Racism, Baseball and Unconscious Thought
by Jeff Zimmerman on Jun 30, 2010 5:00 PM EDT
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PrintLast Sunday, Evan Longoria and B.J Upton got into an argument over B.J. taking his time chasing down a ball hit to the wall. This confrontation may seem like a small spat between teammates, but may have an unseen racial impact with people that saw it.
First we will need to take a step back and look at how the brain works. In the book "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell, he states:
"First of all, we have our conscious attitudes. This is what we choose to believe. These are our stated values, which we use to direct our behavior deliberately.....our second level of attitude, our racial attitude on an unconscious level, the immediate, automatic associations that tumble out before we have time to think. We don't deliberately choose our unconscious attitudes"
Observers of the confrontation between Longoria and Upton probably didn't even notice the race of the players, but our unconscious mind is being told something else. It is see the black player (Upton) as lazy and the white player (Longoria) as the leader and putting the black player in his place.
The racial under tone is not limited to just the Longoria-Upton argument. I know there are plenty of examples that contradict the this example, but are those players making the headlines that we read everyday. Milton Bradley is a trouble maker. David Eckstein is a gritty veteran. Chris Brown is a malingerer. Pete Rose was Charlie Hustle
In most of our normal daily activities, the racist unconscious is a non factor, but as Malcolm Gladwell states:
"It's a powerful predictor of how we act in certain kinds of spontaneous situations."
The people that have a bunch of spontaneous situations during a game that witness the behavior are the players, managers and umpires. The umpire could have seen the flare up in the Rays dugout on Sunday and he has to make a call on a close play and his mind has to make a decision between a white catcher and a black base runner.
I am not sure if there is a workable solution to this problem. As Galdwell states:
"It [un-biased associations] requires that you change your life so that you are exposed to minorities on a regular basis and become comfortable with them and familiar with the best of their culture, so that when you want to meet, hire, date, or talk with a member of a minority, you aren't betrayed by your hesitation and discomfort."
The media will not change what they report on, so what we see, hear and read will always be out of our control. I think the best way to fight this issue as fans is to understand the what is going on in our unconscious mind and look in our personal lives for chances to train our brain differently.
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So Upton really did hustle?
And my unconcious mind warped the way light refracts into my brain, causing him to only appear to run slower because I am racist?
This wreaks of college freshman phsych major
Or someone trying to apply a theory they just learned to any old thing. Had you of just read a book on leadership, as opposed to the latent racism, I suspect this post would have read differently. This makes you sound like an academic parrot.
You’re better than this.
Upton didn’t hustle, someone had to call him out. Longoria is the anointed face of the franchise. He did the right thing.
That's why they call them business sox
by egriffey on Jun 30, 2010 5:50 PM EDT reply actions 6 recs
No!
I disagree….don’t discount the point. I think maybe we should look at it another way.
Upton didn’t hustle and was called out by his teammate…fine, fair enough. I wouldn’t pull out the latent racism card on that incident, but the aftermath of the incident has me incensed. The Tampa Bay media and local fans took this incident and have run with it, painting this picture of Upton has a lazy, good-for-nothing player that doesn’t put in any work and doesn’t contribute to the team.
In reality, Upton is one of the hardest working players on the team (at least from what I’ve heard). He put in countless hours this off-season working to fix his swing, working with the new TB hitting coach from Thanksgiving on, and I’ve heard it said that he puts in lots of time working at the stadium during the season too.
The problem is, there were one or two incidents of “laziness” when he was first called up, and this incident has swung everyone’s mind back to them. If you look at the replay, it’s not like he dogged it that much going for that ball – certainly not enough to justify the insane amount of flak he’s getting at the moment. People literally want his head on a platter and are saying they won’t go to games as long as he’s playing. That’s just crazy talk.
Maybe the incident itself doesn’t reek of latent racism, but the aftermath certainly does. Tampa wants to run him out of town on a spit right now, and I can’t help but think that the reaction would be different if it was Ben Zobrist out there in center who had dogged it.
