s understanding. How are you interrupting your own world view about the hatred and racism that isn’t always visible to you? Hint: Questioning the writer isn’t it.
2
"... I was on camera [with] a fan behind me ..."
The Times's Privacy Project should look at the legal terms imposed on baseball ticket holders. They say in part:
"[MLB] will have the unrestricted right and license to use Holder's image, likeness, name, voice, comments and/or other proprietary or public rights ... for all purposes, worldwide, in perpetuity, and in any and all media now or hereafter known, without compensation. The rights granted herein to the MLB Entities are assignable."
IOW, MLB can do anything it wants with your image if you have the misfortune to be used for the background during an "in-game commentary".
Source: "2018 MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL POSTSEASON TICKET TERMS & CONDITIONS" at "mlb dot com".
1
Thank you for writing this. You helped me to understand racism from a perspective that I could never have achieved on my own. Thanks, also, to the Times for publishing it. We still have such a long way to go to overcome racism, but sharing perspectives such as Mr. Glanville’s certainly moves us forward.
11
"If the Cubs fan is innocent, he will be O.K. That would be the just outcome."
Actually, no. Being accused of a heinous offense unjustly does not leave you OK. It's traumatic and violative. Not as violative as being physically assaulted, but as much as being called racists epithets. In fact, it doesn't just perpetuate racism; it extends it. And if the accuser is a celebrity, some trolls (plural) somewhere will pick it up and actually use racist epithets at the innocent fan.
So the author is right, it really is a Hobson's choice. Fight ambiguous racism, and risk creating it where there was none. Or, assume the best, and risk letting racism get a pass. Some, including I, would argue assuming the best is always better, but that's a long, complex argument, and there's a more straightforward alternative: You should contact the Cub's fan and have a talk with him. Get to the bottom of it, or at least closer to the bottom. You have that power. The alternative, which is gaining scary currency across the globe, is assume facts don't really matter much, just like our President; what matters is the narrative you bring.
It's a short hop from that to refusing to vaccinate your kids because vaccines are used to control Blacks, exterminate Jews, cause autism - fill in the adrenaline-creating myth of your choice. It make be stressful to believe these alienating myths, but, like a video game, it's exciting and very addictive.
19
@NLG
You must have missed this :"
"Later that day, the Cubs completed their investigation and banned the fan from Wrigley Field indefinitely. They apparently determined that there was sufficient evidence to conclude the fan’s intentions were malicious."
19
@DJS I hope that the guy who was punished was indeed a racist. That is, I'd be saddened to think that he was wrongly punished.
Yet I think that this is very possible. The Cubs, an organization that exists for profit and is concerned above all about its public image, may well have decided that standing up for the guy who gave the "O.K." sign simply was too inconvenient.
And if that's what happened, it's tragic. Not just for the individual, but for all of us. It's the kind of thing that has given us the Trump presidency -- and this is only the beginning of where the resentment will take us.
2
@NLG Thank you for your eloquent, thoughtful response.
Does it matter? God has clearly blessed African Americans with an inexhaustible tolerance to take abuse. The minority is always at the mercy of the majority. I don’t see that changing. African Americans don’t possess the power and won’t anytime soon. Too many years of underdog status.
If whites turn violent and repressive again, then African Americans will be faced with a flee or endure choice again. After hundreds of years, the playbook is well know.
A stupid hand gesture on tv or even a tiki torch march somewhere “down south” is just a window into the hearts of some. The question is how much is some?
2
Whatever the fan’s motive, do you really think the Cubs would do anything but ban him? And do you think they did it because it was the right thing to do or because they had no choice in this increasingly politically charged world?
13
@ehillesum: I imagine if the guy had turned out to be a big Doug Glanville fan, or even just a decent guy, the Cubs would have been glad to stage a handshake and smile for the cameras moment -- but if he was unpleasant about it, maybe if he had been responsible for spreading it online in a creepy way, then away with him. But I'm sure they would have preferred the first option, and it would have been quite possible as far as that goes.
7
@ehillesum When someone flashes a peace sign we know what it is. If they were to use the same hand configuration but with the fingers pointing down no one would see it as a peace sign.
7
@ehillesum
It's a politically charged world but they did it because the person evidently made a racist hand gesture. You want to inject ambiguity and in context that's really disingenuous.
13
I lived in for a few years in a country where being white was to be a clearly visible foreign minority. Halfway through my tour of duty, the political climate changed and I experienced some overt racism. What was interesting to me was how it changed my perception of the everyday. Before I was targeted, if I got poor service in a store, I chalked it up to a more laid-back culture or bad management, depending on if I was in a hurry or not.
After I experienced overt racism, I wondered, worried or got angry, was the store clerk ignoring me because of my race?
With the hindsight of many years, I still don't know how to connect the dots? Was I always subject to racism and didn't know it at first? Or was I never the subject of racism and just imagined it later?
What was clear to me was the extent to which a few incidents of overt racism colored my view of the world.
7
Here one more example of how the worthy intent to celebrate diversity in American society transitioned into the societal dynamic of identity politics and has gone on to divide rather than unify
Americans. Is America devolving into a conglomeration of tribal units where recognition of our common humanity is subservient to insular self-interest?
3
White supremacy is not isolated to right-wing fringe groups. A softer version of white supremacy shades the thinking of most white Americans. When I was younger schools had been integrated for a few years, and expressions of outright racial hatred were never tolerated. But soft racism was everywhere. It was assumed that black people were poorer and less educated because of their differences, if not genetic then cultural. These were not controversial ideas. This was the standard belief system in the world I grew up in. People who would never tolerate the slightest insinuation of racism still held onto a belief in the inherent inferiority of black people. For me, this worldview changed over the course of years as I expanded the sphere of people I met and came to know at universities. Had I stayed in my hometown and never gotten to personally know students, professors, and scientists from diverse backgrounds I might have been able to hold onto the illusion of inherent white superiority.
Black people in America bump up against implicit bias every day and are asked to ignore it except when it crosses into the range of violent racism in Mr. Glanville's graph. White people (like myself) who would like to think of ourselves as decent people must examine our own implicit biases and try not to add more data points (overt or ambiguous) to someone else's chart of racist episodes.
20
@Matthew Brewer
I am lost by the reasoning here. Mr. Brewer says, to prove soft racism, that "It was assumed that black people were poorer and less educated because of their differences, if not genetic then cultural". But isn't that what we were all being told back then, by both black and white leaders? Wasn't that one of the reasons that SCOTUS determined that separate but equal education was both unconstitutional and inherently unequal? Isn't that still a main arguing point, if not THE main arguing point, of black and white leaders and liberal politicians? How are we ever to dismiss the feeling that black people are poorer and less educated than whites if everyone of consequence seems to be saying that they are? Recent local example: the NYC cause celebre about not enough black kids getting into the most prestigious NYC high schools because another minority group is now taking up the available seats. Again, I am lost by the reasoning here.
5
@Joe Pearce
Let me clarify:
Yes, black people were on average poorer and less educated in America in the 70s and 80s when I grew up, and despite some improvements they still are now. The explanation I was given was that their genetic and cultural differences were responsible. Like you and most other white people I largely accepted that explanation as a child and young adult. As I became more more knowledgeable of biology, history, and economics, and as I actually got to know more black people (some American, some not) it became impossible to accept that worldview. Black people in America have been subject to institutionalized racism and are still subject to daily discrimination. These effects do more to explain disparities in outcome than genetic or cultural differences. I cast aside the explanation of white superiority because it doesn't match reality. Hope that helps.
2
@Joe Pearce
I think you missed the emphasis: "It was assumed that black people were poorer and less educated *because of their differences, if not genetic then cultural*"
There are so many comments, gestures that can racist or innocent in nature and intent, that I just ignore them. Most probably are innocent and if they aren't I won't be giving racists any of my time, energy or attention. I do agree with the author, it's better to focus on the majority who are non racists than the racists. That's not always easy as the idea of white supremacy is deeply ingrained, subtle and pervasive. That's really what we need to pay attention to and address.
2
-- racism is simply being afraid of, and reacting with hatred or at least something approaching it toward, a person who is different from yourself -- it cuts across all races and all differences, and we are all susceptible -- Jesus Christ had the solution when he taught us to love our neighbor as ourselves -- easier said than done, but we have to be able to recognize our common humanity, to truly see our neighbors as ourselves, to be able to reign in racism --
President Trump flashes the "ok" sign all the time. Got to wonder whether the sign was co-opted to make him look bad (or worse) or whether it was a dog whistle all along. That gesture is extremely "50s white guy" anyway.
2
Yes, this was beautifully written and thoughtful. But I don't know what to do with it. If Mr Glanville says he was racially taunted, then I guess that's what he believes, and he has at least made something worthwhile of it. My only meaningful takeaway, personally, is to remind myself of the importance of gestures, and their widely differing meanings in different cultures and sub-contexts (being a foreigner already helps). If some smug little group of ill-wishers wants to devise a new meaning of a common gesture, well, that is their problem. A taunt belittles the taunter, not the taunted. And if that fan WAS guilty, well, he is still a coward.
3
The reason racism is so persistent is that so many of us white people can't take someone such as Doug Glanville at his word. Not only does he write well for an engineer, but he has been experiencing racism likely for the whole of his life. It's not some knee-jerk reaction but, as he writes, another point plotted on the curve of racist experiences in his life. He doesn't have the choice to live in denial like so many whites.
5
Every person in America needs to read this article.
5
'... an upside-down “O.K.” sign with his hand.'
As usual, the Times won't publish an image while it publishes commentary on that image. Fortunately, a web search for "Doug Glanville Cubs fan hand gesture" found it.
'It has long been used to simply say, “O.K.”'
Usually, the arm is raised and the fingers point upward, so the gesture in the background should not be taken as an OK sign. However, if the spectator had raised his arm, it would have moved his hand out of the frame, so that could explain the orientation.
"And most recently it has been co-opted to express support for white supremacy."
No. That is a different sign. In the traditional OK sign, the fingers are open, straightened, and pointing upward.
For examples, do Google images searches for "ok sign soldier" and "ok sign president". (There is a very good photo of Pres. Clinton using the OK sign.)
2
This is the finest piece of writing I have read in the New York Times in a long time. It was well-reasoned and balanced and held my attention to the end. Bigotry indeed thrives in vagueness.
Mr Glanville's sentence "I have found that most people of color try, as I do, to find an innocuous explanation when something bad happens to them. It is a terrible feeling to have to assume the worst of people ..." rings so true to me.
Only last night at a wedding celebration I, as a coloured person, sensed the bigotry in a prolonged conversation with a guest in the company of others. The man's words were filled with ambiguity and assumptions, couched in so-called "innocent" questions designed to make me and my wife feel uncomfortable.
When we left the party we certainly had a terrible feeling we were assuming the worst in people. All I could say to my wife was: "That man has no filters, that's just the way he talks." It almost sounded like I was apologising for not calling the man out for his subtle bigotry.
6
way over thinking this. Racism does not thrive on ambiguity. Racism is a punch in the face, a kick in the gut, a burning cross on the grass. Calling out ambiguous situations undermines the whole effort to end racism by making the term impossible to define. same goes for antisemitism.
6
"Ambiguity, as I say, has always been a friend to racism."
Instead of speculating, Glanville should interview the fan himself to find out what he meant, if anything.
BTW, there was nothing "ambiguous" about Jim Crow law, or segregated public services.
1
Expressed like an engineer, a professional, a team player, an extremely generous bighearted person: a leader and teacher.
Thank you.
3
Clear and convincing. Thank you, and well done.
2
Maybe its not the highest of notions to take away from this latest episode, but every time I glimpse the pettiness and nastiness of this whiteness movement, along with the less-than-subtle figures of power currently spurring them on, the gladder I am to embrace the transformation of my caucasian european skintone into a minority of the majority-minority America fast approaching.
To my mind, these people with their wretchedly misguided ‘grievances’ have never been a better impetus for that historic change, that maybe when the dust settles from that, all Americans can finally make peace with all sharing being Americans - with the skin tone piece being pretty small potatoes in the mix of all of those things.
1
Doug Glanville was a good baseball player, an excellent commentator, and as this shows, a great human being. His deep understanding of this situation no doubt comes from being born in the shoes of someone who has endured and thought plenty about racism. This article would be a great addition for teachers to use in classrooms as a lesson and a conversation piece.
8
And a televised car ad features beautiful black woman's song that is pictured by a dog. I find that crude and I should think the woman with the lovely voice must feel highly insulted. It is time to stop publicizing prejudice and allow individuals to discover their own prejudice they hide even from themselves.
I don't have much hopes for racism, AS IT IS DEFINED TODAY IN AMERICA, being overcome.
Here is the typical view of racism in America: First, it is taken there are no essential genetic differences between people. The more you believe so the more you are automatically put into the racist category, indeed accused of being full of hatred. However, the less you believe there are essential genetic differences between people the more you enter a number of contradictory statements and intellectual gyrations to support your position.
If there are no essential genetic differences between people why ongoing, glaring cultural differences, what does it even mean to say racism is holding some people back if people are actually essentially the same in the first place? For example, let's take blacks and whites: If they are essentially the same physically and intellectually, then why the ongoing political, economic, cultural differences by which the one is typically considered the offender, the racist party, and the other is considered the victim? How can you have primary offender and victim without any essential differences?
In fact it's ironic: Blacks routinely excel in sports better than whites, and we are constantly told they are essentially the same as whites in every respect but skin color, so in actuality it appears blacks have an advantage over whites, yet somehow Africa culturally lags and whites get tagged as the oppressors and racists who need to change their ways.
1
Esoterically this piece is perfection. Reality says it's going to be understood only by those who most probably care about racism and are working to ensure they aren't a racist. I think to myself when interact with a person of color "Am I showing any covert signs of racism" "Am I too friendly?" "Am I coming across as a white person who wants to be perceived as a human being interacting with another human?" in one way it's stressful because then I think "This is racist thinking about this!".. so on it goes. What I decided to do what just look everyone I encounter in the eye.. straight up. Hopefully my message of accepting the person I am encountering is one of normalcy. This piece is very thoughtful and fair. Thank you Mr Glanville for eloquently writing something I have tried to figure out my whole life.
1
This is superb writing and thinking. Anyone reading it is enriched. Thank you.
As a young white man in the 1970's I saw the bitter and breathtaking effects of racism while teaching on Chicago's West Side. The poverty and violence were staggering, and the police really were jackbooted thugs. In the 14 years I worked there I would try to express my outrage to my white friends and mostly got blank stares.
Thank you, Mr. Glanville, for illustrating your position in terms most white people can understand. How many of our national politicians and media personalities have I heard saying that we live in a post-racial society? It absolutely stuns me when I hear that.
I now live in rural Idaho, in the heart of Trump country, where people absolutely freak out over Colin Kaepernick's protest of police thuggery. They cannot see past their own bias, thinking that he is insulting the flag. They lack sufficient awareness to understand that he is honoring both the flag and our country's values.
Thank you for this...
4
The endless discussion about "Is this racist?" is a great boon to white supremacists. The titillating certainty that they can signal secretly in public, spit in their enemies' faces and go scot free, boosts their morale and thrills their teenage spirits.
And it's not merely the most extreme and hateful. People seen as decent and respectable, when caught out in plain view, also routinely shelter beneath the ambiguity of signs and symbols, and they have much "benefit of the doubt" to call on in their defense. Only someone with a mighty chip on his shoulder would fail to forgive Uncle Joe's "articulate and bright and clean" comment?
But to take a leaf from James Baldwin's book, the historical evidence for racism in America is one thing that is not in short supply. The rapes and murders and lynchings and pogroms, the redlining and segregation and incarceration, the theft and deceit and betrayals... it all speaks loudly. The presumption of innocence is for the law court. For people of color to defend ourselves--to keep ourselves safe and sane--past experience remains an invaluable guide.
But the main answer to this question should be to recognise that the heart of racism does not lie in any word or symbol and cannot be faithfully interpreted that way. Racism essentially consists in relations between people. While white Americans continue not to understand that by hating and killing black Americans, they are killing their own brothers and sisters, the epidemic will continue.
Well, now you know how women feel when men are physically aggressive and then say the woman provoked it, or that it was innocent, or that he misread her signals. Gaslighting or Ambiguity is every weasel's friend because it gives plausible deniability to inappropriate acts.
2
The guilt or innocence of anyone should not be determined by previous experiences of the purported victim.
4
Thank you for this serious articulate response to a hateful experience, Mr. Glanville. Racism never dies. It sometimes simply hides behind subtlety. Never stop calling it out for what it is.
Years ago, I was disciplined at work for a racist comment. Because I do not recall people's names, I identified the staff member by race and gender (black woman) since she was the only woman in the department who was black.
