Happy Jackie Robinson Day, to Those Who Celebrate

[Matthew Trueblood]

There's always what we say, and what we mean, and a gap between the two; what we mean to do, and what we really do, and a gap between the two. We all have a habit of saying what we mean to do, but what we really do tends to align with what we meant but wouldn't say.

Image courtesy of © Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images

Four score minus two years ago, a few brave people (with hundreds of thousands at their backs and millions standing shoulder-to-shoulder in their path) brought forth upon this continent the first worthwhile version of the United States of America. Jackie Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers that day, breaking what had been a six-decade color barrier for entry into Major League Baseball.

Robinson, a former Army officer who made a stand against segregation on the Texas base where he served during World War II, was an acutely self-aware symbol of the nascent 20th-century Civil Rights Movement. At various times in the decades since then, biographers and orthogonal narrators of that moment have downplayed that fact, preferring to cast Robinson as someone who just wanted to play his beloved game without fetter or restriction. He did want that equality of opportunity, but not in some boyish, vapid way, and not just because he had a deep competitive fire. By the time Robinson and Branch Rickey set fire to the official barrier between MLB and the Negro Leagues, the fire of the Civil Rights Movement had been burning for a handful of years.

It wasn't just Robinson who spoke up and fought successfully against segregation during World War II, but he had a certain level of privilege and leverage: he was serving domestically, not in combat, and his excellent educational background (he was raised in an integrated Pasadena, California, and attended UCLA) made him much more difficult to cast as a troublemaker or to browbeat than many other servicepeople of color were. When the Allies defeated the Nazis (for the moment) in May 1945 and then mercilessly crushed Japan with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, huge waves of soldiers returned from battlefields where they and their fellows had been wounded, tortured, killed, or traumatized by the violence they themselves had had to inflict, in order to stay alive or complete a mission on which they were told the fate of their beloved Republic hinged. A great many of those soldiers, Black and White alike, came home disillusioned and resentful.

The way the Armed Services themselves treated divisions of different colors was intentionally disparate. White soldiers got better weapons, better assignments, better supplies, and far, far more respect. At times, Black soldiers—and not a few White ones, watching it all happen—felt that they were fighting to preserve a country built on lip service to ideals it was betraying even as it demanded they put their lives in peril. When all those soldiers came home, the disparity in the opportunities and the aid that awaited them was just as wide. It was galvanizing, for Black communities beginning to be empowered by the Great Migration and the roots they'd put down over the previous generation in places more like Pasadena than like Shreveport, La. It was also eye-opening, for many White people who had previously held segregationist, racist views or had failed to grasp the profundity of the rot at the root of the American flower.

Robinson was not uniquely talented, among the greats of the Negro Leagues. He was not a happy accident—a "lucky us" scouting find by Rickey and the Dodgers. He was not just a ballplayer, though even he sometimes used that oversimplification as a shield to keep the (literal) haters at bay. He was the result of a monthslong pressure campaign by local and national groups in favor of racial progress, involving coordinated letter-writing; a rising tide of editorials and opinion columns in even White-owned newspapers, from even White columnists; and boycotts. He was carefully chosen for his background as a part of that movement, having won a court-martial after being arrested for refusing to move to the back of a military transport bus.

He was chosen for his commitment to nonviolence and for his refusal to compromise on the question of his own qualifications or humanity. He was the tip of the spear that would be shoved into the heart of Jim Crow, inch by inch, by Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, John Lewis, and millions more over the ensuing three decades. He was also a beneficiary of the time being right. Seeing the widespread disrespect and maltreatment that befell even heroes of battles on which hung the question of the survival of American democracy made many see the dark hypocrisy at the heart of their country. Spending a decade fighting (not, at first, with weapons and troops, but fighting straight through, from 1935 or so through the end of the war) the Nazis and their atrocious, vile extermination campaign against so many innocent civilians threw the sins of American racism into such sharp relief that it could no longer be ignored.