I love Casey Fossum. Now try and take me seriously.
by Steve Slowinski on Jul 1, 2010 8:49 AM EDT up reply actions 3 recs
That's a good point
I don’t have that have perspective, so that’s good to hear. However, that sounds more like a media-fan-driven stereotype, as opposed to Longoria being a racist. Now it’s entirely possible that Longoria bought into that stereotype, after hearing it reported over and over. But it’s still, imo, a stretch to call that latent racism.
To me, it sounds more like the cascading effect of over-reporting on a young player who felt entitled and didn’t work hard several years ago. I see it more driven by economics: that 20-year-old millionaire who can’t even hustle. Even though, according to you, that’s not the case anymore, that’s still a tough stigma to shake.
That's why they call them business sox
I mostly agree with this too
I do think that the media is very susceptible to unconscious/subconscious racism in how it frames issues and decides what to pursue. At least, I hope it’s subconscious. It definitely sells well, so maybe it’s conscious.
-j
I write at:
Beyond the Boxscore | Red Reporter | Basement-Dwellers.com | Twitter: @jinazreds
Okay...?
Jeff,
Point taken, but I unfortunately have to agree with egriffey here. You’re really stretching to put an undertone on this situation that isn’t likely to be there in the first place. Citing Gladwell doesn’t help your case either (especially Blink, where he contradicts himself multiple times and his thesis is nothing more than a ploy to get you to disregard actual causes of things and believe that they just happen out of thin air and the ‘unconscious mind’).
Honestly, there will always certainly be a biased element when some write about the situation, but why not simply focus on the facts:
1. BJ Upton is a top prospect that hasn’t exactly lived up to expectation (not that he’s a bad player or anything). He’s going to get press for that, whether or not he deserves to be compared to his brother, Alex Rodriguez, etc. This happens to anyone with that status.
2. He’s been accused multiple times not hustling. The most likely reason is because he wasn’t hustling.
3. This was a pretty blatant non-effort. Period. There should be no undertone beyond that.
4. Evan Longoria is the face of a franchise that is known (whether rightly or not) for overcoming teams like the Yankees and Red Sox with nothing through hustle and smarts. Upton did not represent that with his half-hearted…YES it really was…play.
I would have done the same thing in Longoria’s position. Actually, when I played, I did do this…and the half-hearted plays pissed me off more than anyone since I was usually on the mound. And the ball I played didn’t matter for anything. This is MLB.
I’ve also been called out for the same thing when I played. Maddon was correct that this isn’t a big deal. Guys, even close friends, lose it on each other every now and then…especially in high-stress athletic situations.
Certainly some have gone and run with it (and I’ve seen some articles making racist accusations, which is a shame)…but that’s not unconscious. It’s not Freud. It’s blatant bias if these things are brought up. I don’t think you’re talking about that here…and in my opinion citing Blink should never be a good defense. But that’s just my opinion.
+1, especially for the smackdown on Gladwell
What if Upton had called out Longoria (in a hypothetical situation where Longo had slacked off)? Wouldn’t the media have run with that, the same way they do with any mediocre story?
Would you like to follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or my blog...well you can't.
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Jul 1, 2010 12:27 PM EDT up reply actions
Hmmm...
I agree that we have conscious and subconscious thoughts, and that there is such a thing as latent racism, but the facts of this particular scenario are clear: Upton didn’t hustle, Longoria is a team leader and their races had nothing to do with either. I wish you had chosen to write about the psychological aspect of this piece under different circumstances, because it really does come across poorly, as though you’re making those out who saw the thing as it clearly was to be racists on some level…
MileHighReport.com member since 02/06/07, promoted to "Position Coach" (i.e. new staff writer) on 02/16/10!
I think Price's face says it all
This situation, I believe, speaks more to the differences between clubhouse chemistry in winning vs. losing teams. I think it was Buster Olney who brought up an example of Derek Jeter in a similar situation, but on the Upton side of it. While I’m fuzzy on the details, he made it seem like Jeter talking back to Wells was a sign of leadership.