When managment confronted me, I offered to apologize directly to her. You see, when I was growing up, my father and 2 brothers would tease me to the point of crying. I was always dismissed because it was only teasing! However, a joke not shared is NOT a joke.
I understand the point Mr. Glanville is making regarding non-verbal communication.
To this day, I still do not recall her name or any other employee from that department, along with most of my college roommates' names except one since she served as my maid of honor.
Sincere apologies are not hard to do once you realize you hurt another person.
Mr. Glanville, any person with a skin as this as yours should not be in public media. You are bound to be criticized, insulted or lampooned at some point.
@Bill You read what you wanted to read, not what he wrote. Unless you believe that nobody anywhere should object to racism anywhere.
The guy played major league ball for a decade. Whole stadiums booed him. He dealt with it just fine. Have you had that experience yourself? How did you do?
1
@Bill I think you meant to right "skin as thin as yours". Correct?
I hope that since posting your comment, you have re-read the article as well as some of the comments posted here, because you do not seem to "get it".
1
Dear Mr. Glanville,
Thank you for sharing your experience; the "ok" incident is depressing and embarrassing, though as you point out it's only a single point on a continuum of needless, pointless racism.
For what it's worth, I would like to apologize on behalf of all the dumb white guys (and Cubs fans) who are not racist jerks.
I honestly don't understand what motivates the people in our country who are indulging in this current orgy of hurtful provocation -- how, exactly, are they victims?? -- but I do know that most Americans don't support their hatefulness, and we will keep working to return our nation to a more civilized public discourse.
Again, thank you for sharing your perspective.
6
The book that really resonated with me in explaining the mental and emotional gymnastics involved with such encounters - the “was that what I think it was?” situations - is Invisible Ink by Stephen M Graham, a successful lawyer who describes his experience of racial bias and discrimination in his career. https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Ink-Navigating-corporate-America/dp/1541171179
Like another poster says here, the person involved has to take responsibility for their actions - in this day and age cphe really claim
2
Here's a real-world example of the ambiguity or racism --
As you leave for work in the morning, you pass by your doorman. - You smile and say, "Good morning Willie" -- He replies with a smile, "Good morning Mr. Armstead."
You stop to buy your coffee at the usual place, from the nice young lady behind the counter. - As she hands you the coffee, you say - "Good morning Rosa, and how are you today?" - She smiles and replies, "I'm just great Ms Andrews, and how are you?"
Feeling great about yourself, you now walk into the lobby of your office building, where you must pass the security guard. - As you swipe your security card, you smile and say, "Hey George - what about those Knicks?'" - And he replies, "Gee, I don't know Mr. Richards, they need help."
You exit the elevator, and run into one of the maintenance men - dressed in his blue uniform and carrying some tools. - "Hi Roberto", you say - "Can you stop by my office later, one of the vents is clogged" -- He smiles and replies, "No problem Ms. Davis, I'll stop by later this morning".
On the way to your office, you pass by Accounting, saying hi to Denise, Shawniqua and Carlos. - They all return your greeting with, "Good Morning Mr Lieberman".
Later, you stop by the mail room to ask Jimmy for a Fed Ex box - and he replies, "Sure Mrs Cantor".
Now - you head for your executive committee meeting - but somehow there's nobody named Willie, Rosa, Jimmy or Shawniqua sitting at the big conference table...
8
What a horrific thought, that you were unwittingly made a part of a racist spectacle. We may never know the intent of the individual who gestured around you. But we do know that racists are out there, looking for attention and power. And, as with all bullies, our best response is not to give them the attention and power they seek. Hard as this is, the best thing we can all do is not give so much airtime to this incident. Whether or not the man in question meant to use a hateful sign, the bigots out there were undoubtedly delighted to see so much focus on their codes and their agenda; let’s not give them that satisfaction.
I have no way of knowing what that fan meant with the OK sign, I assume that the Cubs did their homework and, given that they banned him, they probably had reasonable grounds to conclude he was being racist.
That said, a couple of idiots on 4chan and twitter don't get to decide the meaning of a hand gesture universally understood to mean 'OK' or, if you are 12, the circle game. It means 'OK' and I am not willing to surrender its meaning to a bunch of internet trolls. I had never even heard of a racist connotation with that gesture and I am sure 99% of Americans are like me. When we play the trolls game, they win.
If this guy was trying to be racist, by all means ban him, but don't let this be the point where a few jerks on 4chan become empowered to infuse meaning in hand gestures used innocently by a billion people.
3
I have no idea how America can rid itself of racism but in the end it's about family values. If families stopped teaching their children to hate the problem might at least be reduced.
1
Well, compared to the ethnic violence easily observable in many parts of the world (see, India, Malaysia, Guatemala, Rwanda, etc). a single incident such as the one described here is pretty small potatoes. And in America, there are many varieties of social discrimination other than racism expressed against African-Americans. For example, in all the years I lived in NYC, I was constantly scorned as a dumb redneck. So my advice is, try to keep these things in proper perspective.
3
I am white. My partner is black. He's the one who makes me laugh the most, and he's kind and an amazing grandfather. He's also the best-looking man on the planet - just my opinion :)
I'll never understand racism and the idiots who have time for it.
Thank you for this essay that articulates the minority perspective with such deep understanding.
3
Granville articulated perfectly what I’ve been thinking about ever since Brett Kavanaugh ‘s aide displayed this symbol during his hearings, then when called on it did it again. Others hurried to the microphones to say she was part Jewish part Mexican etc etc but not a peep from her except a repeat of the bevahior.
4
Excellent piece. Thank you
1
I recall the moment when, on live TV, President and Michelle Obama did a "fist bump" in celebration.
It is a common gesture whose origin is well understood and accepted.
And yet ... some right-wing media outlets (Fox News, in particular) referred to it as a "terrorist" fist bump.
3
Doug Glanville continues to impress and amaze me in his always-thoughtful writing. Not "sports writing" - just "writing", about humanity and all our foibles. What a voice he has. Please keep his pieces coming. And I say that as a Dumont boy, even though he is from Teaneck - we didn't like dem guys very much.....
2
Although racism is at the center here, the concept of ambiguity is worth thinking about in itself. Can there be any human over the age of say twelve who hasn't flashed uncomfortably after realizing that an alternate meaning to the first perceived innocuous one was intended? We can call these things cowardly. Clearly an effort to show aggression while hiding behind ambiguity.
Another element here is the 'crime of opportunity'. How many times in one's life will an expression of 'how we really feel', or just an opportunity to have an impact on an audience of this size happen? Mostly never.
The response, and the punishment seems to fit the crime here. Karma will continue.
1
As a Cubs fan for the last 52 years, I find Mr Glanville’s statement racially offense. As a Caucasian, I find minorities’ stereotyping any statement or gesture they dislike racist - and I am offended.
Please bar Mr. Glanville from Wrigley Field immediately.
1
Racial micro aggressions are embedded in the most benign aspects of our language I am increasingly reminded.
As a “woke” white woman (or so I thought) I innocently commented to a colleague of color who I admire that she was extremely effective at “serving 2 masters” with divergent agendas and difficult personalities. Although it was intended as an honest compliment, as soon as those words came out of my mouth I was struck by the reference to slavery that I had never noticed. I was horrified and tried to apologize (badly).
She was beyond gracious but I was forever changed to think much more critically about my words and how often racist tropes are contained in innocent common terms/slang.
1
I simply cannot wrap my head around the paucity of the spirit, the puniness of the mind, that needs to deem The Other as Less Than Me because of the color of their skin.
2
Pretty obvious to me that the Cubs fan wants you gone from his country. It is not OK.
1
As far as I can tell from Google searching, the fan who made the symbol has not come forward, which strongly suggests it *was* meant to be the white power sign. It's hard to put myself in the position of an idiot who would interfere with a broadcast in the first place, but if that were me, and I'd not only been banned from by an MLB team AND had a highly respected former player and commentator at least under the reasonable impression I'd tried to humiliate him with a racist hand sign (even if that were not my intention), I would call a local TV station or the Chicago Tribune or Sun-Times, identify myself and explain that it was the "circle game" or something else innocuous, and I'd apologize profusely to Doug Glanville and the Cubs and Cubs fans for creating this whole mess--even if it was completely unintentional.
The fan hasn't done that despite having more than a week to do so and no shortage of people who want an explanation and would give the fan a platform. The most reasonable conclusion to draw from that is the fan meant it as a racist symbol and is understandably too afraid to stand behind it publicly.
2
Are you insane? Only a true white supremacist would thrill at the opportunity to publicly identify themselves and jump into this media storm. Any sensible person who did this innocuously and just for fun is horrified at the no-win situation they find themselves in. There is no way he can explain himself as being innocent and all these commenters (and the author) who have already concluded he is racist will change their minds. They won't change their minds because they have already rationalized that it doesn't matter if it was racist intent or not: their life experience and the context of Doug being black matter enough to outweigh intent.
If context matters, then let's put this debate in the context of how little baseball contributes to society. Stadiums cost the federal government a net loss of $1-2m per year when built with federal dollars and local communities lose over $10m a year. Think of all the progressive programs that could be implemented with those investments instead. And they would yield results faster than any interminably long game of baseball.
Anyone who is an "other" knows exactly what Mr. Granville is saying.
2
The ambiguity is what allows the "I was just joking" and "I didn't know it could mean that" defense to thrive. It is what is claimed in "crasslighting" when sexual comments are made, only to be claimed as intended for someone else. Oops!
Like the cowboy and his rope, claiming ignorance only goes so far.
1
"...learned what had happened during my customary Uber ride from Wrigley Field to the local NBC studio to do the postgame show. I was checking my Twitter account, looking to banter with Cubs fans..."
Doug, I've long admired you as a ballplayer and commentator, and I'm sure that the issue you are editorializing about here is quite important. But as an aside I wonder if Americans realize just how distasteful the constant peppering of their discourse with brand names is to the rest of the world. Why, for example, did you have to particularly advertise one ride sharing service? Here in the UK, we go to great lengths to anonymize such brand names when they have no particular relevance to the discussion at hand lest readers like me come to the conclusion that (to echo your opinion piece's title) "I was name-drop advertised to by the New York Times. Wasn't I?"
1
I never heard of this symbol being racist before and I have used it many times.
It's important underwater, if you are scuba diving, particularly at night. You need to show your partner and/or dive guide that you are OK. You need to hold it down, not up, because of equipment and also because it's easier to light when it's in front of your body.
Now, I have heard of this controversy, so I'll endeavor to forget a lifetime of innocently using this symbol when I'm on dry land. Though if I forget, because I have been using this symbol my whole life without meaning anything other than "OK," I hope I won't be banned for life.
But when scuba diving ... now what?
Maybe we shouldn't let white supremacists tell us what hand signals we can and cannot use.
2
"Later that day, the Cubs completed their investigation and banned the fan from Wrigley Field indefinitely."
What else do you expect from the club that is the world-wide definition of losers?
Thank you for this article and your thoughtful analysis. I have to admit my ignorance regarding the use of this sign. The boldness of racists in this country scares me and makes me angry.
What a different kind of journey through life that's punctuated from beginning to end with unprovoked expressions of contempt from the lowest most proudly ignorant life form among us: the unabashed racist. Mr Glanville's experience of working closely and successfully with people from all backgrounds has clearly taught him how to put such offences from nobodies into their proper perspective, yet he still feels the urgent necessity to speak up for the besieged among us who have no such broad perspective and no platform from which to protest their experience of attacks upon their basic human dignity by gratuitous gestures filled with hatred. If only America put racists into prison with as much enthusiasm and they put African Americans the problem would be solved, and pronto. In the meantime, bravo, Mr Granville.
It is jarring and surreal to read Mr. Glanville's op-ed denouncing hatred having just read Mr. Stephens' op-ed promulgating hatred against a particular demographic group.
The juxtaposition of these two op-eds creates a whiplash effect for the reader, and I am absolutely mystified as to why they were placed side-by-side on the front page.
1
In Brazil, our "okay" sign is often interpreted as we would giving the finger. I was with some Americans who had car trouble. A couple of friendly Brazilians came to help. The Americans did not speak Portuguese and they were getting along with body language.
Everything went well until the very end, when the Americans, wanted to show their approval flashed the okay sign. The Brazilians did not understand the sudden change, in their minds.
When I explained, it was a funny story for all involved.
The rule is try never to offend anybody unnecessarily and never take offense until it is very clearly intended. In other words, don't go looking to be aggrieved.
1
Yay Cubs! It's really heartening to hear of an organization completely doing the right thing...as for the sly, elusive racism, I'm afraid that it will be there as long as some people consider themselves, their culture, and their race to be superior.
Some UPenn students waste Daddy’s money and their own time. Doug Glanville wasted nothing at Penn, at Veterans Stadium, at the Times. Or wherever or however he learned to write. He is a credit to the Times. Readers become indebted to Mr. Glanville when he converts unavoidable suffering into wisdom and moral lessons and promotes readers to be better.
Orientation matters.
No one does an upside-down OK sign except in a racist context. The distinction is as unambiguous as thumbs-up versus thumbs-down.
2
Wrong. This gesture is a big part of bro/guy culture in a completely non-racist way. I live in Trump country and I had never heard of the racist meaning until I read this article .
1
being upset, bothered or offended by people like the Cub's fan, compelled to belittle people of color is giving them too much significance. I just feel sorry for people like that.
This is exactly why the furor erupted over the cartoon in the NYT depicting Trump with a yarmulke being led by Netanyahu as a dog with a Jewish star. The cartoon could have honestly been political, not racist. But as Glanville says, racism thrives in ambiguity. In the bigger picture, the racism expressed, even if inadvertent, must be acknowledged.
1
Beautiful, wise essay, Mr. Glanville.
Apparently, there are so-called "men" out there who are engaging in juvenile rubbish like this to express their racism. In this example, it involves sneaking up behind a black person and doing an upside down OK signal. A while ago, wasn't there something about green frogs as symbols of white supremacy? I remember reading something about that, and remember in fall 2016 a sad sack of a neighbor of mine putting Trump signs and plastic green frogs all over his lawn.
What strikes me is the utter childishness of it all--not to mention cowardice. As a schoolteacher, I'm reminded of 8th grade boys sitting together at the back of the class, giggling and making silly noises and gestures, bless them, as they imagine themselves to be rebels--but then blushing profusely when called on to speak up.
If the Cubs fan in question had wanted to express his racism, why not opening speak to Mr. Glanville, and say, "Hey, I don't like black people and I really don't like them in positions of power because I'd rather the powerful people in this country be white like me." Why not just say it? Why the juvenile hand signals and plastic frogs?
Oh wait, you're afraid of being called out by teacher, aren't you.
Hey, at least the racist women have the courage to call the police. "There's a black person having a BBQ! And there's another one over there selling lemonade! And there's another looking for his keys in front of his house! Help!!"
1
I'm a white guy, and I had NO idea this was a thing. I just used the OK symbol today while jogging in NJ today. The man on the other end smiled(Guessing he was Hispanic). I guess I need to stop using it?
2
This is probably the first op ed I've read with enough nuance to promote some degree of understanding for me. Thank you for your writing.
Racism, sexism, ageism, Islamophobia, homophobia are everywhere. Just look at all the signs around. It's time to get honest about it.
1
I’m still puzzled by the Brett Kavanaugh staff member who flashed the white power symbol, on TV, sitting behind him, during his confirmation hearings, not once but twice. And yet she’s Jewish.
Yes, it was a sign from someone who is a racist. There was no ambiguity and the Cubs did the right thing.
1
FWIW, a noose isn't rodeo or cowboy it is used for a hanging. Unless the hypothetic friend had a horse thief hung from it the noose is a problem.
As to the fan unless he was standing with the inverted ok gesture near his belt buckle he wasn't playing the look game.
@Errol in OR
I have no idea what you are talking about when you, erroneously in my opinion and to my knowledge, claim that no or only extremely few truly Native American people still live here. As another Jewish person, I am surprised, dismayed, and embarrassed by the prejudice I sense in your little parenthetical aside.
And by the way, that reference to ancient Indian symbolism was almost certainly NOT about indigenous North Americans, but to cultures in India. Historic "Aryans" (a transliteration) were people -- with darker skin, eyes, and hair -- who migrated out of the Indian subcontinent and made their way westward. The Nazi party created the myth that Aryans were blond, blue-eyed white people, even as they adopted what was once a benign symbol and transmogrified it into the worst kind of evil. Not unlike what contemporary racist supremacists have done with/to the "OK" sign.
The old radical counterculture used to do this all the time: use strategic ambiguity in language to mock their elders, who usually knew what was going on but could never prove it. You could then say: "Look how out of touch you are, you're all riled up over nothing."
It's a powerful and infuriating strategy: all you have to do is despise good faith reasoned discussion. So it's no surprise the alt-right learned the tactic.
