Responses to Responses

Sorry ... little action on the blog lately. That's what having eighty-some papers to grade will do to a person. ... And still not out of the woods ...

I did, though, take a few moments last Wednesday to send comments to two individuals whose work I have engaged recently on this blog. First, I sent a comment to Le Anne Schreiber, the ESPN Ombudsman, expressing my gratitude for her continuing excellent work in critiquing ESPN. I also referred her to my blog entry in which I both express that gratitude and suggest the need to add further consideration to her treatment of "East Coast Bias." Then, I sent a comment to Lou Dobbs, the CNN program host, referring him to my blog entry in which I critiqued his treatment of the subject of English-only policies in schools.

I heard back from Schreiber on Friday in an email message expressing her gratitude to me for my message and the sentiment that comments like mine help in her efforts at ESPN. Thank you to Ms. Schreiber for her response. Her sentiments help me in my efforts as well, as it's nice to know that I may be contributing to the bettering of that which I am so often critiquing.

I have not heard back from Mr. Dobbs, though, which is not to say that I expect a response or wish to demand one. Rather, it is to say that I would welcome the response and I would note it here. I'll let you know if I hear anything ...

Jules Tygiel

Upon receiving my September/October newsletter from SABR (The Society for American Baseball Research) this weekend, I was incredibly saddened to find out that Jules Tygiel passed away at the age of 59 this past July.

Tygiel is most known for his book Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and his Legacy, which was first published in 1983. I feel confident in saying that this is the most definitive historical account of the racial integration of Major League Baseball that has been published. I also think that this book should be required reading for anyone who is interested in the study of the history and social significance of baseball. On page 9 of the book, Tygiel argues that “the integration of baseball represented both a symbol of imminent racial challenge and a direct agent of social change. Jackie Robinson’s campaign against the color line in 1946-7 captured the imagination of millions of Americans who had previously ignored the nation’s racial dilemma. For civil rights advocates the baseball experience offered a model of peaceful transition through militant confrontation, economic pressure, and moral suasion.” In some of my own work I have suggested that the agency that Tygiel ascribes to integration in this work needs to be tempered with a fuller recognition of the politics of integration—i.e. that the way it occurred served to reinforce white privilege by consolidating control of professional baseball in the United States under white ownership. However, even as I have offered this suggestion, I have always claimed that we should not entirely discount Tygiel’s argument here. Integration as it proceeded had both its progressive and its conservative aspects. Based on other things I’ve read from him and from the one time that I spoke personally with him, I think that Tygiel would not disagree.

I met Tygiel once—at the NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture conference in Tucson, Arizona, in the spring of 2004. He attended the panel on which I presented a paper based on interviews that I had done with folks who had been Dodger fans when the Dodgers were in Brooklyn. He participated in the discussion afterward and spoke with me personally after the panel had concluded. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, though I later regretted that I didn’t politely ask him one question for which I had wanted an answer for awhile: how to pronounce his last name. I had never met anyone else who, upon my asking, knew for sure how to pronounce his last name. Meanwhile, I had always felt a little embarrassed every time I had to say his last name while citing him in a presentation—which was often, since I’ve been studying the Brooklyn Dodgers, including their role in integration, for years—since I was unsure whether or not I was saying it correctly. That conversation in 2004 had been my chance to ask him directly and hours later I realized I had blown it. Unfortunately, it was his obituary in the New York Times that finally gave me my answer when I read it today.

Politics as Usual?

Count me among those who see the reasoning behind John McCain choosing Sarah Palin for his running mate in the 2008 presidential election. I’m not going to rehash all of the reasons for choosing her, since all of that can be found in the many accounts that have discussed the choice over the past week. Suffice to say that I see the logic of it and, while I’m not going to try to act like I know enough to say if she was the “correct” choice, I’ll say that I think Palin as McCain’s choice makes sense and, while I don't want to say I "like" the choice, since I tend to disagree with a lot of Palin's positions, I certainly see good reasons for choosing her. (Of course, what do I know? When George W. Bush was elected president in 2000, while I was an ardent supporter of Al Gore, I said that at least Bush wouldn’t screw up the country …)

Since McCain’s announcement of Palin as his running mate, members of the Republican Party have utilized the choice of Palin to attempt to align their party and their nominees with rights and opportunities for women. Indeed, it appears that that was one of the reasons why Palin was chosen and, in line with that, many attempts have been made, by Republicans and by others, to portray Palin as a kind of legacy of the women’s rights movement. We have even seen in the past week that, as a woman, Palin faces rather explicit sexism in the United States, as her ability to perform on the job when she has a number of children at home has been called into question in a way that is seldom asked of a man.