At the same time, Sweeney defending Griffey was viewed as a collapse in clubhouse chemistry by some in the media. Before this recent series with the Giants, some in the LA media were blasting Kemp and saying we need to get rid of him for not doing well on offense and defense because they think he’s distracted. Manny being Manny in Boston changed during the 2008 season when the Sox (that I recall) weren’t performing to expectations.
I understand the point being made in the article, but a better situation should’ve been chosen.
by QuinnTheEzkamo on Jun 30, 2010 7:36 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Not the calibre of article typically associated with BtBS.
I think the most disappointing type of racism is flagrant attempts to add racist undertones to situations where they did not previously exist, in the guise of “pointing it out for the better good.” By the logic of this article, the Zambrano-Soriano altercation, which was also caused by a perceived lack of hustle, must be cause by an underlying tension between Venezuela and the Dominican Republic.
What is making these stories explode is typically not the accusation of a lack of hustle itself, but the player’s reaction. Looking at recent examples:
Upton exploded to the point of a near physical confrontation. Looking at the replay, I don’t see how anyone could argue that he gave the full out sprint to prevent the runner from advancing to third that a team would expect. Plain and simple.
Francisco Cervelli was criticized recently for lack of hustle while running the bases. His response to the media? “I made a mistake.” That closed the book.
Hanley’s case was similar — most baseball fans I know were discouraged by his lack of hustle after booting a ball in error, but did not consider it a big deal until his response hit the media the next day. Mocking his manager, insulting fellow players — he showed a complete lack of respect to the game in his response to the incident. That’s when the issue really took off.
Maybe the race cards appear to play in a particular direction in these recent cases, but that’s a good time to remember one of the golden rules of statistics: Correlation does not imply causation.
I like the article
I was thinking about this earlier in the season when I was watching highlights with a couple of my buddy’s and that play came on where Nyjer Morgan unknowingly knocked a homerun back into play, threw his glove and stomped off while the left fielder brought the ball back into the infield.
One of my friends defended Morgan because he thought the ball was out. But the guy next to him said, “Well, this wouldn’t have happened if he wasn’t acting like a n—.”
I thought this wasn’t fair, but then I tried to picture the same play with a level-headed white center fielder and I couldn’t do it.
When I think of troublemakers, I think of Bradley, Manny, Zambrano, Prince and Bobby Bonds and Jose Mesa in their days. Remember Izzy Alcantara? He’s the Latin player who kicked the catcher and then charged the mound.
When I think of team leaders, I think of Jeter, Nomar, Mauer, Maddux. Why is this?
Race is always a factor in sports. It’s a factor in everything.
We need to be able to have an intelligent conversation— no hurt feelings— about what the implications of race really are in sports today.
^^This is an unfortunate comment
and certainly not subconscious.
First you should probably define ‘race’, Howie. What do you consider Zambrano and Manny and Mesa? They’re latino in some way. Skin color is often thought of as black and white…but it’s actually on more of a continuous scale.
Jeter has an African American father. Nomar Garciaparra sounds pretty latino to me. But you use them in your defense of ‘white’ people being leaders?
I don’t think there’s any doubt that Milton Bradley has some sort of social problem. But given his skills, I’m willing to bet he works his ass off. Same goes for Bonds (Barry at least).
Jeff’s example of ‘Charlie Hustle’ is an interesting one. It likely depends on when you grew up, because I usually think of Pete Rose as kind of a douche.
AJ Pierzynski? Same thing. Though I think it’s interesting that Pierzynski doesn’t get much press. It’s probably more because he’s not any good, rather than because he’s white.
If you want an intelligent conversation, Howie, it’s likely best to first be intelligent—or at the very least thoughtful/insightful—about it.
by BMMillsy on Jul 1, 2010 10:36 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Why am I inclined to think those flaming those post struggle to come to grips with racism in society?