There aren't any perfect countermeasures. But it seems the best approach is to quietly say: "You might thnk we're idiots, but we aren't." And then to calmly lay out your evidence. That seems to be more or less what Glanville and the Cubs have done.
Years ago I went to Las Vegas, a good number of people were wearing WWJD bracelets ....a Wants promo for "Who Wants Jack Daniels" liquer. Upon returning home as a teacher, many students were wearing the same bracelets...promptly having them conviscated due promotion of alcohol .....the religious uproar ensued ("What Would Jesus Do ?") was their interpretation ....can't win over semiotics.
White supremacists, just through their actions, disprove any notion that white people are superior in any way. Full disclosure: I am a sixty-six year old white man.
2
Everyone is racist, sometimes positively, sometimes negatively and sometimes benignly. The author notices when he is the subject of racism but does he recognize when he engages in racism against others? Remember the old saying, when you point at someone, three fingers point back at you.
2
Doug, it's quite important that all the White Americans, as well as all the White folks of the world learn what it is to be treated racially.
Why I say this ?
Because it won't be too long when due to the change of racial components of our societies and also due to the huge migrations here in America as well as all over the world and progression of the mankind and humanity, it is inevitable beyond any doubts whatsoever that the majority race will be a minority. Given all the data that was posted by the census committee of this country over the decades , this is not just a dream. But a stern reality that the number of White Americans will be far below than all the minorities combined.
The racial status of the current House of Representatives clearly shows that pretty soon the Speaker of the House will be Hakeem Jeffries who is Black instead of White Ms. Pelosi, with majority of Democrats coming from Black, Hispanic, Asian and other minority communities.
So let us all call a 'spade a spade' and not hiding under any illusion that "All is well in America. And there is no apparent racism to deal with."
Because the truth is : America still is a racist country. And with Trump sitting in the White House, this country will slide more towards '50's America when the Black and other minority Americans had to pay "a Poll Tax" to vote in the polls.
All the ex-felons who just gained the right to vote in Florida have to do the same in 2020 : pay "a Poll Tax."
I rest my case !
Just remember...if you go looking for what's offensive, you'll always find something.
2
This guy is crying because some fan he never met made a hand gesture he never saw.
I'm against racism, but I hope you understand if I'm unmoved by this whiny story.
1
Patriarch of the Cubs ownership Joe Rickets revealed recently as engaging massive racist/birther/anti-muslim conspiracy emails. One of the co-owners of the Cubs is chairing fundraising for dog-whistle Trump's reelection "victory" committee. A Cubs fan may be a racist or white supremacist, but Glanville should mention the complicit support that fan might find in the front office.
1
This isn't the time the Cubs organization has had to address the issue of racism.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/sports/cubs-ricketts.html
“Racism is cowardly with double meanings.”
This is pure poetry, as insightful as it is eloquent.
This sort of behavior can be compared to window breaking and turnstile jumping: Neither crime is heinous in and of itself, but each contributes to a deteriorating society.
In a way, racists today are like bad children. They are the same people who years ago might have pretended to sneeze while saying an expletive. All grins and look at me, aren't I clever!
Were their behavior a one-off, no harm would come of it. But like that toxic peer group your parents warned you against, these bad children enable each other's insidious behavior. Like most conservatives who spread hate against black people, Hispanic people, or gay people, these bad children shrug their shoulders in the aftermath and ask, "What exactly did I say?"
And so society becomes a friendlier place for those who would restrict it for their own ethnicity or religion. Bad children like Trump and Graham Jr. and Hannity normalize vicious thinking, helping fellow travelers to have a more comfortable trip back to when America was Great, when women knew their place and nooses hung from trees.
1
Doug Glanville for President!😁
Speculation is the start of misadventure into the wilderness of darkness/ read this article it would be just as easy to Wonder if Racism was at its corehttps://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-arnold-schwarzenegger-south-africa-snapchat-20190518-story.html
We need to VOTE hatred out of the White House and start loving again.
1
This is like the Pepe meme.. innocent cartoon frog ("feels good man") is co opted by alt-right as a "pretend" symbol of racism in order to make fun of people reacting to it as racist. Then it becomes the real symbol.
Sadly, the circle game is more popular in mainstream culture. It's a creepy thing to do that ruins the circle game, much like the swastika was ruined by the Nazis. The alt right and white supremacists are as good as the Russians at mind hacks/messing with people's heads.
People who purposely use dog whistles are cowards who are afraid to show their faces. At least people with a visible swastika have the guts to show their vile allegiances outright.
Tell it to Tiger. He’s off golfing with the greatest threat to democracy and equality in American history.
Thank you for this article. It went a long way towards deepening my understanding of the damage racism inflicts on the people of our country, and our society as a whole. How horrible that many of our fellow Americans must go through life with defenses up against such malignant stupidity. Thank you again, for making me more aware.
1
If you have to ask the question of a statement or gesture was racist - the answer is no.
Doug,
I abhor the racist demonstration, and on behalf of all Americans who think this act is an ugly and insulting act, I apologize to you.
Your achievements are legendary, and you deserve much more from us. Frankly, banning the perpetrator from a ball park is insufficient punishment, this person conducted a racist assault on you in public, and deserves to be criminally charged and tried.
I believe we have come to this place by an ugly political path, running through those Tea Party thugs who spat on Rep Lewis, another icon, and up to our notorious president who tolerates and baits these actions.
Thank you for the grace and strength you show in your response, we are a better community for it.
G-d almighty, we are at a bad time in this country when a subject like the O.K. sign even needs to come under discussion.
1
Mr. Glanville, I am pleased that the management saw fit to ban the fan indefinitely. We share responsibility here to be sure we do not flash ambiguous messages if we genuinely want to avoid adding to covert (or not so covert) racist acts. Why is the expectation that the benefit of the doubt should be given to the offender? Why isn't the benefit of the doubt given to those people who, by their experiences every day are on the receiving end of offense? I'm so tired of this stupidity. Thank you for the thoughtful column.
This article doesn't show you what the okay sign is. What is it???
1
Assuming the fan indeed flashed a hand sign "associated" with white supremacy, he's an inconsequential idiot who Twitter, the Cubs and the author have now rewarded with recognition. Can we all just agree that there are nitwits of all stripes in the World and just ignore them unless they pose a threat. If we do, there will be a whole lot fewer of them.
''If you innocently decorate your office with a rope shaped into a noose because you like rodeo cowboys, I can still be offended.''
A lariat is different from a hangman's noose.
This article is full of wisdom, based on facts that I wish were not true.
“If you innocently decorate your office with a rope shaped into a noose because you like rodeo cowboys, I can still be offended. You can like rodeo cowboys; I can be upset. Both can be true. The fact that you like rodeo cowboys does not mean I am overreacting, nor does it make you a racist.”
This was a very interesting point and I’m glad you made it.
1
1) Technological question: Background-On Swedish televisin background figures are regularly pixilated, most often to protect identities. Why should anyone in back of you be shown at all? Whatever the person in back of you may be doing, viewers need only to see you.
2) NY Times Race/Related newsletter and the post before us. The Race/Related newsletter appears under a misnomer. It should simply be Racism in America. This article might appear there and might become one of 100s showing the forms racism takes in America. Racism takes many forms with the racist choosing to demean because the racist's target is of wrong religion, country of birth, skin color, culture and probably more. If there is a problem with reporting on racism in the Times it appears that coverage should treat all kinds. I say this because I note that the comment section allows anti-muslim (racist) remarks that would never get by if the racist remark had blacks or jews as targets.
3) R/R never actually deals with "race", a concept invented by racists. The American "races" are the fatal inventions of racists preserved by the Census Bureau. I have asked Lauretta Charlton, R/R Editor to take up this subject. Won't touch it.
Who will? Time to start.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
Always like Glanville's essays. Quite a writer for a guy who's apparently trained as an athlete and engineer.
Not convincing.
Why fuss with the "possibly it was racist" when there are the obvious racists? The only way it works to eliminate racism is to get as many people on your side as possible, and that means not alienating people who were just innocently putting nooses in their rooms because they like rodeos.
As a white male with no patience for weasly weak antics and indeed furor at the tsunami of microagression you and other non-whites must, daily, live with, I stand shoulder to shoulder with you in the Eye of the Storm.
Doug, you remain an unusually calm, positive presence. I admire you greatly. Sorry our country is currently particularly infected with this cowardly nonsense.
1
This reminds me of when the former president of the University of Missouri Tim Wolfe told black protesters that they make their own problems.
First of all I want to say I am a 72 year old white and I only mention that so no one can read read this and use it to argue that blacks are always crying racism. I mistakenly though race relations had got better in the USA but with the election of President Obama I realized it had only went underground for some people and came boiling back to the surface when those white heads exploded at the thought of a black guy in the White House. Now with trump giving cover for it with his "fine people on both sides" it has become downright blatant. Shame on you America. Shame!
2
Well said.
You use of the graph is very enlightening.
Your engineering degree is showing through.
Brilliant!!! Love Mr. Glanville's pieces!!
But fighting racism is exhausting. Teaching college for 20 years has seen me fighting it, yet it endures. And what I got for it was months of sleepless nights and high blood pressure.
Alas, I'e learned a simple truth: some people are dumb, and don't realize the impact of their (as I might perceive as racist) acts, others are dumb too because they are racist and usually get the reaction they want- me feeling outraged (and ill).
However, like every Black person, I can list the times I've been mistaken for a sales clerk, attendant, custodian, etc. So concerning regular folks, I'd rather not battle every "micro-aggression" and just let things pass.
I draw the line at law enforcement, who have "mistaken" me for all sorts of things. My fave was the time I was turning into my driveway, and a Black cop asked me, "where are you going?" I told him, "My house." [I filed a report and nothing happened.]
Still, this exchange, by a racially profiling Black cop has stayed with me every time I turn into my driveway.
But the many times faceless idiots have said and done things to me over the years, I know the problem is theirs, not mine. And for my own health, it ain't worth the fight.
This sort of stuff is what drives middle class white people crazy. Most of us are done living in a perpetual state of apology.
The faux double meaning is for those who play the victim.
Ask a Brazilian what that sign means.
There is no ambiguity. White supremacists have been trying to get on national tv with their disgusting hand sign a lot lately. There's no ambiguity. Sorry that happened to you.
2
as a Jew I am always happy when I hear someone makes a comment about Jews being cheap or earning a lot of money. I am not cheap and earn nothing. Nothing better than proving stereotypes wrong. Good for the author to become successful regardless of gender or sexual orientation or race, etc and rising above the jerks out there.
Yes, you were racially taunted on live TV.
And there is such a thing as white privilege.
I always enjoy your writing. It would be nice if you could concentrate on baseball. But thank you for being an expert on racism too.
1
Punish the fan? Ambiguous? Graph with dots? Cowboy ropes from the rodeo. I don't know...
Racism is as American as Cheesy Grits (made with white corn). And our fellow citizens who are the most "ambiguous" are the closet-racists. They don't say nothin' 'bout nothin' racist - in public. In fact they will chide you if you say something that they think sounds a little racist - and probably isn't - just to show off their closet-racist bona fides.
You say: "Mexican." They say: "Don't you mean Hispanic?" No, I don't mean Hispanic, or Latino: I mean "Mexican!" Is there something wrong with being a Mexican from Mexico? These days...maybe so.
How about a Japanese from Japan?
Doug Glanville, you are one incredibly centered human being. My hat is off to you.
I followed the author's argument right up to the point where he states that he can be offended by an object or action he sees as symbolic, even it that action is not meant racially or offensively. Even if that action means something totally different to the other person. Even if they did not know that they were employing a misinterpreted symbol.
That is nuts.
If offense isn't meant, educate first, be offended second. I won't use a symbol of hate on purpose, but I'd like a shot at being educated before I am excoriated. If I see a rainbow, I have to figure out if I am looking at rainbows and unicorns, kid's toys, a gay pride symbol or a pointer to the Rainbow Bridge. Rainbows have so many meanings that they lose meaning. If I see an OK sign, I would not have known of the racist possibility before this essay -it has too many meanings.
I see hope for us all, hope that we are improving and evolving into better people and a better nation. The white supremacist movement is a reaction to that progress.
Let's not let the ignorant and evil win by ensuring a wider divide.
2
@Cathy Who is responsible to educate you to make sure you don't accidentally use a hate symbol? Glanville, before getting offended, or yourself, before using a well-known gesture of offense? It seems like you are asking Glanville and other Black people to educate you on the patterns and symbols used to reinforce historical and contemporary white supremacist behavior. Google is our friend, and all of that information is available to those who care enough to do the research. Part of the offense Glanville is discussing is not just the blatant intentional use of offensive symbols, but the careless ignorant use of those same symbols. The offense in the second case is that we set our inquiry priorities in ways that keep us clueless about what gives offense due to correlation historically violent connections to racism. And then we blame racism's targets for not educating us what we should have already known about our foreparents' or our own harmful behaviors. This is a tactic of labelling abuse targets as responsible for the harm they endure.
What a great article. The image of the graph with a clear pattern one group experiences and sees and far fewer dots with no pattern that another person experiences and sees captured perfectly how and why we can always be talking past each other.
5
Have lunch with just about any black person and, once the conversation gets past small talk and into feelings, you will hear of countless small racial slights. Death by a thousand cuts comes to mind. But you have to be open to having the conversation, not intent on fashioning a rebuttal to what you are hearing. As a result of having many such conversations with a friend, I wrote a column in the Kansas City Star back in the Obama years about my friend’s life experiences, beginning with his being denied entry into a movie theater at a young age and ending with him being Obama’s guest at a speech at that same movie theater years later. I ended the column recounting his dinner chat with Obama, asking him how he handled the daily barrage from Fox News, to which Obama replied that he had, like my friend, developed a thick skin and that, also like my friend, he had developed a strong faith. I thought it was a pretty good piece, but I question my objectivity. The next morning at church I found my column pinned to a hallway bulletin board. An unsigned note was attached, taking me to task for painting Fox in an unfavorable light. In conclusion .........
11
I've always loved your baseball articles and was a big fan of yours (when you played for Phillies). I've read about this controversial act, and as a senior citizen, I honestly don't understand what you are talking about. An upside down OK symbol! Perhaps a better explanation is in order.
@mort if you don't understand perhaps the onus should be on you to connect the dots not anyone else to come up with an explanation you like better (which is not the same as a better explanation).
6
@mort Knowing that you don't understand is the first step toward understanding.
@mort
Mort, maybe you are not getting out enough. I say that as another old guy Phils fan.
The upside down OK sign is used by white supremicists and Neo Nazis as a mark of identification.
This may seem unrelated, but I never call myself a Christian although I will soon leave to attend an Episcopal church service, as I do every Sunday. I do not want to be be mistaken for someone who embraces the ideology of right wing Christianity.
It's a shame that once innocuous hand gestures and certain words are co-opted by groups that change their meanings or make their meanings ambiguous. Do we fight to reclaim their original meanings, or do we refrain from using them because of the misunderstandings they may cause? In the case of the hand gesture, I'm pretty certain trying to reclaim it may be an in-your-face choice that doesn't accomplish what you set out to do. "Safe space" thinking may have gone too far, but to willingly try to make a point knowing you will offend someone is not the same thing at all.
4
What is white privilege? It's being able to assume the innocent explanation of an action that might be perceived as an insult and almost always being right to do so. Almost always. And there lies the difficulty in speaking about racial issues.
I'm a privileged white guy who's been mistaken as a store employee a few times and, on one occasion, as a valet. My business partner, another privileged white guy, has been pulled out of his car and beaten by cops. I see the rarity of such incidents in my life as a result of my white privilege. My partner sees his beating as an example that such privilege doesn't exist.
We were recently at a meeting with a company in Louisiana. Everyone at the meeting was white and no one said or hinted at anything racist (except for a soft question/joke about no one being Muslim when pork rinds were offered as a snack... there was that). The meeting went fine. There was no tension, everything was easy. Later I reflected how different the meeting would have felt if my skin had been black. I could have spoken all of the same words, made all of the same expressions and gestures, and there would have been an underlying feeling of tension -- even if no one was racist -- because I would have been on guard for an indication of racism and they would have been wondering if I were wondering if they were racist.
There's no magic wand that will instantly change this reality. But awareness is growing thanks to people like Doug Glanville.
22
The Cub's response was brilliant. A lifetime ban from the park.
Unambiguous, severe and swift. Doug Glanville is a great ballplayer, human and educator. Thanks.
13
Wow. Just a brilliant and illuminating essay. This gives a convincing explanatory framework to anyone coming to the issue with "too few data points."