Yes, therefore, Robinson was a DEI hire. That is, unequivocally, a good thing, and the clearest illustration of the need for such hires that can be offered. He was an exceptionally qualified applicant for a job long held by players who were much worse than him, sheltered from competition with him by systematic racism. He brought diversity, equality and inclusion into the workplace, not diminishing meritocracy in the process, but introducing real meritocracy for the first time in the history of that workplace.

It's important to say these things now, because the United States has sagged badly since gaining all the ground that Robinson helped begin claiming 80 years ago. America has never been what it claimed to be, and for some, that illegitimizes it entirely. For others, inexcusably but truly, it's not a problem, because they never wanted America to be what it claimed to be, anyway. A plurality of us live in the middle. We believe that what America aspires to—not what Thomas Jefferson or George Washington (let alone Andrew Jackson or Richard Nixon) aspired to, but what the country has stood for in a broad sense over almost two and a half centuries—is worthwhile. We believe that its failure to even come especially close to that goal is unacceptable, but not in such a way as to make continuing to pursue that goal unworthy.

The United States has never met its own standards for success. The American dream has yet to be realized. Until this date in 1947, though, the country didn't even try—not really, not hard enough. Beginning with the movements and efforts that culminated in that day, though, we did try, and try hard, for a long time. The results weren't good enough, because "good enough", like the American dream itself, is perhaps something only to be chased, and never to be grasped. However, looking back over the last 78 years—to Parks on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and to Lewis and King on the bridge in Selma; to Harry Truman following Rickey's lead by desegregating the military, and the Supreme Court following it by desegregating the nation's schools; to movements that gave rise to generations of genuinely empowered Black thinkers, artists, and businesspeople; to Barack Obama in Grant Park in 2008—it's impossible to conclude that there wasn't progress. It's impossible not to believe that that progress was worthwhile, and hard for me not to conclude that there is hope yet for the country Robinson brought forth upon the diamond in 1947. 

Yet, we're surrounded by urgent indicators that all that progress is in jeopardy. The Department of Defense, newly led by a coalition dedicated to erasing that progress and the hope it infused in so many, tried to remove Robinson's story from before he became a sports hero, because they know how much power lies in the connection between his service (and the racism he faced therein) and his later barrier-breaking, given the way World War II stirred the movement. Corporations, including MLB, are being bullied and cowed into either doing away with DEI initiatives or pretending they matter less than they do, all on the urgent and diametrically dishonest premise that DEI damages meritocracy, rather than being its only reliable set of guiding principles in a multicultural world.

Abraham Lincoln, himself a deeply flawed man with no stainless racial record, faced a moment like this. He stood astride a country that was fracturing and falling apart, because (in two very different ways) its two halves could no longer live with the lies they had told each other to make the union work in the first place. Lincoln himself saw right through the Declaration of Independence, to its hidden agendas and crucial elisions. Still, he knew that the best hope for the future of his people—even the ones in the opposing uniforms—was to re-establish that the United States was "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." He knew that promise had not been delivered upon, and he knew it would be a long time before it would be, but he believed it was worth persisting in the pursuit.

Now, as then, we find ourselves facing a test of "whether any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure." It's not a hopeful moment. When Lincoln resorted to those words, he was standing amid a battlefield still pockmarked by pools of blood. It's comforting, though, to remember that while Lincoln came just 80 years after Jefferson and his Declaration, Robinson came just 80 years after Lincoln. Robinson was the first beacon of light in a generation of it—of shining, surging hope, and huge victories. He's the first symbol of America making a more serious, informed, earnest dedication to its founding ideals, and although those ideals now seem as much in danger as they did in the days just before Gettysburg or D-Day, Robinson's legacy is the reminder that we have already come a long way, and that bravely pushing forward against resistance can take us even further. 

The last two decades, with a bit less bloodshed than the Civil War or World War II on the parts of American soldiers, have done plenty to open the eyes and the minds of Americans. That hopeful plurality with which I identified myself above is better able to see and name the things they're fighting for, and the things they're fighting against, than such pluralities could have been at any previous moment of American history.

