A Racially Charged Baseball Game
April 16th, 2007This weekend, my husband and I took the children to a baseball game. As we huddled close together, clutching lukewarm cups of hot chocolate, I attempted to explain the game to my young stepdaughter.
“Which team do we want to win?” she asked.
“Well, do you see how some guys are wearing black uniforms and some guys are wearing white? We’re rooting for the guys wearing white.”
We discussed the mechanics of the game and the appropriate cheer times. All of the sudden, our team hit a home run. The fireworks went off, the crowd went wild, and in the midst of it all, my stepdaughter screamed:
“GO WHITE GUYS! BEAT THOSE BLACK GUYS!”
My husband and I exchanged a look over her head and nervously surveyed the crowd. A few people smirked in our general direction, but no one seemed like they were reaching for the lynching rope yet. Neither one of us wanted to punish her, because she truly meant nothing by it. But how do you explain a child’s innocence to the few who are determined to take offense to every little thing in this post Imus world?
While we contemplated this in the bleachers, our team was busy striking out on the field. I leaned in and attempted to explain this new development to my stepdaughter.
“Now the guys wearing the black uniforms are going to have a turn to bat. Our guys are going to try to strike them out.”
Too loud for my comfort, she replied, “ARE ALL BLACK GUYS BAD? OR JUST THE ONE WITH THE BAT?”
To make matters worse, I looked up at the video screen and noticed that the guy currently holding the bat was, indeed, a black guy.
With a nervous laugh, I said, “Heh. No, the guys wearing the black uniforms aren’t ‘bad.’ They’re just on a different team. I mean…I’m sure they’re really nice guys and everything. We just happened to be rooting for the guys wearing white.”
Heh.
Heh.
Back on the field, a guy from the black team managed to steal a base. The crowd started booing.
“Why are they making that noise?” my stepdaughter asked.
“Someone on the other team stole a base,” I told her.
“BOO! BLACK GUYS SHOULDN’T STEAL! BOO!”
We had nosebleed seats. For a second, I considered hurling myself over the edge of the balcony.
[...] Original post: A Racially Charged Baseball Game [...]
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