14
I think the suggestion of using the incidents as dots on a graph is brilliant. Many people who have seen almost no incidents of racism truly believe that such incidents are rare and exceptional to daily life for those affected and that those who complain are either trying to get attention or are oversensitive. When I lived with a roommate of color, I was really shocked at the frequency of small occurrences such as a patron of a club we attended assuming he was the driver cab that he had ordered and the time we were stopped on the street in investigation of a thuggish murder that happened in a different area on a different day; we were coming from a tennis court and were dressed appropriately for tennis as well as carrying racquets. Often incidents were well-meaning such as strangers at gatherings making a point of telling my friend it was OK that he was present. It happened over and over; I never saw anyone behave this way toward whites. My friend was always cordial in response and took it in the spirit it was intended, but I couldn't believe how it just kept happening.
18
Beautifully written, clear, complex and deep, all at once. Thank you.
22
Any person who has witnessed or been the object of bigotry is aware, as Glanville notes, that it is not always revealed in gestures as large and glaring as the burning cross on a lawn. Far more often it is an insensitivity of everyday life. But these are not harmless, not innocent. The perpetrator may think little of it. The recipient, the victim, is unlikely to forget.
14
Doug Glanville's article points out the subtle racism that exists in our society. When a noose was found in a construction area on Illinois State U's campus a few years ago, I brought it to the attention of my fellow professors who brushed it off. I didn't. I shared with my students it's racist symbolism. The majority of my students didn't have a clue about Jim Crow laws and the history of hanging blacks in southern states. They just knew racism was greater in the south than the north. So I shared stories about how Louis Armstrong and his band would come into Richmond, Indiana, during the day to record then have to leave before dark because of the "sundown" laws. These same students became elementary and middle school teachers. I hope they've become more aware of racism and try to stop it in their own classrooms.
20
@Pam Farris
Yay! You effectively taught young pranksters what knots to craft to offend older folks, probably increasing the likelihood that the "noose incident" will be replicated elsewhere, as the knowledge is passed on to fellow transgressors. I get that people want to appeal to receptive minds to sensitize them to the horrific meaning nooses and swastikas might have for specific communities, but by making a fuss about every noose and every chalk swastika drawn on a playground, you're just handing a playbook to young pranksters on how to get attention, and an almost guaranteed article in the local press.
Unfortunately, being offended is now a means of power on others (some call such power "oppression": interpret that as you may) and of virtue signaling, and there's little hope that those wielding that power will even consider trading the appeal of spearheading outrage at otherwise innocuous objects and drawings against the possibility that, by ignoring and immediately cleaning up after these "incidents", the appeal of these symbols might diminish in the eyes of troublemakers, and eventually cease to happen at all (which is what I'd assume should be everyone's goal).
Here's the account of an incident that apparently backfired for those seeking to induce hysteria and exploit it as the proof of the rise of Trumpist and white supremacist intolerance: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/nyregion/swastikas-playground-nyc-anti-semitism.html
Had these kids been white...
@Pam Farris Indiana has always been more south than north. They have had a governor who was a member of the Klan. But I agree that there has always been, and still is, an enormous ampoint of this kind of incident in the north.
"Ambiguity has always been a friend to racism". With those words, Mr. Glanville sent me scurrying to my memory stash of ambiguous claims involving race I might've heard or, for that matter, uttered myself. I got his point for the very first time.
That's unusual in today's climate of politically charged action and reaction where, it seems, the same points are being made and argued incessantly.
Does ambiguity allow the nascent racist to test the waters, so to speak? I guess it does. It also allows for public displays of racist attitudes without covering one's face with a hood or brandishing a banner bearing less ambiguous symbolism; an insurgency of sorts.
So, Mr. Glanville, here's my offer to you. In reviewing my own use of ambiguity to express racism on my part, I discovered that there's no such thing going on here. That doesn't mean I'm innocent; that my life doesn't have its own graph relative to racism, that showed some areas that needed conscious addressing.
But it does mean that, should we pass on the street, I'll flash you a smile as big and bright as the one of you that accompanies this piece. Thank you.
6
This is a great article for understanding subtle microaggressions -- largely unconscious acts by members of dominant groups that convey messages of superiority and/or exclusion -- and the difficulty those who experience such acts have in explaining them to those who commit them. Even though the gesture in question was done purposefully, the debate raging around it mirrors the divisive stance taken by dominant groups against minority groups in discussions of microaggressions. Glanville's frank discussion of living in a society imbued with white supremacy and enduring racist slights on a continual basis powerfully conveys the corrosive, insidious nature of microaggressions. The metaphor of the plotted graph of lived experiences that reveal the curve of racist ideology illuminates the experience of victims of slights and abuse with great moral clarity.
119
@Literary Critic
Exactly. One incident could be unintentional or foot in mouth...they can’t ALL be.
21
@Literary Critic If it didn't appear that you were serious, I would consider this satire with its invocations of "subtle microaggressions".
1
@Di So this one guy, whatever his intent, should pay for all the others? Admirable sense of Justice! The Soviet regime would be proud!
1
Mr. Glanville zeroes in on how racism is allowed to thrive when "ambiguity" and "innocent explanations" can be used to cynically dismiss someone's lived experience. Well said. I, for one, will continue to listen.
130
The fan may claim that he is not capital R racist because he doesn’t wear a pointy hat or advocate for a white homeland, but that is only because people incorrectly understand racism in such starkly obvious terms. He would have to live without internet access not to have heard that the ok gesture done in that way is now at least ambiguously racist, and no longer just a game of making people look. His game of making the world and the author wonder is in itself a racist act, callous to the harm it causes.
66
Really? I am constantly on the internet and work for an internet company and this is the first time I've heard of a racist connotation for the ok sign. Maybe I'm just an outlier. My first impression from watching the video was that he was playing the circle game, something described VERY briefly in the article - a game from my youth whereby you would try to get someone to look at a circle created by an ok sign and if they did you could punch them in the shoulder.
5
@Alex K
Umm, I wasn't aware of that sign, and neither am I 100% clear about what an OK sign is (after perusing my mental database of "good" signs and trying the thumb up, then the V with the index and the major, I'm assuming by elimination that it's the thumb an index joined together in an O, with no certainty), and I use the internet every day. Maybe I'm not on the right hate sites? In any case, I just as well could have made that sign inadvertently.
Great time to be alive, when people can project intent in anything you do unintentionally, and publicly destroy your character.
3
I was watching this game when the incident happened, and unequivocally knew what the intention was. It was sickening and I simultaneously could not believe my eyes. I am glad the Cubs took appropriate action. This must not and cannot be tolerated.
229
I appreciate Mr. Glanville connecting the dots in such a lucid way. Patterns underlay any system, good or bad. Like analytically driven baseball, we should look hard at the data points in our society today. The curve being mapped is trending toward an overt extremism that vilifies the “Other” and flashes an OK sign on bigotry and hate.
154
As other commenters are saying, this is a brilliantly argued, poignant, and insightful piece, and I agree with point after point, but there is one huge clunker: "We can focus on a single fan and build our cases against one another, or we can focus on everyone else and build understanding together." This is false. That fan represents the 35% or so of Trump's America. It is a cancer, and we have to focus on it like never before and eradicate it. This is a tipping point. With Trump, America has fallen into the gutter. Either we stay there and this is the end of our greatness or we fight back and lift ourselves up.
38
@dvd88 One way to determine who is part of the problem and who is part of the solution is to see if the person demonizes people whose political views are different.
14
@james It isn't demonizing Trump fans to state that they are racist when Trump fans themselves show us over and over again just how racist they are. But even if Trump supporters were not making racist comments at every possible opportunity, their support of Trump's racist comments, and much worse, the policies he promotes, is racist in itself in the most important way that racism exists. There is no sugar-coating this fact. If you are a Trump supporter, regardless of your race, there is some group of people of color that you hold yourself as superior to and that you want to see discriminated against. No matter how much you might try to kid yourself about that, no thinking person is fooled.
@james There are many people in this country who make themselves into demons. They were here before Trump and they will be here when he's gone. Having a Black president should have signaled the beginning of the end of racism: What Obama prompted was the core 35 percent to come up with "Birthers" and coded and not so coded criticism of the president. The Republican party thought they could take advantage of racism without thoroughly embracing it. Trump knew he had the old school Conservatives by the short hairs by way of career-ending primaries...And here we are, on the verge of adopting bigotry as a national motif while Trump poses in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
1
For me, most touching note in this essay is his report of being mistaken for the valet as he parks his car. I will think about his experience for a long time.
14
I remember reading about Thurgood Marshall working in his yard and a passerby assuming he was hired by the owner, and asking about his availability for yard work.
People make assumptions. Years ago at work I was wished a happy Secretaries' Week by a man I didn't know---who assumed a young white woman had to be clerical/support staff. Which I was not.
19
@mj
People simply need to mind their own business and keep their mouths shut. If you want a yardman, look under yard service. Last Sunday I was accosted by numerous strangers while minding my own business shopping for groceries. They all wanted to wish me a Happy Mothers Day. First, I despise these fake Hallmark holidays, second, I was vigilant for over 30 years avoiding motherhood. I would love to do whatever I am doing without comment from strangers.
1
I have a 25-year-old red down vest that's great for cold weather; but whenever I wear it while shopping in home-improvement stores, people mistake me for an employee. I answer their questions as best as I can but add, "Perhaps, though, you can find someone who works here." They are always embarrassed.
I don't mind because it happens frequently and I get a kick out of the regularity with which it does; but people's use of a sort of oblivious shorthand must surely rankle black people, too often the target of many types of shorthand, and too often negative.
2
"I hope we choose the path of empathy and unity. [...]
That may be partly mythology, but it can serve as
an aspirational ideal, a goal for us as a society."
powerful forces striving to divide and conquer
have been [successfully] operating for centuries.
and with a vengeance, in recent years ...
mr glanville, your inspiring plea for unity reminds me of
ralph ellison's "invisible man" - which i read in 7th grade.
a painful testament to the fact that some people were just
not meant to feel comfortable, let alone happy in the USA,
simply due to the color of their skin.
have things really improved half a century later?
across the globe, people are being slandered, denigrated, killed
for - supposedly - belonging to the wrong [i.e. enemy] crowd.
the struggle is about POWER.
how many people on earth feel powerless to a point
where they are ready to take another person's life
because that other person seems to be better off,
socially, culturally, economically ...?
emotions play a major role here, too.
people seem to trust them more than they trust facts these days.
thank you, mr glanville, for reminding us that
under_standing together is our [best] choice.
7
Like others have commented this is a beautiful article, I love the notion of a graph with datapoints being our lived experiences. It is a clear explanation of why people who are not of the same race, gender, religion or sexual orientation simply cannot understand the reaction to certain situations by others. This means that all the more importantly that we must learn to trust one another and believe each others perceptions.
10
If Mr. Glanville was doing baseball commentary at Fenway Park in Boston these days, he might have occasion to write the same sort of nuanced column. I suppose Boston has made progress over the last few decades.
During the late '70s and early '80s, my roommate was a black friend I'd met in college. We went to Red Sox games constantly. He was always almost the only African-American customer as far as I could see. A Boston native, he wasn't a Red Sox fan thanks to their history as the last team to integrate. He wore a Yankees cap to prove it.
There was nothing stealthy or subtle about the racism he encountered. It couldn't have been more unambiguous. As in: "Go back to Africa Yankees fan!" These incidents only happened a few times. Always large groups of drunk guys from a distance. Always the same brilliant Africa theme. It was frightening, but nothing more ever happened. Uncannily, no usher or security person ever saw or heard anything.
My friend moved to Arizona long ago. When he returns to Boston for visits now, he is surprised to see black kids wearing Red Sox gear, lots of them. He's become a Phoenix-based Red Sox fan himself.
Until now, it hasn't occurred to me to ask him why he wanted to go to all those games at Fenway Park 40 years ago.
9
Kudos, Mr Glanville on a much-needed article!
As a physicist, throughly enjoyed your ‘graph’ analogy.
As for the issue of racism, it’s a difficult concept to grasp unless you routinely experience it first hand.
Many of the ‘priviliged’, who have only ever had an occasional brush with it, struggle to fathom the ‘gravity’ of this menace esp. how it permeates every aspect of the American society in one form or another.
And those who attempt to highlight the issue are often accused of ‘grandstanding’ and ‘playing the race card’.
Even liberal, pluralistic bastions like Canada isn’t immune either. Racism and xenophobia is part and parcel of the social fabric of Québec and to some extent, Alberta (just north of Montana) as well.
Together, we can tackle this menace but that’d first require honest acknowledgement of the issues at hand.
As well, a purging of the toxic culture permeating at the WH through the ballot box in 2020 would also help America get back on track. Perhaps, to steer the ‘land of the free’ out of this morass and onto its rightful status ‘as a shining city on a hill’ for the world to emulate.
God bless America.
11
To address ambiguous words and acts with empathy for multiple points of view is extremely difficult, but Glanville does so brilliantly. I've admired his writing for years, but this one goes beyond even the lucidity and articulateness I've come to expect from him.
17
Thank you for this clear and nuanced article. It is informative to read about the experience of a person of color navigating these ambiguities. A second, perhaps unintended, contribution is exposing the very dynamics of racial misunderstanding and antipathy as brought out in the comments—where many who clearly know less nevertheless feel entitled to correct the author.
Is there a “Lewis’s Law” for race? (Lewis's Law: The comments on any article on feminism justify feminism.)
The question arises: how does one reach those who respond to an article like this with defensiveness, dismissal, or worse? Is it even possible? I suppose, beyond hopefully obeying relevant laws, one has to find one’s own way one one’s own schedule, the luxury of which bears out the content of the article. And how do those of us who think ourselves allies to the author’s point of view avoid wallowing in self-congratulation for our self-proclaimed superiority to the uninformed or hostile commenters here? Hearing the story of a person of color, and the appreciation of allies, just seems to inflame their resentment.
7
@Rose Liz Is there a “Lewis’s Law” for race? (Lewis's Law: The comments on any article on feminism justify feminism.)
Lewis's law? Interesting. That's what Freud has been accused of doing: Either you agree with what Freud says or you are resisting psychoanalysis. Your resistance, (equivalent to negative comments on feminism) is evidence of needing to be psychoanalyzed in the first place. Why would Freud get called out for this circular type of reasoning but not Lewis?
There is plenty of information available on Lewis’s Law and related matters for anyone who wishes to understand better.
Your witnessing and reflecting shine like the sun, Mr. Glanville. Thank you.
9
Well-written and clear-eyed!
One of the best articles I have read addressing this ‘taboo’ topic.
Bravo, Mr. Glanville!
22
Such a strong, intelligent piece of writing. If only every bigot that can read would find and read this column, and reflect on their thoughts about people of color versus Mr. Glanville's substantial explanation of how a person of color can grow up in the same country among the same types of people and come away with a very different set of experiences... all based on nothing more than the color of his skin.
20
If guilty until proven innocent is to be the new standard for one person it needs to be the new standard for all. From now on suspicions and accusations will replace evidence as sufficient grounds for meting out punishment. Anything less than equal protection would just be evil as usual.
9
@God The fan's gesture is known to be a racist gesture, a kind of smirking secret symbol. The evidence was on TV for all to see. He could have just sat there, or waved and mouthed "Hi, Mom!" like most normal humans would have, but he chose to make that racist gesture.
Also, this was not a court case and the fan is not in jail. He was banned from Wrigley Field. I think he'll live and be fine, though I hope he does some deep thinking.
1
I hope the Cubs fan reads this, though his actions indicate that unlikely.
4
Mr. Glanville:
I always learn something from your columns. Sometimes I learn something about baseball, the game I've loved since I was 5. Sometimes I get insights into what makes great writing.
But I've learned a lot of other stuff from you, too. Thank you for sharing your intelligence with us.
17
@Frank Dehn -- yes, indeed. Thanks to the author not only for his perspective but for informing readers who don't trade in far-right chat rooms (or social media generally...) that the "OK" gesture is now very much not OK. It's too bad that we are living in a time when what's considered inappropriate behavior or words is closing in around us ever more tightly (see Joe Biden). It feels that you have to walk on eggshells with coworkers, acquaintances, everyone. Is the thumbs-up still acceptable? And this "circle game" is news, too. Whats the point of it? Anyway, good to know.
3
Doug, I have watched the video, and believe the man's gesture was malicious. If the "fan" was playing the "circle game", he should have come forward, and apologized. The incident was widely publicized. He must have known how the O.K. was being interpreted. I disagree, however, with the Cubs' decision to ban the man for life. He should be required to perform 100 hours of community service before returning to Wrigley Field. The young man would return with a better perspective of how his actions affect other people. Next time, he would be content to wave a "W" and sing "Go, Cubs, go."