Ultimately, that only matters if we all here dedicate ourselves to the great task remaining before us. Today, when you turn on a baseball game and everyone is wearing Jackie Robinson's 42, consider the gravity of that symbol, but remember that it's a mere echo of the real moment that mattered. Robinson, whose most famous bit of wisdom was that we only matter if we leave a mark on one another, would surely want you to see his mark on the backs of so many players and think about how you can leave your own.

View full article

[PVG]

Dear Matt,
I don't know that this is a good space for you to promote your political views.
Furthermore, I think it would be easy to push back on many of your points.
And why abandon statistics when trying to make your argument?

On top of that, the essay gives off the vibe (that I think that I hear from some liberals) that not only are you wrong if you disagree with me,  but you are also morally corrupt.

So I guess in this case - you said would you meant.
 
That being said, I think it's clearly incorrect and even misleading to describe Jackie Robinson 

as a DEI hire.  In the DEI movement there are a lot of beautiful words, and a lot of frankly, incomprehensible words.

However, I think the general understanding of a DEI hire or a person  that matriculates thru a DEI process, is someone who has inferior credentials and is promoted over someone more qualified 

due to some characteristic such as race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

 

But as you  said, and was self-evident, JR had superior credentials and was being

excluded due to his race. He does not fit the definition of a DEI hire.

 

Just the opposite really,  Those who promote a "color-blind" protocol would insist that he be hired.

[Brock Beauchamp]

16 hours ago, PVG said:

However, I think the general understanding of a DEI hire or a person  that matriculates thru a DEI process, is someone who has inferior credentials and is promoted over someone more qualified due to some characteristic such as race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

First, thank you for the polite post of disagreement.

But let's drill down on the bolded part of this statement.

The "general understanding" is literally the problem right now. DEI isn't about hiring someone "inferior", it's about expanding the search beyond the typical (and often incestuous) circles of hiring, giving EVERYONE a legit shot at the process and letting ACTUAL MERIT win the day.

Jackie Robinson is probably the most famous DEI hire in American history and we should be PROUD of the fact that Rickey (and to an extent American society) took that risk, broke barriers, and gave everyone a legit shot at the process.

[Sammy Sofa]

59 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

First, thank you for the polite post of disagreement.

(All this does is unnecessarily grant legitimacy to 100% bad faith horsefeathers. If something is bad, it's bad regardless of how "polite" they sad it and should be called out every single time.)

[Bobson Dugnutt]

17 hours ago, PVG said:

Dear Matt,
I don't know that this is a good space for you to promote your political views.

I can’t get past this part lmao

 

 

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 hours ago, Sammy Sofa said:

(All this does is unnecessarily grant legitimacy to 100% bad faith horsefeathers. If something is bad, it's bad regardless of how "polite" they sad it and should be called out every single time.)

As a person who comes across literally thousands of users a day, politeness does matter. It should be the default setting but we all know it's not and, therefore, it counts for something.

As an ally, I'm open to having these discussions if they're polite. I had to unlearn some truly awful horsefeathers from my upbringing and people helped me along in that process. If I can occasionally do the same for others, I will try.

[CubinNY]

On 4/15/2025 at 11:12 AM, Matthew Trueblood said:

There's always what we say, and what we mean, and a gap between the two; what we mean to do, and what we really do, and a gap between the two. We all have a habit of saying what we mean to do, but what we really do tends to align with what we meant but wouldn't say.

Image courtesy of © Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images

Four score minus two years ago, a few brave people (with hundreds of thousands at their backs and millions standing shoulder-to-shoulder in their path) brought forth upon this continent the first worthwhile version of the United States of America. Jackie Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers that day, breaking what had been a six-decade color barrier for entry into Major League Baseball.