It may not be a sabrmetric article or whatever you’re accustomed to from BTBS, and it may not consider every example ever about guys hustling (Adam Dunn, for example), but there are clearly valid points here. Malcolm Gladwell is a business best seller for a reason. He’s a highly influential author (to highly influential people) for a reason. To dismiss this as “weak” or “freshman psych” is a bit much to me. It’s an elementary concept that goes a long way. There will always be examples to prove something like this one way or another if you really want to believe that this sort of stuff doesn’t happen.
What are the valid points?
When I see Upton and Longoria getting in a fight, I see a lazy player (Upton) because he was being lazy in the outfield. He jogged after a ball. It is not disputed. Then I see Longoria as a leader because holding players to a high standard is the sort of thing a leader does. People suggesting that there is some racial implication are the ones with hangups.
BtBS is known for statistical analysis. This is the exact opposite of that. It is, as has been said, freshmen psych major crap. “This is how it is because maybe I think that’s how it is.” You can give me the numbers if you want, and then you can try and connect it into baseball, but there’s no statistical connection that I can see. Where is the study showing black baseball players get the raw end of the deal? Is it because Manny and Milton Bradley are trouble makers? Is that any more evidence than Roger Clemens’ reputation as a jerk and a liar? How about Josh Hamilton being a junkie or Tim Lincecum being a pothead? We form our opinions based on what people actually do. It’s very thin ground to be saying I don’t want Milton Bradley on my team subconsciously because he’s black as compared to consciously because he has a history of causing clubhouse issues.
USG
Except Upton is not "lazy"
He made one slight mental blunder. He only worked like a banshee this off-season fixing his swing and is one of the players that puts in the most time outside of the games. The labeling of him as “lazy” is what this article is challenging.
I love Casey Fossum. Now try and take me seriously.
by Steve Slowinski on Jul 1, 2010 8:55 AM EDT up reply actions
This argument doesn't apply to all of humanity.
Some of us were lucky enough to grow up in a diverse community or for some other reason don’t have subconscious thoughts going on that cause us to look at people with different skin colors in different ways. But, for most people, race makes a difference whether they want it to or not.
Obviously, it’s not very relevant to the statistical side of baseball. I’m pretty sure the author knew that when he kicked off the article. If you must have a correlation, though, in stats, then we can watch every controversial call of the past 15 years and figure out how many of them were called by white umpires in favor of white players, or any other combination of racial players. That’s not the point though, I’m pretty sure.
I'm not a huge fan of Malcolm Gladwell
But I think the is still strong. Tim Wise is an excellent read for anyone interested in looking at the world a little differently.
I love Casey Fossum. Now try and take me seriously.
by Steve Slowinski on Jul 1, 2010 8:54 AM EDT up reply actions
*the point
I love Casey Fossum. Now try and take me seriously.
by Steve Slowinski on Jul 1, 2010 9:30 AM EDT up reply actions
There's racism in everything in the world if you look hard enough.
By constantly pointing out racism even in places it doesn’t exist, are we not perpetuating it? Why do we have to view everything through racial terms these days? Much to the chagrin of those in the PC movement, not everything is about race. This situation certainly wasn’t.
I disagree wholeheartedly with the assumption that I would think of Upton as a lazy player because he is black, or that because I think this was a simple case of a clubhouse policing itself that I “struggle to come to grips with racism in society.” I think Upton has all the natural talent in the world but is having trouble mentally putting it all together, sort of like Billy Beane back when he was a prospect instead of a GM. This has nothing at all to do with his race and everything to do with being a young player still trying to figure out how to succeed in The Show.
And as for racism in society, maybe I’m just lucky, but I don’t see it very often. Granted, I’m a white guy and I live in a college town, but it certainly seems like a mostly post-racial world around here.
by Soria's Unibrow on Jul 1, 2010 8:30 PM EDT up reply actions
Why Are You Inclined?
Because you’re sub-conscience mind is programmed to think racism when somebody disagrees with a post about racism.
Defensive?
How so? I’m not defending anything. I’m not the one that made this big reach of an assertion.
Blatantly true? Says who?