10
I knew the first time I read a column by Doug Glanville that he was intelligent and well reasoned. This time, though, he has gone beyond reasoning and intelligence and opened my eyes to a new way to see things, and I know that more people need to read this. It is the kind of enlightenment that we need right now, and the more people it reaches, the greater the number of those who also might see something in a new light.
Thank you, Mr. Glanville.
43
Republicans have been speaking in "dog whistles" since Nixon. The obsessive need to "balance the budget" was code for reducing the number of people of color working for the federal government (over the years, how many assaults have there been on the postal service). "Balancing the budget" never seemed to impact the Pentagon, whose budget, now with Dirty Don, deprives everything else (infrastructure, schools, health care) of needed oxygen.
27
@Joe
And before "dog whistles" from the Nixon era, there were outright racist horrors.
Remember the 50's and early 60's? If you have trouble recalling that time, just watch the movie "Green Card".
Insightful and compelling ... challenging but positive. The kind of thinking and communication that we should be getting from our political leaders but almost never see. Let's make Doug POTUS.
30
This is a courageous piece. I appreciated Mr. Glanville's sharing how he feels so openly. The more people can share their experiences, ideally in a respectful environment which is focused on understanding (and not assuming, or judging, or criticizing), the more sympathy we will have for each other and the better able we will be to grow as a society.
The internet has its challenges, but the ability to share so easily and openly with so many others is an under-appreciated blessing that can help us all feel closer together.
13
Loved the imaginary chart in this excellent essay. It captures the "death by a thousand mosquito bites" I've heard about from people of color, referring to the many microaggressions they experience virtually everyday of their lives -- something people of privilege (like me) rarely or never experience. Thanks so much.
33
It's well known in psychology that people's negative experiences are lasting and powerful. This means that people who meet people who hold them in a positive regard are often forgotten, but those who hold them negatively are imprinted in their mind. Our brains were formed to chew the cud over these negative experiences. This is my problem in my reading of this article. There are undoubtbly racists in the world. But it's also true that everybody will say things that could be interpreted two or more different ways. Once our minds have been experienced one or more negative outcome, it's easy to understand how "someone plots a graph" and starts scoring every ambiguitious event as a racist act. The question is, is this curve in your brain real? Or are you unjustifiably condemning innocent people of racism based on your bias? We should also ask how white people could respond to your judgemental attitude? Maybe looking at you as a person who is already biased against them based on their skin color?
In any event, there is no positive outcome in the assumption of negative outcomes. People are built up by trying to be someone greater than they are. Who wants to be around a person that's just looking to justify their "curve"? We all do better when we can forget. And if we can't forget, let's try to forgive. Treat every person as an individual and not a skin color.
10
@Pat I think what the author is saying though is that it is good for others to understand how things are sometimes perceived. Once you know that, you can better assure others of how you actually feel. You might also think twice about what words you choose to you or what assumptions you might be making when you see someone different from you, whether someone of a different sex, age, color, nationality, religion. We all have assumptions and biases, but some of us don't have as many things as others have that result in being pre-judged, let alone ridiculed or harassed.
I once had a colleague tell me a story about how he felt a motorist looked at him funny because he was Asian. Perhaps that was the reason, perhaps not. At the time I thought "What? Why would he assume it was because he was Asian?" I think it is because some of the time it is because of that, so the thought it always there.
Knowing that others may doubt what I am thinking, because biases exist, is enough for me to make an effort to be less ambiguous with others.
Perhaps it would be good to push for the use of a different symbol, one that means "I support you and I'm trying to understand how to be a better neighbor. Please give me the benefit of the doubt and help me understand if I do something that makes you think twice about me".
13
@Bob Smith
Thumbs up, a smile, a nod, or all three seems to work well
@Bob Smith Hi Bob, Appreciate your comment. I like your last idea of a positive gesture. With regard to policing our speech, etc., I agree with you in theory. The problem is that every indenty group is compiling a list of offenses - creating the PC culture. The few dot people should try to thoughtful, but guarentee their culture ignorance, etc. will lead them to do gestures like the OK sign, that they had no idea have become, all of a sudden, a racial faux pas. In the end, there is only community when we make the best assumptions about each other. When we make the worst, we get the worst.
1
Tempest in a teacup. The Cubs team management investigated and banned the ridiculous fan From Wrigley “indefinitely.” The matter has been handled.
If you want to talk about micro aggressions, let’s hear from a woman. Any woman. We face hatred and insults every day, everywhere. We move ahead regardless.
9
@Passion for Peaches
...and you think that hearing from a black woman would be the same as hearing from a white woman.
You think the voting response, 90 percent, from the cross section of black women in the Doug Jones election in Alabama was a fluke...
2
@Passion for Peaches
To summarize your points:
-- We should ignore racism because sexism exists.
-- The issue of subtle racism has been solved by baseball execs and needn't be further discussed.
-- People of color don't "move ahead" in the face of prejudice and bigotry.
Did I miss anything?
5
@Passion for Peaches I fail to see how this is an exclusive either/or situation. If you want to have that conversation, go ahead. You will find many other participants.
But feminism has hardly been a staunch and unequivocal ally for people of color, so I find your narrow focus and un-reflective approach unhelpful.
2
I'm white, Jewish, and age 80. And never before have I felt as passionately the desire to do all I can to oppose racial prejudice. I want to fight with my black brethren for human decency. But, aside for comporting oneself accordingly, what can one do?
21
@K. Frank You might be surprised by what would happen if you take a stand somewhere. I'll bet a lot of people would rally to your banner.
1
Adults purposefully use symbols that they do not understand the meaning of? I doubt it.
12
Doug Glanville should be on the Supreme Court instead of those sanctimonious Republican "jurists."
34
Cogent. Compelling. Powerful.
This is a masterful opinion piece which will resonate for a long time. It must be shared broadly and deeply.
Required reading.
24
The writer himself says the gesture is ambiguous, so the person displaying it should be given the benefit of the doubt, not have to prove his innocence. Until I read the article a couple of weeks ago about the incident, I had no idea that this hand signal was connected to anything nefarious, and I'm sure millions of people are the same way. Political correctness has gone too far when it starts to indict people who don't know they're doing anything wrong.
13
@Charlie Reidy
If the unpleasant meaning or association has become somewhat common, it’s not unreasonable to wonder about the motive.
Could be innocent, could be bad intent, could be trying to be a wise guy and see if anyone notices. It may be worth asking.
9
@Charlie Reidy: The fact that it was all over social media suggests that it's not quite as ambiguous as you might think. far from up to date, but I've been aware of that use of the OK sign (seen as forming a WP, for "White Power", is how it get's its racist significance). I think if I'm aware, then there might be a few people still unaware, but not very many. And of course, that would have been the "investigation" part. Presumably they talked to the person, and if he had plausibly pled ignorance, that might have gotten in the story.
6
@John Bergstrom I wasn't aware until this incident; I've always been a little unhip to pop culture, slang, etc, and I don't think I'm that unusual. But this gesture isn't the sort of thing one can make accidentally either, so yes, the investigation made sense. We need to acknowledge racism and resist it, and stop trying to deny or minimize it.
2
As usual, Mr. Glanville presents a cogent, well-written, and thoughtful perspective on this incredibly difficult topic. Whenever I see your byline on a column, I can’t wait to read it. This is one of the best “explainers” I have seen on this issue. It should be required reading for all of us. Thank you for writing it.
48
I'm one of those people who often feels the "race card" is overplayed and counterproductive, but I see your perspective more clearly now. Well expressed and persuasive. Thank you for explaining it to me.
46
Would like this to be required reading.
Your compassion is generous towards all Mr. Glanville.
27
This is beautifully written and should be required reading for high school history and politics classes. I was going to say civic classes but nobody teaches those anymore.
34
We should teach civics again; it would go a long way toward having a more informed and motivated electorate, more effective government at all levels, and a more unified - if robustly diverse - community and country.
I wish it were required reading for all parents of elementary and middle school kids (and their teachers and administrators), of all members of the House and Senate, and all presidential candidates.
18
Exacerbating the problem is that to someone who has a dot on their graph every three months, instead of every week or every day, trying to explain to them that they do not have the data necessary to make an informed judgment is the ultimate insult.
6
@WLH It doesn't seem like an insult to me for someone to suggest that if I don't often encounter racism myself, I might not be so attuned to recognizing it when it happens, and that accordingly it behoves me to be as sensitive as possible as often as possible.
7
Mr. Glanville,
This is a wonderful and brilliant piece.
I would ask you a favor: Can you apply this type of analysis to anti-semitism. In particular, to what you see in members of your communities [to be explicit, black communities[ and among the leadership in those communities. Can you apply it to the types of responses you see to the attacks [deadly, non-deadly, and verbal, and assumed, and alluded to] on Jews and how your communities respond.
Are their responses often ambiguous? Does this imply inherent anti-semitism? [I am not referring to the flsgrant ,blatant and outspoken bigotry displayed by folks like Farrakhan but I would rather include those who embrace him or ignore his comments...or even those who broadly accept those who embrace him or comments].
I would love to see someone as thoughtful and intelligent as you clearly are examine this.
7
@David. I was just about to write this very same thing.
I could completely empathize since I've thought and experienced much of what Mr. Granville so eloquently describes in this article -- as a woman and, especially, as a Jewish American.
With all my heart, I hope that the leaders of the Women's March, participants at certain LBGTQI gatherings and marches, certain members of Congress and their supporters and apologists (actually, all members of Congress), and others would read and grasp this strong, clear, and nuanced essay while substituting the word Judeophobia/anti-semitism where it says racism. The promise of much healing and of productive, trusting and trustworthy cooperation lies therein.
I will be saving this one to share with neighbors, fellow volunteers, and strangers who could be, should be, a friend.
2
@David: I guess there might be a good reason for making your remark so specifically about the Black community. I guess because Mr Glanville is Black? Something seems wrong with your remark, though: clearly what Mr. Glanville describes would be familiar to anyone subject to constant levels of harassment: Jews, women, LGBTQ people... but it's too bad to take the opportunity of responding to his column to express any special hostility to the Black community in particular.
@David. Perhaps it would be more productive to ask the ethnic group from whom most of the blatant anti-Semites come. It's not African Americans or Arabs or Muslims. It's white males. Like the ones in that torchlight parade shouting "Jews will not replace us!"
What a beautifully written compassionate article !
This is a multicultural, multi racial Country , even though ignorance is at random, think those as ignorant .
9
Once again, a beautifully written piece by Mr. Glanville. If we cannot acknowledge racism, we clearly cannot appreciate its subtle force and overwhelming power. And by this piece, we are being challenged to refocus and reframe.
14
As all women can attest, ambiguity is also the friend of sexism. I can't imagine what black women in America must endure.
33
As a Jewish woman in America, I CAN imagine it -- because I live basically the same thing every day.
👍👍👍👍
Great piece. I only hope the people who don’t already agree with you take the time to consider your words. We have a long way to go in this country. A long way to go.
13
The north side of Chicago struck me as being at least as racist as any other place I have lived, a list which also includes Pittsburgh and Arizona.
1
There is no such thing a an "innocuous explanation" when it comes to racism, because there is nothing innocuous about racism.
And sadly we're now living in a time where it has once again raised its ugly head without fear of rebuke or retribution.
There's only one way to deal with racism, and that's to meet it head-on and discredit it for what it is -- namely, an abomination.
They'll go low because that's the way they go.
You keep going high.
7
Outstanding balance and erudition.
Wish someone like YOU were our President, knowing nothing more about you than your capacity to: communicate a problem fairly, lay out some of the larger dynamics of the problem's cycle, sincerely espouse pertinent shared values to which we all (morally healthy folk) may aspire, and point to the only way forward - a way which, like all freedoms, requires 'eternal vigilance'.
Unfortunately, complete justice, perfect equality, and every other type of social ideal, are the lowest entropy states of social practice.
We need to accept this reality (we really can stop hoping this law of nature will just go away), and instead deal with it square-on; we CAN institute ever improving social structures (like anti-trust laws) which are cognizant of this entropic dimension of human nature and ignorance..
We must plan to keep working, more and more intelligently and wisely, forever, on 'perfecting' our Union, as Obama might put it. This is not a task that finishes, for any one of us, or for any human society.
(May seem easier for me to say...65 yo, non-poor, well-educated, male, wasp American...but no less true for my privileges. Be assured, NO-one is beyond the reach of soul destroying bias or social calamity.)
7
I propose making the thumbs up gesture as the universal sign of brotherhood and equality (and anti-any color nationalism and anti-religious superiority).
1
@flyfysher. I believe the President has appropriated that one.
@flyfysher
Trump has already turned the thumbs up into something else. He uses it when he poses for pictures with donors.
I am so sorry this happened to you and so many people . I hate these times we are living in. I am so sorry.
11
Isn't being disruptive reason enough to ban someone from a stadium? Photo bombing a commentator is juvenile and disruptive behavior and if the person was an adult, he should be banned on that count alone. It's impossible to keep track of all the cultural tropes that were invented yesterday. I'm pretty sure that the majority of persons in the US had no idea before reading this that racists had co-opted the "ok" sign. Nor have I heard of the "circle" whatever ,which sounds like something from 7th grade. I am so glad I'm not a millenial and don't use Twitter and don't know the million and one ways to offend another person in the current zeitgeist.
16
@BPD: This idea of asking fans for their permission seems strange. When you watch a sports event, it seems like a good rule of thumb that the fans are there as much to get on TV as they are to watch the game. The cameras are constantly scanning the crowd and focusing on this person or that, and permission is never asked. It would be like going to a demonstration, then complaining that somebody took your picture. There are indeed contexts where permission should be asked to take a picture of somebody, but a sports event isn't one of them. (And this person was going out of his way to attract attention.)
5
@BPD
Check a baseball ticket sometime. Using the ticket gives explicit permission for the use of your image.
2
@Anne BPD, Have you ever watched the telecast of a sports event on TV? Do you have any idea how commentary shots work, and how the crowd is used in the background? You are simply shifting the onus from the fan to Doug Glanville and his crew. Silly. Crowd shots like this happen hundreds of times a day; the fan is the one who made the gesture.
But, by all means, blame white racial antagonism on the African Americans who apparently encourage it, in your mind. Be happy!
1
So, no matter what the "perpetrator" may have intended, we now live in a society where if someone interpreted the event as racist, anti-semitic, anti-gay, or anti-women, then it must have been the "perpetrator's" intent. Guilty even if innocent.
10
@Jeff From the article: "If you innocently decorate your office with a rope shaped into a noose because you like rodeo cowboys, I can still be offended. You can like rodeo cowboys; I can be upset. Both can be true. The fact that you like rodeo cowboys does not mean I am overreacting, nor does it make you a racist."
1
@Jeff, as the author indicated, the Cubs investigated the situation. They might have, for example, looked at the social media posts from the fan and determined that he has posted things with a clearly racist bent. So maybe you're the one making erroneous assumptions here. Why?
The author goes to great lengths here to make the opposite point: That he does not presume to know the fan's intent.
Could you provide a link to an example of the upside-down OK? I can’t think what it looks like.
1
If you search for this incident, you will find video clips of what the fan did.
And there was a case where one of Brett Kavanaugh’s staffers was said to be using the hand sign: one article that gives a bit of background and has a picture is this: https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/09/04/lawyer-accused-flashing-white-power-hand-gesture-kavanaugh-hearing/
Given it was at a baseball game in Chicago, I'd go with the obscene gesture explanation.
In Detroit I have a bar owner friend who just loves flashing this sign to his friends and patrons.
But just to be safe, the Cubs should have all fans attending games first attend diversity training. Then after the one week course they would be allowed to attend ball games at Wrigley Field.
4
Some friend!
I am a die-hard Cubs fan and I am watching the Cubs-Nationals game as I write this, and I must applaud the Ricketts family -- with whom I generally agree on absolutely nothing -- for their restraint in not releasing the name of the man in question here. I have to believe this was a calculated decision, perhaps influenced by the disastrous "Bartman Ball" incident of 2003 and its aftermath. Things could have been a whole lot worse for this guy than a lifetime ban at Wrigley. It is also extremely gracious of Doug Glanville to continue to refer to him as a "Cubs fan."
6
How about choosing the "path of empathy and unity" even if the Cub's fan is "guilty"?
Nah, I guess not. I guess the only way to correct bad behavior is through shame and punishment rather than reason and, yes, even empathy.
I dunno. We've shamed and punished for eons and I think it's just no longer working, other than if you think lots and lots of not just resentment but rebellion against shaming and punishing is working.
7
Thank you. Mr Glanville, you are consistently one of my favourite columnists to read, you are thoughtful, articulate, and a pleasure to read, and this piece was one of your finest. You have the rare gift of being able to communicate subtle and nuanced views with wit, eloquence, and insight; despite being an engineer (meant as a subtle joke from one engineer to another).
31
Thank you.
This is why representation matters.