Yet, if we want to identify Palin with the women’s rights movement, we might examine the depth of her understanding of that movement and the way in which it proceeded. In particular, I would ask that we look more fully at the way in which her speech in accepting the Republican nomination for vice president characterized the role of community organizers. At a couple of points, Palin’s speech suggested that community organizers do little real work. This was obviously meant as a direct reference to Barack Obama’s experiences as a community organizer. Yet, to disparage the work of a community organizer is to deny what has been a very important role in many movements for equality throughout the history of the United States. Community organizers have been key figures in the development of many social movements, including the Civil Rights Movement, the gay rights movement, and the women’s rights movement. Indeed, if it wasn’t for many community organizers throughout the history of the women’s rights movement, Palin herself might not have had the opportunity that she accepted tonight. By calling into question the work that community organizers do, Palin has failed to recognize the contributions of many women and men who have helped her occupy the position she is in today. Additionally, by extension, Palin has called into question the women’s rights movement that has depended on these community organizers’ work.

I tend to think that Palin did not mean to disparage the good work of these people. Her reference seemed to be meant as one of the several sarcastic one-liners that were included in the speech in an attempt to create a usable sound byte that challenged the qualifications of her political adversary—in this case questioning Obama’s experience. These kinds of remarks are a convention of the genre of a campaign speech. They are, basically, a part of politics as it is played in America. We should though, make note of the hidden politics that are reinforced in the process of playing such politics. While sexism takes its more explicit forms in the kinds of remarks that Palin has had to face, it also takes its more implicit forms in the many other ways in which the contributions of women and the struggle for equality for women go unnoticed. With that in mind, I would ask Palin to reconsider her use of this particular one-liner.

I Apologize in Advance for This One

While reading Jayson Stark's column from August 28, I discovered what Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn from Major League did after his playing career ended: public relations for the Tampa Bay major league baseball club. Check out Number 2 here to see. From the California Penal League to public relations ... Wow!

Okay, I'm sure that guy gets this kind of joke all the time, but I couldn't help myself.

"Because she's a girl"

While we still have much to do to recognize the extent of gender-based discrimination in this country, you’d think that we would have at least moved past this. Inevitably, a major part of the discourse surrounding this case will be the difference between “public” institutions and “private” institutions. Even many folks who disagree with kicking this girl off the football team will concede that, as a private institution, the school has the right to do as it wishes. That was part of the debate over lack of female membership at Augusta National Golf Club a few years ago, it was part of how Lou Dobbs framed discussion of English-only policies that I wrote about last week, and it plays a significant role in many other cases that involve discrimination based on gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, nation of origin, etc. I have thought for some time that we may need to rethink the ways that the United States conceptualizes public and private, including both our cultural conceptualizations and our legal conceptualizations of this split. This instance just reconfirms that thought.

The Road to Hell ...

… is paved with good intentions. So the old adage goes. I’m not really big on adages like that. If taken as literal truth, they usually oversimplify whatever they are describing. Still, sometimes they are useful for raising some kind of concern. I think this one applies to the following:

Two weeks ago, while flipping around television stations, I caught a few moments of Lou Dobbs’ program on CNN. During the segment that I saw, his guest was William Donohue, the President of the Catholic League. The topic was, as CNN’s caption at the bottom of the screen put it, “English Only: Fight over Language in School.” More specifically, Dobbs and Donohue were discussing a legal case in which a Catholic school in Wichita, Kansas, was being sued by three sets of parents whose children were kicked out of the school for refusing to sign a document stating that they would abide with the school’s policy by which only English could be spoken in the school. Here is a local news story from Wichita that covers the lawsuit (along with numerous comments by readers that are of interest as well). Here is another story that explains the ruling that U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten made in the case, which I think is also interesting on various levels.

Video of the exchange between Dobbs and Donohue can be seen here (and a transcript is available here). In watching this segment of Dobbs’ program, it seems fairly obvious that Mr. Donohue is disturbed by the case against the school. He sounds quite upset about it, judging by his tone and body language. Particularly when Donohue discusses his own personal experience helping a Hispanic woman and how that was “facilitated” by the fact that the woman spoke English, I think he truly believes that his desire for everyone in the United States to learn and speak English is out of genuine concern for the well-being of individuals who might otherwise not speak English—in this case, specifically, Hispanics. He appears to think that this is the appropriate path to fostering democracy and providing these people with opportunities in the United States.

