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Jackie Robinson’s Legacy: Protest the Diamondbacks!

Jackie Robinson swinging a bat in Dodgers unif...
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The Arizona Diamondbacks arrive at Citi Field for the first time this season for a Friday night game on July 30th. If the hateful, racist, anti-American, immigrant-bashing law signed last week by Governor Jan Brewer is still on the books, we should all look for a massive protest just outside the Jackie Robinson Rotunda that evening – and we should all take part.

The Diamondbacks are a fitting corporate symbol of the state they play in, and the place they call home. Protests against the immigration hate law around the majors are entirely appropriate. It’s not about their players, or even their (Republican-dominated) ownership. It’s about the touring symbol of a state that has legally embraced the kind of intolerance that will set this country back more than half a century. After all, as Dave Zirin of The Progressive writes, “a boycott is also an expression of solidarity with Diamondback players such as Juan Gutierrez, Gerardo Parra, and Rodrigo Lopez” And public protest, to my way of thinking, is even more appropriate just outside the largest, most important symbol of the civil rights movement in any American ballpark: the Jackie Robinson Rotunda.

The D’Backs faced a fairly large protest outside Wrigley Field last week, and the players’ union has jumped into the debate with full force – with good reason: 27 percent of its membership is Latino and could be stopped and searched merely for how they look on the streets of Phoenix. Daily News columnist Mike Lupica has called on Commissioner Bud Selig to move the 2011 All Star Game out of Phoenix if the race law is allowed to stand. And the players are getting vocal, too. Listen to Mets catcher Rod Barajas:

“It’s disappointing. I have a lot of family born in Mexico. You would like to hope there is no stereotyping going on, but it’s hard to see that there would not be. If they happen to pull someone over who looks like they are of Latin descent, even if they are a U.S. citizen, that is the first question that is going to be asked. But if a blond-haired, blue-eyed Canadian gets pulled over, do you think they are going to ask for their papers? No.”

And Ozzie Guillen’s making sense: “Most (immigrants) are workaholics. This country can’t survive without (them). I’m sorry but a lot of people from this country are very lazy. We aren’t. A lot of people from this country want to be on the computer and sending e-mail to people. We do the hard work. We’re the ones who have to go out and work in the sun all day long.”

So let’s gather outside the Rotunda and make common cause with Jackie Robinson’s legacy. Maybe the folks at brilliant blogs like Mets Police, Fear and Fear in Flushing, Amazin’ Avenue, CitiField of Dreams, Fonzie Forever, Kranepool Society, Mack’s Mets, Mets Today, Metsblog, MetsGrrl, MetsMerized, MetsPundit, Metstradamus, My Summer Family, OnTheBlack, Real Dirty Mets Blog, Seven Train to Shea, Surfing the Mets, The ‘Ropolitans and The Mets Report will help organize an army in blue and orange that roots for Jose Reyes and Rod Barajas and K-Rod – and freedom.

UPDATE: Good for ex-Met Heath Bell, the Padres’ closer, who ripped the Arizona law as “mind-boggling.”

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By Tom Watson
May 2, 2010

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  • Tom K
    I don't see where either of those comments suggests a stand on this issue, as I think your post acknowledges.

    As I am sure you know, there are those in (and beyond) the black community who feel that the presence of the ancestors of many african-americans on US soil since before it was US soil confers something. What it confers varies by whom you ask -- the right to money or other legal compensation at one end of the spectrum, a sort of moral standing or respect, almost of the old "blood and soil" type, on the other. Partly for these reasons, and also for related economic and cultural reasons, the "black-brown coalition" around immigration policy is a pretty shaky thing.

    I don't know how JR felt about any of the attitudes I've described, and I don't think illegal immigration was much of an issue in his day. (It went on, but at levels people generally seemed to accept as either tolerable, or unavoidable, and eveyone seemed to agree that it was, well, illegal.)

    I don't think JR was especially doctrinaire, and mostly went with what he thought was good for his people (which could mean humanity, US citizens, ballplayers, Dodgers, black americans, or something else but in his time and place, putting baseball aside, often meant black americans.)
  • tomwatson
    And his widow did say this:

    "I know that the Latino population has suffered through many of the challenges we have as African-Americans, so to have someone who conducts himself in the way Mariano Rivera does, that’s what we want to teach our young people.”
  • tomwatson
    True, equality and civil rights were his outside baseball cause. He did run away as a teen to become a migrant worker in southern california, so maybe he knew something of the traditional cross border seasonal migration that undergirds so much of the movement in the southwest (the former Mexico, as it were).
  • Tom K
    *I think Jackie Robinson would be out in front on this*

    What do you base that on? What statements or positions that he made or took lead you to this belief? Or is it merely reflexive, because you think he was a good man and this is a bad law?
  • tomwatson
    Certainly it is reflexive, yeah. But it's also based on the man's actions and words as a (Republican) civil rights leader and his words:

    "There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free." I'm interpreting his meaning of American, yes.