We can sit here and make stuff up all day as to why this happened and say that it’s actually there buried in our sub-conscience (oops, excuse me, “unconscious”). If you’re hell-bent on seeing racism on every interaction between a black and white person then that’s what you’re going to see.
We may watch a lot of baseball but we don’t know what’s going on down there in the dugout on a daily basis, in the locker room or in the personal lives of these guys. We pluck one incident out of the lives of these two guys and assert that there is actually something racially unconscious going on in our heads?
Horse apples. As if we can throw a tape recorder on a person’s head and record the going-ons of the unconscious mind. You call this blatantly true. I think it’s laughably silly.
Racism will never go away when we are so determined to see it in every day life whether it’s there or not. How about we opine on events that are plainly observable to us and leave the unconscious stuff to the palm readers?
No reason for this post to be on the front page
Just for drawing racial inferences in a play involving a notoriously lazy player and a hard-working team leader? This is a case of just trying to make a point and twisting the facts of a case to suit your position. Malcolm Gladwell is a great author however and I have enjoyed reading his books. It’s valid to have an opinion about anything, but a sabermetric baseball website really isn’t the place…
I think...
“Notoriously lazy” is being used to refer to the fact that he is a player who has previously had been where he was criticized for not hustling on certain plays.
Yes, I agree “notoriously lazy” isn’t the best way to say it, as there is plenty of ways he’s put hard work into the game. But that also doesn’t change the fact that he’s been in this situation before.
Yes, he has.
I’m not refuting that below, but here’s two related points:
1. In-game hustle is not the only meaning of lazy. As Steve’s pointed out, behind-the-scenes work ethic matters, too (and perhaps moreso).
2. Maybe BJ ratio of callouts to non-hustle plays isn’t higher than the typical player, but it could certainly be that “we” tend to make more of a deal out of it for him (for whatever reason, including possible race) than we do for other players. That is, he deserves his callouts, but others deserve more of a callout.
by Sky Kalkman on Jul 1, 2010 10:43 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
This is kind of like Type 1/Type 2 errors (see, I'm bringing it back to stats...)
Calling BJ out for his lack of on field hustle isn’t an error. But calling out others less for similar things IS an error. Pick one baseline, then hold everyone to that baseline.
Possibly.
The issue I take is more with how simplistic the approach of the article makes it. It reads as, Top Line, it’s all obviously caused by racism.
As I mentioned in another post, there are just so many factors here. First, going back to the example of reactions, would you not agree that it was his reaction in the dugout which sparked the media attention? As Zambrano has proved, if you flip out in camera view, people are going to talk about it.
And what are the factors to what might have made Upton upset? Perhaps he is upset because this same issue dogged him twice in 2008 and he feels like he’s being picked on (be it because of race, or not being forgiven for past occurrences, et cetera). Perhaps he really did just blow up because he’s a a hothead. None of us can say for sure.
And this is my issue with the way the racism angle is being played. I sincerely do not think the media attention had anything to do with the call out. In fact, had it stopped there, do you think any of us would have seen that replay? Maybe a few, not many. It was the dugout altercation that made headlines.
Another way to look at it, going back to the Francisco Cervelli example. Had his temper flared and he got in a shouting / shoving match with Joe Girardi, do you think the media would not have covered it because he is white?
by JStymie on Jul 1, 2010 1:56 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
We're not just about stats.
This site exists to create a community where baseball fans can get together to discuss the sport at a deeper level than you can find most places. Often that’s numbers-related. But some of the coolest stuff we’ve posted is more about ideas and concepts. This article certainly fits that.
Now, you can always feel free to call something we write rubbish, as long as you explain why (it’s all about a good discussion). And that’s happened in this thread so far, so let’s keep it going.
Racism ---- B. J. Upton and Evan L.
Dear Jeff Z, thanks for bring down all the insightful writing on this site to psycho bababble. Better yet why did this site give this article space. Filler I guess. Each Team is band of Brothers. Calling out some team member for not hustling is pretty serious, but it happens. The not hustling. Even the Dbacks got rid of Felix Lopez for the same offence among others.