People with lived experience are the people who have spent the time and energy to process their experiences.
Thank you for doing the work over the course of your life to understand who you are, and thank you for having the courage to be a public person and to share this learning and these experiences.
22
I have been a Cubs fan, since I was a six-year-old in Illinois in 1968. Mr. Glanville, you make being a Cubs fan all the more delightful. Well said, sir. You have done something that people have failed to do on both sides of our often contentious discussions of race. You have clearly and articulately stated your perspective without impugning the motives of those who see the world differently. You even gave the individual who flashed the inverted okay sign behind you the benefit of the doubt, which he probably does not deserve. There have been times that I have thought the brouhaha over the okay sign was clearly overwrought and hypersensitive. But this is not one of those cases. As you say, context matters.
28
@Charles I think you're right. But I also think that the burden of empathizing with the "other" point of view has always fallen disproportionately on people of color. It's a shame that the sociologizing of viewpoints so rarely takes off from the other side. It's frustrating that any discussion of the modes and methods of racism has to begin with a litany of diplomatic gestures meant to appease white sensitivity.
Baldwin laid all this out very clearly decades ago.
4
Mr. Glanville is posing the question as "whether the Cubs fan is innocent or guilty." What exactly is it that the question is asking whether he is innocent or guilty of?
3
@Mark Racial taunting? The title makes it clear. The article spells it out. I realize you might not think racial taunting is a thing, or that it can make a substantive difference to anyone's life. If that is your attitude, I would suppose that I am replying to a white gentleman who may be somewhat short of the relevant experience. But, of course, as always your skepticism is greatly appreciated.
8
@Mark
No, he isn't. He's looking at the life experience that makes a person ask such a question.
1
@Bridey: Well, the content or meaning of the question is still at issue. Surely, if we are concerned with the meaning of a gesture, then we should not be unconcerned with the meanings of words. Taunting is directed at a person with the intent to provoke. Since Mr. Glanville's back was turned to the fan, I don't see how the fan was taunting him. I am inclined to believe that the fan's act was an impulsive flashing of a racist sign in response to his seeing that he was on TV, which was ugly, though not a premeditated manifesto or statement of a white supremacist agenda. I think Mr. Glanville articulates his response well and the reasons for his response. I think it's also worthwhile being precise about what the act was that he is responding to and the interpretation of the act.
Thank you for this outstanding piece, Mr. Glanville. Part of the insidious backlash against recent advances made by minorities is a kind of cutesy hipster racism, of which this hand gesture is a part. The Cubs organization did the right thing.
52
Very well said. Racists push the argument that "overreacting about potential racism" is as bad as saying racist things. "Social Justice Warriors" are the threat, not the Proud Boys. "I'd rather have someone who says what he believes than someone trying to be the thought police."
Racism is the problem, racism has long been the problem, and if people today are too quick to find racism, GOOD. It's beyond time for some people to starting being overly careful about their speech, to start worrying more about their actions and the things they say. If you're worried about being called out for insensitivity, GOOD. That means you should be.
The truth is that racism has been more flagrant in the last two years than I can remember in my life, and I grew up in the South. Racists today are emboldened by Trump and the GOP, and have never been more vocal and public with their racism. The Klan wore hoods, these dudes are parading down the street face out.
Sorry, serious racists, casual racists, inadvertent racists, but I'm calling you out from 100 feet away, and if sometimes I get it wrong, oh well, it's time for you to carry the burden. You worry about the unfair effects of your racism for a change.
86
Mr. Glanville's well-constructed argument that ambiguity is a friend to racism is persuasive. It is important to acknowledge, and refuse to accept, the seemingly inconsequential actions on the curve.
This piece calls to mind a recent public service video produced by the NZ Human Rights Commission, featuring filmmaker and actor Taika Waititi. It's called Give Nothing to Racism. It dovetails nicely with Mr. Glanville's opinion piece, it's under two minutes, and it has the added bonus of bone dry Kiwi humour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9n_UPyVR5s
7
This is a well-written and thought provoking piece. Thanks! I especially liked the visual metaphor of the graph and connecting the dots.
I do think one thing needs to be paid more attention to: if I’m reading this correctly, because of some trolls on 4chan it will now be impossible for normal people to use the “ok” hand sign in the way it’s normally been used. Doesn’t this mean we are giving the trolls exactly the attention that they wanted, allowing them to sow discord and generate fake outrage at their whim, to everyone else’s detriment? Wouldn’t a more healthy reaction be to simply not pay attention to their trolling and continue to treat any usage of the ok sign as the innocuous symbol it is? And if a few genuine white supremacists “get away” with using the sign for a different purpose, wouldn’t ignoring them still end up being a much better way to fight their pathetic attempts at grabbing everyone’s attention? I wish the author had discussed that aspect of the incident more.
5
I think it's a bit of a lose-lose. Ignore the trolls, and you let them spread their message on their own terms, and embolden them to try more dramatic ways of getting attention. It's the better response only as long as the culture at large broadly dismisses their message. Once it gains enough of a foothold—in the highest political office in the land, let's just say as an example—ignoring it is just a different way of feeding it. It may be worth discord now to rebuke and resist something that may grow into something still larger and scarier in the future. Kristallnacht wasn't so long ago that we can afford to forget how much evil a culture is capable of when good people ignore it.
4
@Math Professor It also means that some ordinary old guy who gives the "OK" sign can, and should, have all kinds of rage directed at him from everyone, everywhere. He should be fired from his job, ostracized, and reviled.
It could have been me. I only found about about the change in the "OK" sign a day or two ago.
In light of this, is it any wonder that the nation elected Trump, and that much of it stands by him now? Make no mistake, this presidency is an unspeakable tragedy, but all I see on the part of "progressives" is more pressure in the same direction.
2
@Ryan Another excellent commentary that clearly delineates the cause and effect. The quality and quantity of so many of the comments are indicative of the pervasiveness of the problems discussed in the article. As are the comments that try to pretend there is no problem.
2
Racism and bigotry are the results of feeling inferior. Scapegoating is a result.
Humans have need scapegoats from the beginning, whether symbolic (See Leviticus 16:21-22 KJV) or real. Either can be frightening.
2
"If you innocently decorate your office with a rope shaped into a noose because you like rodeo cowboys, I can still be offended... The fact that you like rodeo cowboys does not mean I am overreacting, nor does it make you a racist."
There's a lot to commend here, but I can't wrap my head around this comment. "Being offended" shouldn't be a reflex. It should be a deliberate act, grounded in a responsible assessment of one's situation. Being "shocked" might well be a reflex. (Who wouldn't be, seeing a noose on someone's wall?) But why insist on the right to be "offended" once it's clear that the decor was innocent of racist intent? ("Bemused" by tactlessness, perhaps?)
Look: I'm not trying to oversimplify the process of establishing that innocence. If the person is merely a stranger who *professes* not to be racist, that probably won't cut it. Worse still if they've got biographies of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson on their shelf. Nor would I dispute the long-term toll of actual "ambiguity" that the author so eloquently describes here. I just think intent matters—and that where it can be established beyond reasonable doubt, we no longer have "ambiguity."
8
I admire your phenomenological approach to the concept of offense, but I think you credit humans with being more rational than we are. There are situations where no amount of exculpatory explanation about intent will remove the pain, disgust and revulsion of the offensive act. Quibbling about whether this is really deliberate "offense" rather than reflexive "shock" seems to me both beside the point and unfaithful to the everyday use of these words.
The other question that your comment raises for me is whether meanings can be deliberately "decided" at all. The putative intent to "mean something else" does not clean the symbol of its actual and historical harmful connotations. If someone hangs a noose on his cubicle wall, it doesn't matter much to me what his intent was: we are going to have a problem. The only remaining question is whether he needs to be immediately escorted out of the building by security or just shunned until he educates himself appropriately.
In other words, and this cannot be stressed enough, the burden of racism and its effects should no longer be carried mainly by its targeted victims. White people need to understand that they too have something at stake, that they too are victims of racism and will benefit from its eradication.
7
"'Being offended' shouldn't be a reflex. It should be a deliberate act, grounded in a responsible assessment of one's situation. Being 'shocked' might well be a reflex. [...] But why insist on the right to be 'offended' once it's clear that the decor was innocent of racist intent?"
@Seth, this comment is what I can't wrap *my* head around. I'm unfamiliar with your use of "offended" as referring to a right that must be claimed or defended, as opposed to simply a description of an emotional state. The relevant sense of "offend" in Merriam-Webster is, "to cause (a person or group) to feel hurt, angry, or upset by something said or done". It further clarifies that "OFFEND need not imply an intentional hurting but it may indicate merely a violation of the victim's sense of what is proper or fitting." Feeling hurt, angry, or upset *is* often a reflex, and not a deliberate act. The deliberate act is deciding what to do about it—speak up or ignore the offense? We can ask people to be judicious in their acts, but when it comes to initial emotional responses... well, "just try not feeling that way" has never gone over well as advice, in my experience.
1
Thank you Doug, beautifully thought and written, as always
10
Thank you, Mr. Glanville, for your thoughtful examination of this delicate topic, and I appreciate your insights into this issue which has haunted our nation for centuries and manifested itself in a multitude of forms.
To adequately address racism in the US, I must be willing to recognize that my personal experience growing up as a 20 year old white man in this nation is significantly different from many Americans of differing races, religions, and backgrounds. My interpretation of certain events, symbols, and speech is vastly different from people of color, for example, based on my relatively limited experience. Thus, I feel that open communication is critical for addressing this issue, and we must be willing to recognize that our worldview may be distorted based on our positions of privilege.
As Americans, we must be willing to listen to the struggles of others, and take their concerns seriously. "I've never personally seen/experienced that" is no longer an acceptable excuse for dismissing the testimony of others who may look slightly different, speak a different language, or worship a different god.
9
I was somewhat confounded by the "ok" symbol until it occurred to me that it is exactly equivalent to the "I'm not touching you" thing that kids do in the backseat of a car. It is just as unimaginative, just as immature, and just as deserving of punishment.
15
I never try to justify my racism. I also try not to place my experiences of black racism against the overwhelming historical and systemic atrocities of racism against poc. But I also feel like every paper tiger and every cry for wolf stands to invalidate or dismiss real incidents of racism that absolutely should not be tolerated or forgiven. Don't tell me you've burnt down the court house for justice after you've already torched the playhouse out of annoyance.
6
About 55 years ago, when I was in my teens, my family went on a trip to L.A. I remember touring Will Rogers' home (my parents were fans of his). I was surprised to see in one of the area rugs some symbols, one of which was a large swastika. Being Jewish, that was especially noteworthy to me. I found out that the symbol was from something in the culture of some Indian tribe (I don't use the term "native American" since no race of people still here are truly native to America).
I am not offended by Will Rogers' choice of rugs. His swastika has only one meaning, the one he meant by it. The fact that the same symbol is used by others to express their hate does not in any way make Will Rogers use of it offensive. Anyone who would take offense to the use Will Rogers' made of it is merely expressing their own prejudice and bigotry, not that of Will Rogers. Will Rogers has absolutely no responsibility for the prejudice and bigotry of anyone who takes offense of Will Rogers' use of the symbol in that rug.
10
@Errol
While I agree with you that not all people may intend to convey seemingly hateful symbols in a malicious manner, I feel that we need to be mindful of Glanville's perspective that hateful speech today often masks itself in vagueness and ambiguity. Thus, I feel that we should strive to express ourselves in a manner that avoids marginalizing and excluding members of our community (regardless of whether that was our intent or not), while promoting the most inclusive environment possible.
4
@Kyle
I agree that is desirable behavior and a worthy goal. However, failure to achieve that goal is not sufficient to convert the behavior to offensive. In this article, the author is imputing racism to what he acknowledges are ambiguous symbols. It is that imputation that I contend to be unjustified.
Once the author imputes racism to the ambiguous symbols, he then takes offense and blames the user of the ambiguous symbol. By doing so, he thus creates the incident of racism that he then deplores.
There may actually be an incident of racism when an ambiguous symbol is used. It completely depends upon the actual intent of the user of the symbol. But here, the intent was acknowledged by the author as unknown, yet he concludes that thee was an incident of racism simply because the symbol is ambiguous.
2
@Errol
The Swastika has become inextricably linked with Adolph Hitler, Nazism, the Holocaust with terror, dehumanization and the slaughter of millions of innocents.
You wrote:"Anyone who would take offense to the use Will Rogers' made of it is merely expressing their own prejudice and bigotry, not that of Will Rogers."
In other words, you are arguing concentration camp survivors who tour Will Rogers' home and are traumatized by seeing the swastika are "merely expressing their own prejudice and bigotry."
"Will Rogers has absolutely no responsibility for the prejudice and bigotry of anyone who takes offense of Will Rogers' use of the symbol in that rug."
Will Rogers bears complete responsibility for displaying that which he knows is a symbol that is associated with the slaughter of six million Jews and millions of others.
Will Rogers has chosen to display a symbol that he knows is associated with Hitler and the extermination of millions,
and which he knows can cause distress to anyone who views his home, which is open to the public.
It's against the law to display a swastika in Germany.
Do you believe that the German government's decision to ban the swastika, and to file criminal charges against anyone who displays a swastika is a sign of bigotry and racism , or could it be the Germany recognizes that the choice on the part of any individual to display a swastika is an act of anti-semitism, bigotry and hatred, which it will not tolerate ?
1
What a brilliant way to explain how racism operates in daily life. Thank you for adding your thoughtful voice to our national discussion.
6
Doug, add one more home run to your list.
18
This is why I read The New York Times. What an example of beautiful and intelligent writing.
17
Doug Glanville has long been proven to be one of the most insightful and intelligent critics of the game of Baseball.
Through no fault of his own, he has been forced to bring his insight and experience to the cancer of growing racism in our society.
His "thought experiment" graphing of experiences, micro-aggressions, and both blatant and subtle racist attacks against him provide yet another way in which people engage in cognitive dissonance. In this case he explicitly explains how he, as a Black man, and other People of Color try to deal with it and hope it's an aberration, not a constant. Yet Mr. Glanville has recognized that this is, sadly, a constant in our society.
And he's right: The modern racists are constantly looking for ways to express racism through ambiguities. Why? Well, it's for two connected reasons. The first is "plausible deniability" when called out, and the second is that they are, ultimately, cowards, and afraid of the backlash.
This person, for all of Mr. Glanville's kind heartedness toward him is undoubtedly a racist, who deliberately meant to slur Mr. Glanville on national television, and deserves the total shunning of society that he has brought on himself.
Every White-supremacist needs to be revealed and forced to pay the penalties by a society that professes to abhor such views.
This nation once was an "antifa" nation with 6 million men under arms, who, with fellow "antifa" nations, defeated the Nazis, the Fascists, and Tojo's armies!
18
Wonderfully thoughtful commentary, thank you Mr Glanville.
7
As a Yale alumnus, I find it refreshing to have my great institution associated with the likes of Mr. Glanville, rather than Mr. Mnuchin. Thank you for taking the time to address this issue.
69
I saw the same thing happen during an NBA game earlier this year. The camera cut to a sideline reporter, Caron Butler, and two men seated behind him made the same gesture. I don’t think there was anything innocent about either case. Thanks to Doug Granville for speaking up about his experience.
64
Love ya, Doug. Thanks for keeping this discussion on the high ground and with every layer exposed. Keep it up.
25
Great essay.
I had no idea about the OK sign having those other meanings.
If you are (seen as) white, and other white people use racist words or imply racist attitudes - it's important to call them on it. It can be tough in some settings, and, because the words or the looks can be ambiguous, it's easy for them to say you misunderstood. You don't have to get into a fight, just let them know your thoughts.
To let ambiguously racist comments slide lets them presume you're with them. SO it's either providing what they take to be tacit approval - wink ,wink - or clarifying your position.
No, you don't have to fight with Uncle Bill who baits you at every family gathering. But if more people signaled clearly that they don't tolerate "casual" racism - maybe there would be less of it. Because your small gestures are actively changing the culture.
20
A while back, I saw a lecture/stand-up bit from W. Kamau Bell, and one part of it was about a situation he'd experienced where he didn't really know whether he'd experienced racism. This was neither the first or last story I'd heard like that.
Bigots LOVE ambiguity. Whatshername, the pretty white racist lady on twitter, has tried to declare the OK sign as "just the OK sign" when everyone knows it's being used as coded racism. Other bigots, Trump in particular, do the same. It allows them to evade personal responsibility.
Thank you, Mr. Glanville, for saying that all much better than I could.
35
After last nights Bucks Raptors game during the TNT post game show, some in the crowd started chanting “4 more years.” Ambiguous? Yes. And that’s the point. No one made mention of it but I heard it and so did Shaq and we knew it was highly questionable. If my home town was not already an incredibly racist place I would say so what. But it’s not.