    He also said:

    Life is not a spectator sport. If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you're wasting your life.

    And backed it up....
  • twasp
    I like Ozzie's quote. The only people really "working" nowadays are immigrants. Doing all the menial jobs that provide the backbone of the country.
  • FWIW
    Sorry, but I find this particular political diatribe to be distracting to the main purpose of this, and every other sports, blog. The commentary on laws (regardless of which side of the political spectrum you come from) that pertain to American immigration law broadly, and Arizona more specifically, have no effect on New York baseball but serves to divert the subject matter from sport to politics. Frankly, protesting the D-Backs, Cardinals, Suns, etc. punishes the innocent in that the majority of the players and ownership likely do not support the law, even though they may wear the name of that state on their uniforms.

    Of course it is your blog so you can do what you want, but I think that political commentary such as this tend to be more divisive than helpful and are better put on political blogs rather than ones one hopes a community can unite, which sports can do in a way no other event can, rather than furthering the tone that so many other things in this country divides one from another. Politics in a sports blog makes me feel far less inclined to take your other opinions into consideration than I otherwise would, regardless of their validity, since I will be less inclined to re-visit and read them.
  • tomwatson
    I'm sorry to hear you'll be less inclined to visit, but I couldn't disagree more with setting aside baseball as some kind of silo of entertainment, segregated from any political discussion - or discussion of social issues, more accurately.

    And as players like Barajas and otheres get more involved, this thing has a chance to be a real baseball cause - an instance where our unity as fans can help lead us away from pernicious policy. Sometimes protest is indeed symbolic - yes, it makes noise. And it's therefore more effective where lots of people gather.

    I think Jackie Robinson would be out in front on this....
  • FWIW
    I strongly disagree with the mixing of entertainment, in this instance baseball, with political issues. Although I may like the music of someone I don't wish to pay money to see them tell me what sort of decisions I should be making socially or politically. I go to see them sing. Also, when I go to the movies I want to be entertained, not lectured to. These folks are best at entertaining and, most of the time, no better informed (and to be honest often are poorly informed) about the issues of the day than Joe Smith from down the street.

    When I want to watch sporting events, I do NOT want politics mixed in (e.g. 1968 Olympics). I like many players who are Latino, but when they are wearing the uniform I do see them as Mets or Yankees or Dodgers or Giants not as black or Latino or white. I care that they are good players, not that, for instance, Oliver Perez is from Mexico.

    I think, from MLB's standpoint, it is dangerous to allow protests because they can backfire. Moreover, the players from the individual teams are blameless and it is wrong and unAmerican to protest them just because they have "Arizona" across their uniform.
  • JasonChervokas
    With specific respect to the AZ law it does smack of the old European and English "suspicion" laws that give police broad powers to search and seize people on frieghteningly broad, open ended, and discretionary grounds. It's the unguided discretion that's particularly troubling and open to abuse of course. I do wish that opponents had waited for the inevitable abuse--the legal immigrant or even native born citizen rounded up on the basis of his looks or because he was, say, standing somewhere waiting for work as a day laborer. Would have made the overbroad nature of the law obvious. It appears to me that the use of the word "reasonable" in the AZ law is an attempt to do an end run around the constitutional prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure. And I'm disturbed not only by this law but by a lot of expansion of police power that has gone on in recent years--random traffic stops, preventive detention. Whatever happenend not to "reasonable suspicion" but probably cause?


    As to the mixing of sport and entertainment with politics. Everything is already mixed with everything--culture includes all the things we express and which make us a people: sports and entertainment, and yes, politics, religion, identity, language, literature, food, music, whatever. To refuse to talk about or think about one aspect of culture in the context of another creates an artificial void, abstracting it unnaturally from the daily context of the rest of culture in which it, and we, live. It seems to me a matter of putting on arbitrary and unrealistic blinders. Furthermore, it's a narrowing of the discourse that would make sports very small and way less of an interesting thing to talk about.