Teams now days are multiracial, multicultural,and multinational. I’m not saying that in all cases everything is blue skies and rainbows, Evan called it as it was, he didn’t give it 100%. I guess BJ thought the base runner would only give as much as he did??? Evan might of talked to BJ in the locker room or somewhere less public is my other thought.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't even think Jeff's saying the Longoria/BJ thing was racism.
Just reads as a possible example, leading into bringing up some discussion points.
Longoria/BJ thing
True, but he’s saying some people may see it that way. - This confrontation may seem like a small spat between teammates, but may have an unseen racial impact with people that saw it.
After rereading the article your right. At the same time why bring out the race card if not to stir the pot?
Not all pot-stirring is bad. Racism is a problem and talking about it in the right way is a productive conversation.
I guess the issue some have here in the comments is if this was the right way. We’re having a good discussion about that.
I don't even think he's implying the incident was racist at all
Just the fan/media reaction to the encounter.
In these comments, we have people implying that BJ Upton is a notoriously lazy player and Longoria as the hard-working team leader. While in this case BJ Upton was lazy and Longoria was trying to lead, the author seems to point out that a larger perception of the player is formed from the incident and possibly by race.
Where the article breaks down is the reinforcement of those ideas otuside of a few examples. Scouting sometimes utilizes certain race-specific terms and some exclusively same-race comp players that could’ve been brought up. Also maybe going into detail about some positional biases (toolsy up the middle player v. fundamental up the middle player). Not sure of many more, but it seems like the article and subsequent comments would have benefitted from more background discussion.
by QuinnTheEzkamo on Jul 1, 2010 12:34 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm not real clear on the meaning of the post
The point, I believe, is that today’s American people have an subconscious racist structure in their minds that may be reinforced by seeing a white leadership figure putting a lazy black in his place.
I’m not quite sure. Different people have different subconsciouses. Lots of people might just see a third baseman blowing up at an outfielder whose less-than-professional behavior had been getting on his nerves.
"The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey" - Unfortunate cricket commentator
Just a few thoughts on this as a whole
First off, I tend to agree with the people saying that this is a bit of a stretch of applying what Gladwell talked about to this situation. If people who know more about the Rays are willing to say Upton has a great work ethic, I believe it, but he really dogged it on this play so Longoria was justified. However, I don’t think that was the point of the article.
Having said that, I really do like the premise of the article. I think it’s interesting and its a great discussion piece. If there was an incident of clear racism there would be no need for a post about it and there’d be nothing to say about it other than ‘Player X is a scumbag’. Additionally, for all the people saying this is just psycho-babble nonsense and it doesn’t belong here – I’m pretty sure you’re doing to psychology what all the ‘traditional’ baseball people did to sabermetrics in the first place.
Another point, Jeff outlines his position quite early – he’s not trying to say Longoria is racist and he’s not trying to point out racism exists (duh), what he’s saying is encapsulated in this quote:
This confrontation may seem like a small spat between teammates, but may have an unseen racial impact with people that saw it.
He’s talking about what the impact of this may be with viewers. And I wouldn’t be surprised if people DO come away with this having some sort of racially charged conclusion. I agree that citing Gladwell is a bit flimsy, but I’m assuming Jeff isn’t much of a psychologist and that’s fine because it’s much easier to read Gladwell than it is to pour through the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology reading incredibly dense, nuanced articles. I’m also pretty sure that if you look up results on Implicit Association Testing (IAT) everyone would be surprised at how much latent racism exists (and if anyone really wants me to, I can probably dig up some articles on it as IAT tests generally seem to confirm our worst fears).
One thing I immediately thought about (although I could just be distorting facts here myself), but I feel like I heard a lot more about Elijah Dukes than I did about Scott Spiezio. However, counter to that, I also feel that Milton Bradley did get presented as more of a victim than an aggressor when he was baited by the umpire when he played for San Diego – so there are instances of the media not always being terrible.