9
I appreciate Mr. Glanville’s well-written perspective. He reminds us that we all view events through the contextual lens of our experience. Mr. Glanville cannot “unblack” himself and imagine what symbols and statements would mean to him if he were white. Nor should anybody expect him to.
Eddie Murphy did a great skit on Saturday Night Live many years ago where he made himself up as a white man to see what it was like to be white. One of the funniest bits occurred when he went to a restaurant and tried to pay for his food. The cashier laughed—what was Eddie doing? They didn’t take money from white people—the food was free! Eddie was shocked, in his hysterical Murphy way. Everything else in the skit went pretty much the same way.
It was a funny piece, but I wonder what that skit would be like reversed—If a racist had to live as a black man for a few days. That’s the question Mr. Granville’s piece made me ponder. I suspect the racist’s interpretation of many life events would be quite different.
13
@Jack Sonville
"Black Like Me" - by John Howard Griffin
@jack—FYI, eddie’s excellent skit was a take on the 1964 film, “black like me,”
I recommend you check out the movie ‘Watermelon Man’ starring Godfrey Cambridge’. It is about exactly what you are contemplating, & worth a viewing.
Mr. Glanville, I do not see ambiguity. I see racism pure and simple. An "okay" sign? Please. I wish for all of our children this article would be printed on the front page of every newspaper. Only in making public this kind of behavior can we make any kind of progress. Each and every day I see signs of regressive behavior -- and they're tolerated. Even outrageous displays are tolerated. I'm grateful to you, Mr. Granville, for publicizing this incident. As always, you are a true hero.
15
Yes, you are right, "The middle ground evaporates into thin air."
Evaporating via the dictates of the minority, the "institution", who are deconstructing our laws that are meant to protect everyone. That minority has moved us beyond racism -- our whole system in in trouble. We can't change the minds of a racist, all categorizing minority, but we can still try to change the top institutional leadership. You didn't mention Trump once, but he's at the top.
1
Thank you for a well written and thoughtful article. I was not aware until after the New Zealand massacre that the OK hand gesture had a coded white power meaning. Has anyone else noticed that Trump makes this gesture all the time? It just has to be intentional: I wonder how many of his supporters are getting that ugly message.
11
@Elizabeth J.: I'd like to see a history of that racist co-optation of the OK sign. Mr Glanville mentions that the racist significance originated on 4chan: I wonder if it was deliberately selected because it's one of Trump's favorites. Of course, he should have stopped using it as soon as the meaning changed. Or, I wonder if it would have been more effective if he had kept using it, and explicitly mentioned every time that he intended the good old American meaning, not the creepy alt-right meaning. Of course, that wouldn't have been his thing exactly, but I mean, if the racists can capture a sign, can decent people capture it back?
1
Yes, it’s worth reading about. Crucially, it began as a hoax/trolling. https://www.adl.org/blog/how-the-ok-symbol-became-a-popular-trolling-gesture
There has been a lot of talk recently about "the adult in the room" (John Kelly? Really?).
If you ever wondered what an adult in the room really sounds like, here is your answer.
90
Very insightful. People who accuse others of playing the race card are typically white. People of color don’t usually say this because they have firsthand experience that racism exists. If racism didn’t exist, complaints of racism would eventually die out. But since complaints continue there’s a good chance that people are not making it up. So unless one has firsthand experience of racism he or she should give the benefit of the doubt to people who do.
8
What an absolutely brilliant discussion, comparison, perspective and perceptiveness.
Yale: if you have any sense, you will hire this man, not as a "lecturer," but as someone who can even more deeply influence your students, your faculty and community.
What an amazing man. I wish I could think like that. His thinking needs a very deep and very broad airing.
15
Anything can suggest a "sinister meaning" if you're looking for it and determined to find it.
5
@Jim Bob...But decent people are embarrassed and apologize if it is unintended. "There are some very fine people on both sides."
12
@Jim Bob
That may be true. But the problem with racism these days is you don't have to "look" for it, to find it.
It will always find you.
There was a time in America when racism was real, because it did real harm to blacks. They were treated as inferior, barred from many jobs, couldn't live in many areas, sometimes couldn't even marry the people they loved. And if they challenged these restrictions they could face violence.
That sort of racism -- the big, important racism -- is long gone. Today we are engaged in a hunt for microracism. We hunt it under every bed, and the least hint of it is treated as a matter of utmost importance, because, no matter how trivial, it is regarded as proof of the existence of an all powerful -- yet somehow invisible -- "system" of racism that is still holding blacks down, just like 100 years ago.
Even if the Cubs fan intended his gesture as disparaging, so what? How is this comparable to the real threats and injuries blacks faced 100 years ago. Did a hand gesture that wasn't even noticed at the time really put Mr. Glanville, as he says, "in danger?" How is this worthy of so much space in the New York Times? Does it really take so little to keep blacks down?
There was a time when the crusade against racism was a moral imperative. Today it looks more like moral panic.
10
It is hard for those of us born into membership in the dominant culture, I.e., white and male, who enjoy the position of being the cultural norm, to deeply connect with those not born into the mainstream group. African-Americans have been so horribly other-ized in our nation for the past five centuries, systemically and on a personal daily-lived experience; of course black people are wary, it’s fully justified. So too for American Jews, a despised and slaughtered minority - since the year 1! - naturally their antennae are always up for danger to the tribe. Women, often the victims of abuse and exploitation at the hands of men, likewise are always alert to danger from being not-male, as we learned from listening to women’s stories thanks to #MeToo.
Simply & really listening to black voices, women, LGBTQ folks, Jews, people of other races and other cultures of all types, this is where we start. In person, of course, but also through good journalism (such as this excellent op-ed), essays and fiction, and podcasts, film/TV shows produced by talented people not in the dominant mainstream — white people and especially white men simply must start to do this listening, and learning, to heal our nation and culture. Of course it will be challenging. But learning the perspective of people we live and work alongside will naturally illustrate to us the privilege we took for granted and never had to think about. It will take courage but we must confront “isms” head on.
16
@JohnB Big important racism? Do you mean lynching and white only lunch counters? Or do you mean the racism that convinces someone that African Americans aren't smart enough to do many jobs; that African Americans are generally lazy and shiftless; that the only way an African American can get into a "good" school is through a program that lets unqualified people into the "good" school? Racism that kills is just a variant of racism that hobbles people from achieving their full potential. It may be harder to see, but it's still destructive.
16
@JohnB
Why do you minimize what African-Americans have to endure on a daily basis? Why do things that bother them have to meet the threshold on a suffering-meter designed by you?
Before you dismiss their concerns ask yourself whether you'd fee the same way if Italians, the Irish and Poles etc. of today had to hear derogatory statements that their immigrant grandparents had to endure.
Statements that questioned their intelligence and abilities; statements that branded them as stupid, lazy, and criminal, diseased and unclean.
Statements that compared them unfavorably to the WASP elite.
What If those racist attitudes and exclusionary practices were revived and current day Italian, Irish and Polish Americans etc. had to endure them again.
And, if they felt offended by these cruel and derogatory stereotypes would you imply that they need to get over it?
And, would you then say to them that they were "in a hunt for microracism." That "they were hunt[ing] for it under every bed?" I highly doubt it.
2
Thank you for a thoughtful column on a topic critical for our times. Subtle forms of racism abound. Genteel racism, which I have experienced, is perhaps the most slippery. Like other forms of subtle racism, it helps perpetuate racial hatreds and encourages racism of the overt variety.
6
Such a great piece, Mr. Glanville. Thank you.
2
Nice column. And he’s right. If modern racism is anything, it’s ambiguous. It’s meant to be.
8
Hiding behind ambiguity is common in all arenas of life, not just baseball arenas.
A tone of voice or a look on someone's face at work can mean a lot, but it's very hard to prove malice. They can duck behind a sham innocence, although projection is real, too: We may be paranoid or over-sensitive.
I had a friend who was insulted when the opposing tennis player comment that his serve was "unorthodox." He took it as disparagement.
2
@Jim Muncy
With patterns of behavior, as one would likely find in a workplace or with targeted harassment in public places, it is not hard to prove at all. Patterns stick out.
With this incident, it is easy to see that the gesture is not typical of any other intent such as "OK" - it violates the pattern of "normal" behavior. It also happened to be timed with Mr. Glanville's visit to a team with a history of racist incidents among its fans. Given this timing, there is only ambiguity for those seeking any excuse, such as a mathematically unlikely coincidence, to avoid an ugly truth.
3
@Alan
Good point all, Alan. I'm just not that smart or complex. Plus, disparagement is a major part of life: I've seen white girls fight like cats over virtually anything since my childhood. Guys, too, but in the old days, if you got in somebody's face, you had better be sure that you can defeat him physically, which often had the effect of tamping down such initial attacks.
Yeah, people can be ugly. If we put someone down, we feel uplifted and are often rewarded with agreeable laughter. Jokes, for instance, almost always are at someone's or some group's expense; they are passive-aggressive.
Henny Youngman made a career of ridiculing his wife:
"My wife said, 'For our anniversary I want to go somewhere I've never been before.' I said, 'Try the kitchen!'", or "Last night my wife said the weather outside was fit for neither man nor beast, so we both stayed home.") In reality the two were very close, with Sadie often accompanying her husband on his tours. The Youngmans remained married for 59 years until Sadie's death in 1987 after a prolonged illness.
So did Henny love his wife or have deep second thoughts on his choice for his life's mate?
1
@Jim Muncy Jim you appear to be of good "intention" (to use one of the important "buzz words" in this discussion), but you are really lost as far as this subject is concerned. If you want to make a contribution to the good of our country, please try to re-read the article and as many commentaries as possible and maybe you might start to understand. (But first of all, you have to WANT to understand) Since your main point is that we need to be able to accept disparagement, I hope that you won't be offended. But then again, I am not telling a joke.
1
I'm a white man married for two decades to a black woman, and I'm very attuned to racist comments and actions. What I find most frustrating is the number of white people who categorically deny that racism exists. There's always an excuse or a rationalization that something was innocent or misinterpreted. Just as frustrating are their efforts to change the subject and their total discomfort with the topic. Sad to say that many of these people are liberal Democrats and not right-wing Republicans. When they're the most silent is when it comes to jobs or college acceptance. I live in a Democratic city where the public school population is 70% students of color, but the teaching and administrative faculties are 86% white. Bring those numbers up and white folks suddenly become deaf.
41
Well said Mr. Glanville. Thank you.
12
I trust Doug Glanville's instincts about racism based on his personal experience. Although I had never heard of this gesture, it reminds me of the quenelle, which according to Wikipedia was originally a generally obscene hand gesture until its use in contexts unmistakably associated with anti-semitism.
I'm glad the Cubs acted decisively. I would not acknowledge any Twitter trolls about such an incident after reading "Semitism..." by Jonathan Weisman.
I also thought of something more recent and slightly comical -- Padres' second baseman Ian Kinsler's meltown while rounding the bases after his 12th inning walk-off homerun. After the game, he and his manager tried to deny that his obscenities and hand gestures were directed at Padres fans :)
2
@LS It is a mistake to assume that someone in a special group is objective about perceived degrination of that group.
Good stuff. Cogent and helpful The comparison of graphs will produce many " aha " moments. Thank you.
12
Great article. How do we get it to the people who need to read it the most?
9
@Laurence Bachmann - We'd have to identify which households watch FOX news and then mail them printed copies.
1
An eloquent commentary of what this “dot” on the graph felt like. It certainly highlights the randomness of everyday racism that unless experienced, is invisible to those not on the receiving end of the ugliness.
14
This is a great article on connecting the dots. A few years back I joined a famous management consulting firm called Huron straight out of grad school . I started noticing that while the company touted its diversity, in a period of 2 years I did not see any minorities getting promoted . They either left or were PIP/managed out . After 3.5 years and multiple achievement award stars I finally brought it up to my manager and HR how I did not see any minorities ever making it to Senior Associate or Manager and ones that did was over a period of 5 years when the regular white employee got promoted in 2.5 years average . I collected data from my department and a couple of other departments and presented all my numbers. Within 3 months I was laid off as part of a company restructure . Still wonder if it was perception and victimizing behavior or if my data and connecting the dots was correct.
35
Thank you, Doug Glanville, for helping to open our eyes and our minds.
7
Sensitivity measures how good you are at picking up things that are there, how good you are at not missing true positives. Specificity measures how good you are at not falsely picking up things that you think are there but are actually not, how good you are at avoiding false positives.
There is a trade-off with these two measurements. Increase one and you necessarily decrease the other.
There is always potential for error. Which error do you prefer to risk?
5
I grew up in the town next to Teaneck, NJ during the same time period Doug Granville did. In fact, my father worked most of his life in Teaneck, and I worked multiple summers there. While I felt (as a white kid) safe and surrounded by many wonderful people, there was a good deal of racism. I live in Virginia today and can’t imagine hearing the types of comments I heard growing up just outside of NYC. My kids have thankfully not been exposed to that, at least anywhere nearly the way I was. While racists comments, jokes, and attitudes were not expressed daily to me, they were common enough for me to conclude that most people in the older generation held those beliefs to one degree or another (and it wasn’t uncommon for children to parrot their parents). The fact that Mr. Granville references that period of his life so positively without commenting on this aspect of it just confirms how positive and gracious he is and what an honest approach he is taking to the current controversy that was unfairly thrust upon him.
16
This is excellent. Beautiful writing and logic.
14
Mr. Glanville's method of dealing with this was spot on. Call attention to it, allow someone in authority to mete out the punishment and move on. Well done.
7
Thanks for this thoughtful column. I think it illustrates very well what we might the ambiguity of truth - a concept that often arises from perception rather than objective reality.
8
My experience with your story fits it to a tee. I'm a white male in my 60's living a fairly simple middle class life. I came upon this story as a headline somewhere and the headline mentioned something about the Cubs investigating an incident involving a racist gesture. I read no more There is my dot on the graph. Though there have been other dots in my life I honestly can't remember the last one.
And by the way, I always enjoy your contributions to this paper. You should write more than you do. I don't believe I have seen you in a while Thanks.
24
I saw a picture of the guy flashing that sign behind Mr. Glanville and he was doing it upside down, meaning his three fingers were extended downward.
I have used that sign to mean 'OK' for most of my life. However, I have never had my fingers pointing down while making the sign, only up. And I have only used it in response to someone, which he does not appear to be doing.
As such, I do not believe he meant to say 'OK'.
56
@Bill Yup, I have never even seen the "OK" sign made upside down. I wouldn't have recognized it as an "OK" sign if I had. I don't think there's much ambiguity here and I'm a scientist (a lily white one) so that's not something I say lightly.
30
@Bill This is very much like flying the flag upside down. Same flag, great symbol, but inverting it unquestionably inverts the message.
Definitely not OK.
12
@Bill Of course not! No one makes the sign upside down! Why is this even questioned?
It's worth noting that racism has it's roots in competition just like baseball does. Racism is zero-sum competition... it says that if they win, I lose... and vice versa... and baseball may seem innocuous but the entire competitive culture we find ourselves in is the fertile turf that racism grows in... we compete for jobs... we compete for raises... we compete for mates... we compete for literally everything.
We love sports because we champion competition... but our competitive society is the reason we find a lack of cooperation which results in limited connectivity or understanding of those that we see as our competition.
Essentially, I feel if we weren't so competitive as a society, I'm sure we would be less racist.
@J Racism has its roots in exploitation -- very different than the kind of competition one sees on a baseball field.
3
Thank you, Mr. Glanville, for a beautiful article that embraces both nuance and complexity, while never failing to point out the insidiousness of racism.
69
Every column you write is a pleasure to read for its thought and insight. Thanks.
12
An excellent, eloquent statement, Mr Glanville, about the systemic issue that is racism.
Thank you.
18
An excellent article that brings a perspective to the issue of racism I've never considered before.
34
Just dropped in to say, "Bravo!"
This is one extraordinarily-excellent piece of writing and of thoughtful analysis, Mr. Glanville. Thank you.
88
The moment people join a crowd, no matter what the reason, they can't take their conscience with them. The whole point of fans in the first place is to make themselves recognizable to each other and they do that through a collective identity called stereotype. At the same time they find ways to recognize the "other" and they do that with stereotypes too. That's what collective behavior is all about: us v them. You find it in sports (in the stands) in church, shul, and mosque, and among those nostalgic for Jim Crow. Not a single conscience. Not even the voting booth has a single conscience in it because everybody voting for the guy their tribal group tells them to. I think people used to have some time alone to reflect and consult their conscience, privately, but if that never really existed it sure has even less chance now. Stay away from all kinds of fans, they have nothing to offer.
2
@Maxine and Max: Interesting ideas, but in this case, the guy making the sign was notably singling himself out from the crowd. This was a Cubs game, not a Trump rally.