Robinson, a former Army officer who made a stand against segregation on the Texas base where he served during World War II, was an acutely self-aware symbol of the nascent 20th-century Civil Rights Movement. At various times in the decades since then, biographers and orthogonal narrators of that moment have downplayed that fact, preferring to cast Robinson as someone who just wanted to play his beloved game without fetter or restriction. He did want that equality of opportunity, but not in some boyish, vapid way, and not just because he had a deep competitive fire. By the time Robinson and Branch Rickey set fire to the official barrier between MLB and the Negro Leagues, the fire of the Civil Rights Movement had been burning for a handful of years.

It wasn't just Robinson who spoke up and fought successfully against segregation during World War II, but he had a certain level of privilege and leverage: he was serving domestically, not in combat, and his excellent educational background (he was raised in an integrated Pasadena, California, and attended UCLA) made him much more difficult to cast as a troublemaker or to browbeat than many other servicepeople of color were. When the Allies defeated the Nazis (for the moment) in May 1945 and then mercilessly crushed Japan with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, huge waves of soldiers returned from battlefields where they and their fellows had been wounded, tortured, killed, or traumatized by the violence they themselves had had to inflict, in order to stay alive or complete a mission on which they were told the fate of their beloved Republic hinged. A great many of those soldiers, Black and White alike, came home disillusioned and resentful.

The way the Armed Services themselves treated divisions of different colors was intentionally disparate. White soldiers got better weapons, better assignments, better supplies, and far, far more respect. At times, Black soldiers—and not a few White ones, watching it all happen—felt that they were fighting to preserve a country built on lip service to ideals it was betraying even as it demanded they put their lives in peril. When all those soldiers came home, the disparity in the opportunities and the aid that awaited them was just as wide. It was galvanizing, for Black communities beginning to be empowered by the Great Migration and the roots they'd put down over the previous generation in places more like Pasadena than like Shreveport, La. It was also eye-opening, for many White people who had previously held segregationist, racist views or had failed to grasp the profundity of the rot at the root of the American flower.

Robinson was not uniquely talented, among the greats of the Negro Leagues. He was not a happy accident—a "lucky us" scouting find by Rickey and the Dodgers. He was not just a ballplayer, though even he sometimes used that oversimplification as a shield to keep the (literal) haters at bay. He was the result of a monthslong pressure campaign by local and national groups in favor of racial progress, involving coordinated letter-writing; a rising tide of editorials and opinion columns in even White-owned newspapers, from even White columnists; and boycotts. He was carefully chosen for his background as a part of that movement, having won a court-martial after being arrested for refusing to move to the back of a military transport bus.

He was chosen for his commitment to nonviolence and for his refusal to compromise on the question of his own qualifications or humanity. He was the tip of the spear that would be shoved into the heart of Jim Crow, inch by inch, by Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, John Lewis, and millions more over the ensuing three decades. He was also a beneficiary of the time being right. Seeing the widespread disrespect and maltreatment that befell even heroes of battles on which hung the question of the survival of American democracy made many see the dark hypocrisy at the heart of their country. Spending a decade fighting (not, at first, with weapons and troops, but fighting straight through, from 1935 or so through the end of the war) the Nazis and their atrocious, vile extermination campaign against so many innocent civilians threw the sins of American racism into such sharp relief that it could no longer be ignored.

Yes, therefore, Robinson was a DEI hire. That is, unequivocally, a good thing, and the clearest illustration of the need for such hires that can be offered. He was an exceptionally qualified applicant for a job long held by players who were much worse than him, sheltered from competition with him by systematic racism. He brought diversity, equality and inclusion into the workplace, not diminishing meritocracy in the process, but introducing real meritocracy for the first time in the history of that workplace.

It's important to say these things now, because the United States has sagged badly since gaining all the ground that Robinson helped begin claiming 80 years ago. America has never been what it claimed to be, and for some, that illegitimizes it entirely. For others, inexcusably but truly, it's not a problem, because they never wanted America to be what it claimed to be, anyway. A plurality of us live in the middle. We believe that what America aspires to—not what Thomas Jefferson or George Washington (let alone Andrew Jackson or Richard Nixon) aspired to, but what the country has stood for in a broad sense over almost two and a half centuries—is worthwhile. We believe that its failure to even come especially close to that goal is unacceptable, but not in such a way as to make continuing to pursue that goal unworthy.