Another point – to anyone who is talking about how when they think of leaders in baseball they’re never Black – there are only a handful of players that are really considered leaders (probably 1 per team at the most) and only a small percentage of baseball players are Black so it really not surprising that there aren’t too many Blacks considered leaders – it’s just a probability thing more than a race thing.
One last point now that I think about it – Jeff concludes by saying that the media is only going to portray one side of things and this will bias our perspective and that we can train ourselves to overcome these biases. He’s absolutely right and its not necessarily even that hard. Getting back to my IAT example, these tests work on reaction time and essentially its found that people press a computer key faster when linking Black with the word lazy than they would with linking White with lazy. Or more generally, people will react faster when linking Black with negative attributes than they will with linking White and negative attributes. However, if prior to taking the IAT people are exposed to (typically reading a short article about) popular and positive Black figures (Martin Luther King as the most popular example but also musicians, athletes, and other political figures are common), we see a decrease in the size of the difference in reaction time. So we really should just dislike the media more than anything (though I’m not necessarily agreeing with this particular transgression of Upton v Longoria as a great example of biased media reporting).
"These are thin mints. I put them in the freezer. My favorites. So good."
--Reds outfielder Adam Dunn, on the girl scout cookies he keeps in his locker
by Resolution on Jul 1, 2010 9:04 PM EDT reply actions 3 recs
To finesse one of your points, when Jeff concludes that the media will portray “one side of things” this does not imply racist intent, or any intent whatsoever, on the side of the media. Rather it means that the media will present a particular narrative of how things happened. In this particular case – the Upton/Longoria confrontation – the narrative confirms existing racist biases.
This then comes back to challenge site commenter Soria’s Unibrow’s rhetorical implication that racism would go away if we simply ignored it. What we are presented with is a case where racist notions and ideas are confirmed and buttressed completely by ‘accident.’ Racism is being propagated without any one persons intent. By drawing attention to racism being presented in this manner we are able to identify, understand, and hopefully mitigate its effects.
by handknit on Jul 2, 2010 12:27 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Awesome
I agree with this fully.
"These are thin mints. I put them in the freezer. My favorites. So good."
--Reds outfielder Adam Dunn, on the girl scout cookies he keeps in his locker
Sorry, I don't buy it
The assumption is that there’s some kind of white American collective unconsciousness that includes a racist social structure, which this incident may reinforce in people’s minds.
That’s unprovable. The simplest answer to this question is that about 5% of the US population will hear about the incident, and 95% of them are baseball fans, and 100% of baseball fans know red-ass ballplayers get mad at other ballplayers who dog it.
"The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey" - Unfortunate cricket commentator
Here's an example
In 1947, when the Organized Baseball color line was finally broken, probably about half of Americans disagreed with permitting black players to play alongside whites. They didn’t integrate the Army till the Korean War, or legally desegregate schools in Kansas and Missouri until ’54, or guarantee blacks the right to vote in the Deep South until 1965.
Today, I don’t think a single person in the US outside the compounds up in Assboink, Idaho, would want to ban blacks from baseball.
This is just part of a highly dramatic change in American attitudes toward race that occurred during the lifetimes of our parents. My grandmother, who was a racist (we loved her, but had to accept this fault, because she was born in Paris, Texas, in 1903), even came around on most racial questions before she died in 1991. She always did believe the Confederacy should have won, though.
One of the reasons that racist thinking is dying out is that old-line racists, like my grandmother, are dying out. Senator Byrd, the Democratic ex-Kleagle, who filibustered the Civil Rights Act, is an example.
"The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey" - Unfortunate cricket commentator
I see what you're saying
and I agree that this isn’t the 50’s anymore and America has come a long, long way. I also don’t think anyone really said that there are huge groups of people that want Blacks out of baseball or anything, and I agree that overt explicit racism has declined a large degree.
