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Friday, July 27, 2018
Let’s pose a counterfactual: Josh Hader is black, and an excavation of his Twitter account reveals that he called whites “crackers,” wrote of his hatred for them and endorsed an organization that engaged in genocidal violence against whites. One of his tweets included a picture of a clenched black fist. That black pitcher had also expressed hatred for gays and made graphic, misogynist statements.
I’m trying to imagine thousands of white fans rising to their feet and giving him a standing ovation, even after he apologizes and blames youthful indiscretion. Or, rather, I’m trying and failing. We know what happened when a few black football players of good character took a knee to protest police violence against black Americans: They were pilloried by the president of the United States and received no standing ovations.
Some are now unemployed.
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can confirm
oh, I met Christie Brinkley once, when she was 50.
I had previously met a number of middle-aged celebrities who looked like freaks in real life.
David Hasselhoff was one, and pre-accident Christopher Reeve was another.
basically the surgeries to their faces (pre-HD) were designed to make them look best on the TV or movie screen, so who cares about real life?
but Christie?
I don't have any expertise in that world, of course - but she looked like she just walked off a SI swimsuit shoot 20 years earlier.
I dunno. Two versions of the same song, one the original, one the cover by The Hassles.
Little Willie John
The Hassles
Honestly, if you prefer The Hassles version, I think you're weird.
Attila were kind of cool, but only because they spent all their time in a meat locker.
I saw Madonna and Sharon Stone about 10 minutes apart on South Beach in the mid-90s. Madonna looked entirely unremarkable but Stone looked...she looked like a movie star. I don't get star struck by beautiful women but she was stunning.
I don't know the specifics of Hader, but it's not hard to imagine that a white baseball player future pro-prospect is probably a guy who came from a relatively affluent family and was probably not exposed a lot to minorities other than as a teammate he sees on a travelling league or as the opposition. His bb-ref page lists Old Mills high school in Millersville Maryland. It doesn't really seem a place that you would expect a lot of natural racial integration. Since then he's spent five years in the minors, probably exposed to a lot more than he has ever seen in his life, those tweets was from 1/4 of his life in the past. I can see why people are willing to forgive him, if he makes the correct comments, or at least attempts to make the correct comments and stumbles a bit, because he's still only 24 years old, and probably not the most media savvy person on the planet.
Billy Joel was always cool. You land yourself a Christie Brinkley, then you can talk smack about Billie Joel. Now Billy Joe was never cool, but who the heck listens to Green Day to be cool.
Christie Brinkley of course has fucking nothing to do with anything regarding the assessment of Billy Joel.
Yes, Hader said some stupid, racist things when he was younger. It appears that he has outgrown them. Good for him. It's unproductive to pile on him for juvenile mistakes that he seems to have moved beyond.
But that sidesteps the question: WHY did Josh Hader, a half-century after the civil rights movement gained traction, develop racist viewpoints and attitudes like these to begin with? Where did he pick this stuff up in a supposedly "post-racial" America? What kind of toxicity existed in the culture he grew up in? He didn't acquire these feelings in a vacuum.
Until we explore, answer, and resolve THOSE questions, this story (and worse ones) will continue to be repeated.
FTR, the current student body at Old Mill High School is 55% minority, the majority of which are black. I doubt if that's changed all that significantly in the past 6 years.
¹Unfortunately, many people (not just 17-year olds) are too dumb to understand that saying things online is automatically saying them publicly, even if few people are listening at the time they post them.
A half-century ago I knew a girl who had The Hassles album, pretty sure she played it for me once. So now I know of 3 people who've heard it.
No, it is not a child. It is a moron with adult functioning capabilities.
18-21 is normal college age. I think back to how "adult" most of the guys -- me included -- acted.
Not pretty.
In the same way that walking up to a five-year old and going "pull my finger" is speech, yeah, I guess so
Bingo... agree completely. That was a better way of presenting my point than I did.
You give people an excuse to really jump on an opposing team player, and especially a good one, and they will grab it with gusto. Hader could be the nicest, most woke, least racist man in MLB, and he is still going to get this treatment from opposing fans for the rest of career.
That's just the way it works.
Seriously. Even before the Hader story, but certainly after, every agent should have been asking, "Hey, you got any old social media posts you wouldn't want the world to see now?"
Chelsea Janes
Verified account @chelsea_janes
A few of Trea Turner’s tweets from 2011 and 2012 resurfaced today. They include racially insensitive language and homophobic slurs. The Nationals are aware of this, and are gathering information.
9:13 PM - 29 Jul 2018
Seriously. Even before the Hader story, but certainly after, every agent should have been asking, "Hey, you got any old social media posts you wouldn't want the world to see now?"
Seriously indeed. Why is baseball always reactive rather than proactive when it comes to dealing with racism?
No; before the Hader (autocorrect insists that it's Vader) story, every agent should've been asking their clients that. Post-Hader, every agent should be hiring interns to review every single tweet personally. You can't rely on your idiot client remembering every tweet made years ago. You need to review them all.
Nobody is going to remember this in a couple of seasons.
it's effective as long as no one has already saved them.
major celebrities basically can't rely on deleting tweets even a minute later - anything stupid they say will be instantly saved by countless fans and critics, so the quick deletion is too late (if modestly mitigating, to show that once they thought twice....)
Sean Newcomb is not on that level, of course.
that said, there probably are many pro athletes whose history has now been, well, combed anew for offensive tweets. it's an arms race - factor in the fame level of the client with the offensiveness of the social media posts.
Good point.
Were you ever a teenage boy? He said those things because they were offensive, edgy, and socially unacceptable. It's like a middle school kid who uses five curse words per sentence just to be cool.
How many of us here were teenage boys? Raise your hand.
OK, how many of us said some dumb things as a teenager trying to be cool? Keep your hands up, everyone.
Now, how many of us said they hate gay people and openly supported the KKK?
</crickets>
I did but that's only because they had the bizarre tendency to all segregate themselves on my opposing sports teams.
seasons.weeks, the mob having moved on with their torches and pitchforks to the next manufactured outrage du jour.You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
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