The United States has never met its own standards for success. The American dream has yet to be realized. Until this date in 1947, though, the country didn't even try—not really, not hard enough. Beginning with the movements and efforts that culminated in that day, though, we did try, and try hard, for a long time. The results weren't good enough, because "good enough", like the American dream itself, is perhaps something only to be chased, and never to be grasped. However, looking back over the last 78 years—to Parks on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and to Lewis and King on the bridge in Selma; to Harry Truman following Rickey's lead by desegregating the military, and the Supreme Court following it by desegregating the nation's schools; to movements that gave rise to generations of genuinely empowered Black thinkers, artists, and businesspeople; to Barack Obama in Grant Park in 2008—it's impossible to conclude that there wasn't progress. It's impossible not to believe that that progress was worthwhile, and hard for me not to conclude that there is hope yet for the country Robinson brought forth upon the diamond in 1947. 

Yet, we're surrounded by urgent indicators that all that progress is in jeopardy. The Department of Defense, newly led by a coalition dedicated to erasing that progress and the hope it infused in so many, tried to remove Robinson's story from before he became a sports hero, because they know how much power lies in the connection between his service (and the racism he faced therein) and his later barrier-breaking, given the way World War II stirred the movement. Corporations, including MLB, are being bullied and cowed into either doing away with DEI initiatives or pretending they matter less than they do, all on the urgent and diametrically dishonest premise that DEI damages meritocracy, rather than being its only reliable set of guiding principles in a multicultural world.

Abraham Lincoln, himself a deeply flawed man with no stainless racial record, faced a moment like this. He stood astride a country that was fracturing and falling apart, because (in two very different ways) its two halves could no longer live with the lies they had told each other to make the union work in the first place. Lincoln himself saw right through the Declaration of Independence, to its hidden agendas and crucial elisions. Still, he knew that the best hope for the future of his people—even the ones in the opposing uniforms—was to re-establish that the United States was "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." He knew that promise had not been delivered upon, and he knew it would be a long time before it would be, but he believed it was worth persisting in the pursuit.

Now, as then, we find ourselves facing a test of "whether any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure." It's not a hopeful moment. When Lincoln resorted to those words, he was standing amid a battlefield still pockmarked by pools of blood. It's comforting, though, to remember that while Lincoln came just 80 years after Jefferson and his Declaration, Robinson came just 80 years after Lincoln. Robinson was the first beacon of light in a generation of it—of shining, surging hope, and huge victories. He's the first symbol of America making a more serious, informed, earnest dedication to its founding ideals, and although those ideals now seem as much in danger as they did in the days just before Gettysburg or D-Day, Robinson's legacy is the reminder that we have already come a long way, and that bravely pushing forward against resistance can take us even further. 

The last two decades, with a bit less bloodshed than the Civil War or World War II on the parts of American soldiers, have done plenty to open the eyes and the minds of Americans. That hopeful plurality with which I identified myself above is better able to see and name the things they're fighting for, and the things they're fighting against, than such pluralities could have been at any previous moment of American history.

Ultimately, that only matters if we all here dedicate ourselves to the great task remaining before us. Today, when you turn on a baseball game and everyone is wearing Jackie Robinson's 42, consider the gravity of that symbol, but remember that it's a mere echo of the real moment that mattered. Robinson, whose most famous bit of wisdom was that we only matter if we leave a mark on one another, would surely want you to see his mark on the backs of so many players and think about how you can leave your own.

 

View full article

 

I'm going to post this link to my Facebook page. Outstanding.

 

[CubinNY]

20 hours ago, PVG said:

Dear Matt,
I don't know that this is a good space for you to promote your political views.
Furthermore, I think it would be easy to push back on many of your points.
And why abandon statistics when trying to make your argument?