But having said that, you’re talking about explicit racism and not implicit racism which is what me, handknit, and even Malcolm Gladwell are talking about. Now I will say this, it’s somewhat unclear at this time what exactly the implications of implicit racism are. If people may have certain attitudes towards a group but yet they never act on those attitudes then are they really racists? I don’t know for sure. I’m 100% willing to make the distinction between explicit racism and implicit racism but I’m not really comfortable saying what the effects of implicit racism are. However, when seeing things like how skewed the racial composition of prison is, seeing numbers about how much less money Blacks make than Whites in the same job, and then reading studies on implicit racism using the IAT, or even better just reading studies where people have to choose between job candidates and the resumes are equal but one candidate is White and the other is Black – and how less often Black candidates are chosen, you get the feeling that America has come a long way, but we’re really not quite there yet. Now does this mean that there’s some sort of White American collective unconsciousness that includes a racist social structure? I don’t know, but I do feel that people generally aren’t as progressive or as egalitarian as they think they are because admitting so would be too damaging to one’s ego.
One other thing that hasn’t been mentioned yet is that I’m willing to bet that people who are really racist will see this Upton v Longoria incident and have no problem attaching racial undertones to it. But the majority of other people will just see one teammate calling out another who didn’t hustle.
"These are thin mints. I put them in the freezer. My favorites. So good."
--Reds outfielder Adam Dunn, on the girl scout cookies he keeps in his locker
by Resolution on Jul 2, 2010 10:00 AM EDT up reply actions 2 recs
+1
However, I still stand by this basic premise: if Longoria wants to call out Upton for not playing his hardest on a play, fine. But be a man about it. Save it for when you’re in the locker room and you can approach him one-on-one and not show him up in front of his teammates. If I were Upton, I’d be pissed at the way he handled it too.
www.stealingfirstbase.com
I impose a time period not comment on the article and I am a little past the point.
Thanks for all the comments.
I had the article written in some form for almost a year and finally found the nerve to post. I had planned on going with several different plays as examples. I knew it was going to be an emotional topic and the discussion is much more tame than I actually expected.
First I am sorry for not being more clear that the actual situation was not racially motivated in any way (btw, I never noticed David Price’s eyes – those are classic). I should have brought the media’s impact on the story more into focus. I actually used the Ray’s spat because ESPN had 3 different takes on it on their MLB page the day after it happened.
I wish I would have included most of what Resolution stated above. I had some stuff at one time on the IAT, but did remove it.
I really didn’t know if it was the right decision to publish it or not. I figured I learned something from Gladwell’s book, someone else could, Doing the college level phsych work than the normal 7th grade Math and English I normally write about here
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by Jeff Zimmerman on Jul 3, 2010 11:25 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
I think this was a pretty cool article
Maybe a little risky to publish, but it was different and a good discussion piece. I also think it highlights something people are generally unwilling to acknowledge/talk about, so kudos.
"These are thin mints. I put them in the freezer. My favorites. So good."
--Reds outfielder Adam Dunn, on the girl scout cookies he keeps in his locker
HA HA HA HA HA HA
I saw the play. “Upton is jogging for the ball” was the VERY first thought that popped into my head. Black,white, hispanic, or whatever race my center fielder happens to be should allow hm to play like a slug. That is what your saying, correct? BJ Upton can be a slug because he is black? Evan Longoria would never confront a WHITE center fielder for taking his sweet old time getting to a rolling baseball. NOT! BJ Upton just happens to be the BLACK, over-paid, under-performing center fielder that day for the Rays. I have a BLACK step Father (O.M.G.!!!). He is a finer husband to my Mother then my birth father ever was on his finest day. The fact that he is BLACK, and a fine man, is as real as BJ Upton is a undisciplined, self centered BLACK person who does not put forth 100% effort to help his team win. Any other FACTS you need declared to you that require no additional comments or thoughts like those you set forth in your silly post? DUMB ASS! GET A LIFE!
Thanks for just reading the first paragraph and none of the comments and then jump to conclusions.
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by Jeff Zimmerman on Jul 8, 2010 5:20 PM EDT up reply actions
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