Tag Archives: Black Lives Matter

MLB BLM: Jacob Blake

Because of the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin (the most recent in a horrifying long list of names), the Minnesota Twins postponed yesterday’s game until today, which is designated baseball’s official Jackie Robinson day — the day all the players wear #42 in honor of the great Jackie Robinson (it’s normally April 15th, but baseball didn’t start this year until the end of July).

Today would have involved a double-header, yesterday’s game plus the scheduled one against Detroit today, but the Twins voted to postpone both those games.

Baseball teams across the country are standing down in solidarity and support for Black Lives Matter.

The text reads:

“The Minnesota Twins remain committed to using our platforms to push for racial justice and equality. Therefore, we fully respect our players for their decision to not play tonight’s game versus the Detroit Tigers. The recent shooting of Jacob Blake, a mere three months after the killing of George Floyd, shows again that real change is necessary and far overdue in our country, and it is our responsibility to continue playing a role in efforts to affect meaningful reform. We stand in solidarity with the Black community and, as full partners with others in the Twins Cities and beyond, we are committed to creating the change we want to see in the world — where everyone is protected, safe and welcome. There is no place for racism, inequality or injustice in our society.

Yes, yes, and yes!

Bravo and kudos to the Minnesota Twins and all those other teams standing up by standing down. I support them 100% in this (apparently not everyone does, which is pathetic).

The Twins also posted this in their Twins Diversity twitter account:

Which I thought was pretty cool.

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Stay committed to racial justice, my friends! Black Lives Matter!


Take A Knee

I’ve been considering this business of sports figures kneeling during the national anthem…

kneeling

My initial reaction was, “WTF?” But after a bit of thought, I decided I was more,  “Meh, whatever.” It seemed mostly to be going on in football along with some other sports I really couldn’t care less about

(And, full disclosure, I have a definite antipathy towards the NFL; do not like them at all.)

But then I realized that this was both important and right. Civil disobedience is the very quintessence of necessary but painful social change.

We’re noticing. We’re talking about it. This is where it starts, if it is starts anywhere at all.

Yesterday I read a New York Times article[1], apparently a regular thing they do highlighting the best comments of the week on their social media platform.

The first one was interesting, a lady blamed not being shot after being stopped by the police on being white. But it was the second one that really, really grabbed me. It says perfectly what I’ve been searching to say about the taking a knee thing:

Rioting and angry protest … “Why can’t you just peacefully protest?”

Kneeling peacefully … “No, not like that.”

~Darius Ensey (on Facebook)

Exactly. Nail; hammer; head! I can’t think of a better way to put it.

Because here’s the awful thing: When you’re black, sometimes there’s just no winning.

So maybe we should all take a knee and keep talking about this. Hell, maybe we could even do something about it.

Ya think?


[1] I’m a White Lady. Perhaps That Is Why I Am Not Dead., By Lela Moore and Lindsey Underwood, September 24, 2016.