On top of that, the essay gives off the vibe (that I think that I hear from some liberals) that not only are you wrong if you disagree with me,  but you are also morally corrupt.

So I guess in this case - you said would you meant.
 
That being said, I think it's clearly incorrect and even misleading to describe Jackie Robinson 

as a DEI hire.  In the DEI movement there are a lot of beautiful words, and a lot of frankly, incomprehensible words.

However, I think the general understanding of a DEI hire or a person  that matriculates thru a DEI process, is someone who has inferior credentials and is promoted over someone more qualified 

due to some characteristic such as race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

 

But as you  said, and was self-evident, JR had superior credentials and was being

excluded due to his race. He does not fit the definition of a DEI hire.

 

Just the opposite really,  Those who promote a "color-blind" protocol would insist that he be hired.

Yes, you are morally corrupt. Take a good look at the mirror and reconsider your life choices. 

[Bobson Dugnutt]

7 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

As a person who comes across literally thousands of users a day, politeness does matter. It should be the default setting but we all know it's not and, therefore, it counts for something.

As an ally, I'm open to having these discussions if they're polite. I had to unlearn some truly awful horsefeathers from my upbringing and people helped me along in that process. If I can occasionally do the same for others, I will try.

I get it, but I’m not sure the guy that started his post with a “stick to sports” message is here to learn about the benefits of DEI.

[Sammy Sofa]

32 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

As a person who comes across literally thousands of users a day, politeness does matter. It should be the default setting but we all know it's not and, therefore, it counts for something.

As an ally, I'm open to having these discussions if they're polite. I had to unlearn some truly awful horsefeathers from my upbringing and people helped me along in that process. If I can occasionally do the same for others, I will try.

Yeah, that makes sense in a vacuum, but (outside of the insane amounts of daily suck) we are clearly not in a vacuum and don't need to apply some rules of order decorum horsefeathers to people who utilize (abuse it is more accurate) it to only spout the most odious, harmful horsefeathers they can with an air of legitimacy.

There's nothing wrong with putting aside niceties when appropriate and bluntly saying "no, that's wrong. YOU are wrong."

You're a smart guy: I know you can 100% tell the difference between people who deserve politeness and those who don't. We're so far beyond the need for any kind of "one size fits all" moderation when it comes to what people spout online.

Edited April 16, 2025 by Sammy Sofa

[imb]

horsefeathers it i gotta stop posting sometimes lol

Edited April 16, 2025 by imb

[Sammy Sofa]

It's dumb that this is even a discussion on the forum as opposed to the actual racist comment being nuked ASAP and a mod telling the guy that that horsefeathers doesn't fly.

Absolutely nothing is gained by leaving that horsefeathers up even if it's just everyone dunking on him. Leaving it there and talking about it/him just legitimizes it. ENOUGH. We don't have to be and should not be tolerant of intolerance.

[PVG]

Let me tell you where I'm coming from.  In my very large organization, we have a DEI office which promotes a DEI admissions policy

This policy gives extra weight to students from certain races, either directly or through proxy.

In general these students do not meet the same academic entry standards as the students who were not granted this extra admissions "bonus".

And in general, these students end up performing less well across all student outcome metrics..  And the differences are not minor - there's a really major gap.

And there is definitely a cohort of students who were not granted admission and who in general, would have performed better than these students..

So I see DEI as a process to not only open doors but an attempt to advantage individuals and groups who had been disadvantaged/discriminated against in the past.

 

And that's why I don't consider JR a DEI hire.  He was clearly more talented and capable than many of the players already on the Dodgers.

He had been directly denied this opportunity - he didn't need the bonus points, just someone to open the doors - I think that's different from the situation I described.

 

If you want to continue the discussion I'm happy to do so - it's really not necessary to throw brickbats my way.

 

[Sammy Sofa]

Anyone who takes that horsefeathers bait is a dunce.