4
Wow, this is one of the most intelligent and insightful reflections on the problem that I have read in a very, very long time. Thank you so much for writing it.
135
Doug Glanville you are one of the classiest human beings on earth. Your gift of writing is superlative! That you played and you are a Cubs fan makes you an eternal optimist. One day hate will be replaced by love. If only all children were carefully taught and were required to see “South Pacific”, perhaps lives would change for the better.
51
I'm a fan of Mr. Glanville's writing. I'll be using the graph metaphor.
40
Unbelievable that the first comment here is someone STILL arguing with the author. Give me a break. Thank you for this column. There's no use pretending anymore that we don't know what that hand gesture means. We white people need to listen, pay attention, believe black and brown people about racism. Part of that is educating ourselves about what that looks like in the twenty-first century, and also recognizing what it has looked like all along.
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@S. Sharpe The vocabulary of racism, in words and gestures, just never stops evolving. I am an older, retired, white man. I am not racist. Until I read this article, I was not aware that the upside down OK gesture was a racist expression.
1
Insightful writing. I agree we must all be against racism, all the time. And that includes us all striving to simply be more thoughtful of how our "innocent" actions might hurt others. The best point Mr Glanville makes is that both can be true: a gesture can be innocent, and still be hurtful. Perhaps it's clearer if we consider a less fraught personal interaction -- I make a joke about, say, an odd-looking dress someone's wearing... and you point out it's your mom, who designed it herself. Still true that it's odd-looking, but also hurtful to have said so. No, I don't mean being black is like wearing a funny dress. Yes, we should all be more kind to each other and be more aware about the effect our "thoughtless, innocent" actions might have on someone else's heart. We should all know that thoughtless actions happen, and be quicker to apologize and quicker to forgive them. That way it's easier to sort out truly mean and evil actions for censure.
(I must point out the error, from a math standpoint, in Mr Glanville's image of a curve of racism building up on his lifetime graph. The line as he describes it would most likely be jaggedly up and down from start to finish - some high points of obvious racism, some less intense incidents lower on the Y axis. An older black American who lived through the 1950s and onward might even see her line gradually trending downward, as the more horrible incidents become fewer, hopefully. Our common goal should be to zero it out, of course.)
5
@Election Inspector
The Cubs did NOT determine the fan's "true motivation" as you claim. The Cubs conducted what they claim was an investigation. An investigation can be anything the investigator wants it to be. For example, it may well have been an investigation similar to the investigations that repeatedly exonerate cops for killing unarmed citizens.
It is only your prejudices that "determined" the fans "true intent".
I applaud the Cubs org for determining the fans true motivation - it's vitally important. Though many among the privileged will feign over-reaction by the Cubs org, that's both their problem and shortcoming. Racism is making a resurgence because we haven't done enough to put it under siege, due primarily to being propped up by the Republican Party. I'm an engineer of 15 years with my present employer. Recently I was discussing telescopes with a more senior white engineer. This senior engineer is very familiar with me, my work ethic, my leadership role and my tenure, in fact he was one of the people I first worked with once hiring in; however, in our conversation he asked what my housing situation was, but before I could answer he said "apartment?" Apartment??? He must know I make a salary sufficient enough to be expected to have purchased a house in the last 15 years, but his first thought went to the complexities I might experience hauling a sizeable telescope up and down apartment steps. I instantly felt a jolt of discomfort deep in the middle stomach area, which nagged me all day and night. I didn't say anything at that moment, but wish I did; however, the words would not have benefitted from a day's worth of contemplation to round-out the rough edges. I did speak to him the next day and he conveyed he didn't mean to make a negative implication, but therein lies the paradox - he assumed apartment. What his true motivations were will only ever be known to him.
50
@David - nice comment. So interesting that Mr Glanville's point holds: both are true, that your colleague didn't mean anything negative, and that your feelings were nevertheless hurt that he assumed you live in an apartment. I wonder who else would be hurt by such an assumption. Personally, I have owned a couple condo apartments and a couple houses over time, so it would just be a matter of correcting the facts, not offensive. It's good that he was quick to apologize and state his goodwill; were you able to forgive his foolish mistake? or does it still bug you.
4
@Election Inspector
There was no apology or expression of goodwill, but even if there was it still wouldn't have addressed why his thoughts of my living situation ran to apartment. I don't know your situation, white or black? But if a white person was on the receiving end of such a comment it may come about as quite the red herring, but for an extremely rare black engineer it carries a bit more weight. Per the point of the article, it really doesn't matter what percentage of folks would feel the same as I did if having experienced a similar situation, what matters is the motivation of the comment. If he just threw out all my qualifiers for being a likely homeowner in favor of reducing me to a black person who simply prefers a simplistic apartment lifestyle, that's a problem. He and all others inclined to make a similar verbal slip should contemplate why they assumed the unlikely negative as opposed to the much more likely positive.
8
@David: If the guy had asked "house?" then, if you didn't live in a house, you would have been in the humiliating position of admitting that you didn't. Your colleague, not knowing the answer to the question, posed it in a way that showed some sensitivity.
1
Very interesting piece and I would like to add that some of us may encounter racist incidents and not even realize it. I had no idea that there's an OK sign that means white supremacy, and I can't even picture what it looks like even after reading the article. I am white, not a baseball fan, and had never heard of this and am going to have to Google it.
29
@Roberta. I reacted as did you - I had no knowledge of white supremacist’s hand signals. I did google it and much to my surprise and dismay, there were very many. The Southern Poverty Law Center had photos and explanations of the alarmingly numerous groups in the US.
And thank Mr Glanville for providing me with more knowledge on the ramifications of the much too frequent affronts the non-white US citizen has to bear.
10
@Roberta:
this shows the clip of the broadcast with the hand signal.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cubs-fan-gesture-team-bans-fan-white-power-symbol/
2
This entire commentary demonstrates the extremes that its author will go to in order to create a race controversy. He acknowledges he does not know the fans intent. He welcomes the action by the Cubs to ban the fan from future games despite that the Cubs do not know the fans intent (did they even ask the fan, or did they not do so since nothing the fan said would be believed unless he would admit what the author and the Cubs had already decided out of their own prejudices).
15
@Errol
The Cubs most likely googled the man´s social media accounts and discovered a trend. Otherwise they would have put themselves in legal jeopardy.
I do not think the author went to extremes. The fan took advantage of his moment of publicity to broadcast a hateful message. I can only hope that the fan had season tickets and now cannot use them.
104
@Errol
"despite that the Cubs do not know the fans intent "
They think they do, That's why he's banned.
38
@Myrtle Markle
Myrtle:
"They (the Cubs) think they do (know the fan's intent)"
Is that like the police investigations that result in officials thinking they know, time after time and again, that cops who kill unarmed citizens are always justified?
5
Excellent essay! May I add that it's not just racism. It's also sexism and ageism. Many of the remarks directed at or about older women can be taken more than one way. Sometimes there just doesn't seem to be any solid ground.
106
@B Lundgren
In fact it is about making assumptions, which can get us in trouble at times. Assumptions, stereotypes, assigning roles, judgements. We not only do this toward groups, but even people we should know well such as family members. More humility and gratitude and less need for putting people into categories and hierarchy would help.
11
@Laura Lynch
It's been my experience that stereotyping is much easier than actually thinking about a subject. Creating categories and assigning people or things to them can be useful, as long as one realizes that one size does not fit all, and that allowances for individual differences must be made. All statements which begin with "All _____ are _____" are most probably wrong -- including this one.
Excellent article. Thank you Mr. Glanville.
32
Racism is a component of culture, and like all such components, is rooted in cumulative experiences in each individual’s life. Particular significant are the very earliest of such experiences. Racism also arises from an artifact of human evolutionary history that developed in us an ability to rapidly perceive objects and beings in our vicinity and categorize them as being hostile to our safety or not. Unfortunately for people with darker skin, this trait created a mistaken fear in persons of European descent that stubbornly lives on.
I have believe that people should not be judged because of characteristics over which they have no control. You can’t, example, be blamed for being tall or short, dark skinned or fair skinned, male or female. People can be judged, however for their cultural practices, because those aren’t inborn, though they get inculcated in the children of any culture. Some cultural practices treat women as lesser beings, and those practices are simply unfair, wrong, and result in widespread waste of human potential.
Both, kinds of judgments, good or bad, are powerfully embedded in a culture, and thus difficult to change. We just have to keep working at it diligently and strive to temper the negative teachings we may have grown up with.
6
Two things: First, I'm really glad the author is talking about patterns. I agree, this is the big thing people seem to miss in discussions of racism, sexism, etc. -- whether it's a pattern in an individual's life, or a sociological pattern. People try to pick apart individual cases of anything from police shootings of unarmed black men to women being paid less for equal work. But the point is, when the same problem happens over and over again -- something is obviously wrong.
But then, how to deal with problems like the co-option of the OK gesture? It seems alt-right trolls have gotten exactly what they wanted: The entire non-troll population at each other's throats over a gesture that's been an innocuous means of communication for well over 100 years. Regardless of that fan's intent, are the rest of us really expected to stop using the OK sign? Should any of us acquiesce to juvenile trolls dictating what language we may use to communicate? We all need to stop taking the bait and infighting -- about this and everything else. The trolls are the enemy, not each other.
That doesn't mean we should ignore thinly veiled expressions of bigotry -- history has shown the dangers of that. But we need to make sure racists are called out as racists. We need to stop allowing them to hide behind ambiguity while impugning and censoring innocent expression.
15
@Wondering The OK sign in question always puts the orher 3 fingers up, not down. Inverting the sign gratuitously is a strong indicator that its meaning is being perverted in some way.
4
Thanks, Mr. Glanville. Wouldn't it be interesting to have a statement from the fan? In the meantime, your clear, sober thinking and writing about the nature of racism make me proud to be a fellow graduate of UPenn's engineering school and of North Jersey's integrated suburbs. I'd be interested to read you on other issues as well.
64
@eclecticos
"Wouldn't it be interesting to have a statement from the fan?"
Why? Why would you think the fan would anything but shrug and deny, deny, deny?
19
@eclecticos:
watch the clip: the fan wasn't just randomly doing things with his hands, he carefully made sure it could be seen by the cameras.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cubs-fan-gesture-team-bans-fan-white-power-symbol/
1
@eclecticos
How nice it would be if the man who made the gesture turned out to be as articulate and honest as Mr. Glanville, and we were to get a truthful "This is how I meant it".
However, based upon his very act of trespassing into camera time, and clowning to take away focus, regardless of how the gesture was meant....... I wouldn't trust any answer he might give.
1
Always enjoy your essays. This was especially eloquent. Thanks.
55
What a generous and intelligent and illuminating piece. I will be looking for Mr. Glanville's views henceforth.
144
Fantastic and nuanced article. While I understand and approve of the Cubs’ swift action, I also find it puzzling that any real Cubs fan would flash white supremacy symbols. Who is our most revered player ever? Mr. Cub: Ernie Banks.
172
@David
I understand your sentiment, but just Google "racist attacks on Ernie Banks" to begin to understand the difference between his lived reality vs your perceived reality. As Mr. Glanville says "both can be true." But, only one of you lived Mr. Banks reality. . .
39
@David
In the time of Trump, I have to come to realize that many of the people I know are suddenly allowed to (and be proud of) their racist thoughts and actions. We are in a different, and a more dangerous, world.
1
What might become of racism or any socially disapproved of tendency the more the attempt is made to eradicate it, to prevent evidence at least of it existing in society?
Apparently it goes underground, becomes subtle, ambiguous, a world of secret signs, secret societies, movements which might pass right before the eye or be heard but which, then again, might not be there and we might be overreacting, thinking we see or hear that which is not actually there.
A society which attempts to stamp this and that trend or tendency out which is more durable than not essentially delivers itself over to a paranoid state of mind, because it does not so much remove what it desires but smears the field, turns society into a series of increasingly subtle moves and countermoves, a heightened tension in all quarters, a reading and counter reading which leaves the entire society in a suspended state of questionable animation.
Hard to tell as human consciousness develops, as humanity becomes more intellectual, educated, acute, whether offenses to ourselves actually exist or if we are becoming supersensitive, something of an immune system always on high alert, never able to relax, in fact perhaps there is a sad tradeoff between hyper intelligence, acuity of vision, and being in a state of hyper immune system arousal, always feeling and thinking every little thing near and far, that to increasingly touch everything is to be touched by everything in numberless, often painful ways in return...
2
@Daniel12. Quite a smokescreen. A veritable fogbank.
3
You think this is, “more intellectual, educated, acute?”
Good grief.
Just an outstanding essay. Thank you, sir!
251
In delicate situations, people need to realize that perception outweighs intention.
91
Glad the Cubs acted as they did. There is no ambiguity here. When people try to claim that symbol is merely an inoffensive "OK" symbol, I think of UVA's yearbook "Cork and Curls," a reference to blackface, and how UVA ran a contest to determine the best inoffensive lie to hide the true meaning of the title.
30
Thank you Mr. Granville for this essay. Just had a discussion with my son about this exact topic. I will be forwarding him a copy of this article.
29
I am grateful to Mr Glanville for this column. I have long admired his writing on baseball (he could play some, too!). But I am also saddened that it took an incident like this to allow us to get a greater sense of the fineness of his mind.
9
@Jiminy It's Glanville, dude. Respect. (It is important)
2
I have always considered Doug Glanville's opinions as well thought out, concise, astute, and to the point.
In this essay is he suggesting that baseball is devoid of racism?
That this human plague has somehow bypassed our National Pastime?
Racism is not ambiguous. There is no room for indecision or second guessing. There is no benefit of the doubt.
Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby.... Hank Aaron when he was about to break Babe Ruth's home run record...there was blatant racism at almost every game he played in that newspapers and sports publication rarely if ever reported.
I deeply respect Mr. Glanville, not only for his baseball contributions, but his literary observations as well, and do hunger for his optimism for positive race relations in America.
I to want to take a path of unity and empathy but take it from this 70 year old plus white guy (and ardent baseball fan).
I sadly don't expect to see it in my lifetime.
18
@misterz18 Please read the essay again. Mr. Granville did not suggest baseball is free of racism. There is no place in our society today that seems free, to some degree, of racism, including our exalted White House.
After you reread the essay, peruse the President's recent Immigration Reform Proposal. Seems blatantly racist to me.
5
@misterz18
When you say: "In this essay is he suggesting that baseball is devoid of racism?" It seems like we didn't read the same article. Where in the article are you getting that idea?
The article isn't about racism in baseball at all, its a thought provoking essay on the how ambiguity is a friend of racism. It was precipitated by an event during a baseball game but it could have happened anywhere anytime.
9
@misterz18 Please re-read the article. You seem to have completely missed his points.
2
A beautiful piece of writing. You are a credit.
95
@Y. Lord
Based upon your brief two sentences, I have no doubt whatsoever that you intend a great compliment to Mr. Glanville, so my following is in the form of discussion, self-learning, curiosity (?) and not criticism.
Growing up in the '50s and '60s I often heard people say (when referring to a particularly accomplished people who happened to be Afro-American) "He is a credit to his race". The phrase has so stuck in my head, that at first I assumed that that is what you meant. Did you? And if you did, do you see it as a compliment?
Or was the phrased used in other ways than I knew, or has it changed, and means something different now?
I'd appreciate any feedback anyone can offer. Really, cause that turn of phrase has bothered me all my life.
13
@ImagineMoments
A credit to his profession? A credit to his (human) race?
I remember the phrase "a credit to his race," but apparently it didn't stick with me. My first thought was that he is a credit, as in an entry on the plus side of the ledger, without reference to anything except the positive nature of his column.
1
@Y. Lord "You are a credit." To...what, I'm curious?
1
Once again, Doug Glanville brings thoughtful and intelligent inspection and introspection to our most difficult problem.
327
@Jim Lewis
Some of the supportive comments here carry a bit of racism and condescension themselves, probably unintended and unaware.
Would they use words like "intelligent" to describe a white author? While all NYT Picks (correctly) focus on the content and focus of the article, most other Reader Picks seem to congratulate a black (former) athlete on his ability to write thoughtfully and cogently.
How many authors of these well-intended notes carry with them a bit of subtle racism?
4
@Jim Lewis: and I would contrast Mr. Glanville's calm perspective and erudite commentary with the ignorance of the bigots. Suddenly "white supremecy" sounds like an oxymoron.
Oh, let me translate. "it means y'all are really dumb"
3
@Max W And your response exhibits precisely what Glanville was talking about! Did the commenter use the term "intelligent" because Glanville picked his way through a thicket of issues that more often precipitate rants? Or was it a "micro-aggression"? As Glanville pointed out, until we're sure about a person or event, it's best to keep on the rails.
1