    PS, if the nation wants to crack down on illegal immigration--and I think it's not a bad idea given than expolited illegals working for less than minimum wage do in fact depress working class wages for legal Americans--it could do so most effectively and cost efficiently by prosecuting--and punishing with severe penalties (like jail time)--the large employers of illegals--big ag, meat packing industry, construction etc. I promise you if you start throwing a coupla food industry CEOs or even middle managers in jail and shutting down businesses that willfully and perpetually hire and exploit illegals at a grand scale, the jobs for illegals would dry up and the incentive to illegally cross the border would decline.
  • 4Legalmigrantsonly
    Sorry, but I do not see a problem with the Arizona law as it is written. They are merely mirroring current U.S. law which the American government (BOTH Republicans and Democrats) finds itself unwilling to enforce. Perhaps instead of decrying racism (which is actually untrue since a nationality cannot of and by itself constitute a race) in favor of those who are breaking the law (because the law states that the police may only enforce this law in conjunction with some other offense such as breaking traffic laws, etc.), you should work toward better enforcement of current laws. Although the fact is that not everyone is skilled enough to play baseball on a Major League level (and this fact is recognized by the government in that they issue visas to those who qualify), the same cannot be said of those who come to this country unskilled, illiterate and unable to speak English. In the vast majority of those hiring illegal laborers, they are taking jobs away from Americans already here (and do not try to give me the argument about "just doing jobs Americans don't want to do"; if the employers actually paid more for the work or didn't want to abuse their workers illegally, there are a great many American workers that would gladly do the job).
    Perhaps the current law should be changed, but that still does not justify rewarding those who decided they did not want to obey it to begin with.
  • gutierrez75
    Ah the technicalities, so it is not racism because "a nationality does not qualify as a race" ....What can I say, for starters, what would you do without those unskilled workers you detest so much, when you find yourself paying $3 for a pound of apples and $8 for a quart of orange juice??

    But to put things in perspective, based on your first three sentences alone you qualify as a certified MORON.
  • tomwatson
    I disagree with you - and pretty strongly. The law allows police stops based on appearance, and that's jut wrong.

    Immigrants are part of the fabric on the nation - documented or not (people are never illegal).
  • 4Legalmigrantsonly
    If you've actually read the law, it states that police may NOT stop people based on appearance alone.

    And while I agree that immigrants are part of the fabric of the nation - and a very important part at that - there is a right way and wrong way to get here.
    People can most certainly be illegal. As the spouse of someone who legally immigrated to this country, I have a greater awareness than most people what sort of red tape is involved in coming to America. However, the citizens of a country have a right to determine what sort of country they will have, including having quotas. Sometimes the decisions made by the citizenry do not meet the aspirations I have for it, but nonetheless, citizens (and by citizens I most certainly DO NOT include those who do not have citizenship, either by birth or naturalization because they are NOT citizens) via their representatives have a right to self-determination for their country.

    A nation also has a right to determine who can come here and who cannot. The fact that people are economic migrants does not give them a right to be here and take away jobs from under or unskilled Americans. And believe me, in this economy there are many Americans now willing to take jobs that perhaps previously "nobody wanted to do". To come here illegally and demand "rights" is nothing short of invasion, which the U.S. government also has an obligation to combat.

    There are plenty of laws that I do not agree with in this country. That does not mean that I am at liberty to ignore them and face no penalty. The Arizona law merely mirrors the Federal one. Perhaps it will act as a means for the U.S. government to enforce what they should have all along. Perhaps it will act as a reason to change the U.S. law to something more sensible. Regardless, it is currently the law and to disobey it should mean you will feel the long arm of the law.
  • Tom K
    I am not interested in serving as a defender of the bill, when it is more productive and more obviously right to focus on the federal government's failures in the enforcement of existing laws. Most Americans want to see the borders regulated; fewer, from what I can tell, want to see massive roundups of illegals. So politically, the bill is best defended as a pressure tactic on the federal government.

    But on the merits, I doubt many courts would adopt Mr. Barr's view that "lawful contact" between a police officer and an individual refers to contact that does not include lawful questioning or detention.

    Apparently, there's been some disagreement on this, leading to changes: http://radioviceonline.com/law... (NB: I don't know or vouch for this source, but the relevant parts of the link are its factual assertions not its analysis, and the changes to the law are verified elsewhere.)

    Obviusly, the objections based on a broad reading of "lawful contact" are at least partly pretexutual, since (a) they required speculation that the term would be broadly, rather than narrowly, interpreted and (b) few of the law's critics have reversed position now that the law has been amended to meet that concern.

    I agree that the original language was open to an overbroad application, even while doubting that's really the point motivating anyone in the debate.

    In any event, it's a joy to see you citing Bob Barr as a source.
  • tomwatson
    Glad you liked the Barr quote! It's a civil liberties issue and I'm happy to find myself aligned with the vast majority of libertarians on it...
  • tomwatson
    Here's libertarian Bob Barr on the matter:

    "While a number of Republican supporters of the Arizona law claim that its provisions would come into play only after a police officer had lawfully stopped an individual for another offense, the clear language of the law says otherwise. Under it, an officer need only have “lawful contact” with a person – which can be something as innocuous as passing them on the sidewalk – to provide the officer the justification to demand the person produce papers establishing their lawful status in the United States. The only predicate then required, is that the officer have a “reasonable suspicion” the person is an unlawful alien – based on what, the statute does not say."

    I take that 'reasonable suspicion' to include personal appearance, wouldn't you?
  • Tom K
    ". . .could be stopped and searched merely for how they look"

    Could you explain where the law says this?
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