At one point, Donohue indignantly declares “People ought to get their head straight,” seemingly out of frustration. I would indignantly declare back at Donohue … and Dobbs as well, particularly given the ways that he frames this issue … that if there is anyone who needs to “get their heads straight,” it is them. Specifically, their heads could do with a dose of American history, cultural theory, and communication and linguistic theory.

First there is the historical inadequacy of the positions being taken by individuals like Dobbs and Donohue. These positions are framed by the retelling of a version of American history that leaves out significant aspects of that history. Leaving aside for now the issues involving immigration to which their positions are connected, these individuals’ framing of American history would have us believe that English has been the native language of all native-born United States citizens. This is most explicitly suggested when Dobbs states that the individuals bringing the suit against the school “want … us to change the language of this nation, change our laws, change our rule, and completely forget 200 years of history and ideals and values that have made this liberal society available to them.” This representation of the United States is historically inaccurate. Notably, many Hawaiians and Alaskans were speaking languages other than English when these territories became states. Additionally, many of the inhabitants of Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of California, Texas, and Colorado were Spanish-speaking citizens of Mexico before suddenly becoming U.S. citizens after the United States gained these lands through war with Mexico. And let us not, of course, forget the many Native Americans who spoke various languages before Europeans claimed this land as America. So, to suggest that English is so monolithically the basis for the development of United States communities is flat out inaccurate.

Additionally—and this where we learn from cultural studies—such a suggestion is flat out racist. It denies the legitimacy of non-European American experiences, contributions, and perspectives, which have been significant elements of U.S. history and remain significant elements of U.S. culture. Additionally, the suggestion that others should be forced to learn someone’s language so that the two individuals can communicate—the very thing that Donohue sees as so unilaterally beneficial—places the status of one group above another. It suggests that one group needs to accommodate the other group and that the second group should have to do none of the work to make democracy happen. It’s akin to the various ways in which white Americans have systematically claimed that their ways of doing things are better than everyone else’s or simply that their ways of doing things are just “standard” for everyone and not a matter of race or culture. (See, for instance, the case of Thomas Benya, for a good example of how white practices of acceptable attire were characterized as a standard not based in cultural heritage (even though, in reality, they are), while non-white practices—in this case Native American practices—were seen as “cultural heritage.”) This connection to things being characterized as “culture” and not “culture” is most apparent in the clip from Dobbs’ show when Donohue, with a sense of disgust in his voice, calls some critics of what he’s defending “the multicultural left.” I’d be quite willing to assume that Donohue does not really know the goals and projects of multiculturalism, given the way he is referencing it here. The really disgusting aspect of this case, then, is that Donohue dares reference multiculturalism like he knows what it’s about when it seems apparent that he does not.

In the end, Donohue provides what is a typical racist response. As a member of the racially empowered group, he sees it as the responsibility of disempowered groups to take up the culture of the empowered group and he does not appear to see the practice of the empowered group—in this case, the practice of speaking English—as a culturally or racially based practice. He cites his good intentions as if these seem to absolve him from racism or from the need to examine his own assumptions about race. He may think he has good intentions; however, good intentions do not absolve us from our responsibilities to democracy. The unwillingness to examine one’s own race-based assumptions makes one complicit with the continuation of racism and, thus, at odds with the ongoing project of democracy.

Additionally, communication and linguistic studies show us that languages offer not just alternative means of expression, but also means of expression that sometimes are not available in other languages. Some expressions in Spanish or Chinese or Arabic do not have direct translations in English, and vice versa. So, when the speaking of a language is banned or punished, ways of expressing things and, thus, the potential for insightful perspectives go unheard. That would seem to be, by definition, at odds with democracy. What makes this even more reprehensible in the case of this school in Wichita is that the school has literally equated use of a language other than English with bullying, as if it is English that is threatened here and, as a corollary of that, it is English speakers (i.e., those who are already privileged in this country) who would be victims if the policy was not adopted. When Donohue starts talking about this aspect of his argument, I even start to wonder if he has the “good intentions” he claims to have.

For now, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and characterize him as uninformed instead of viewing him as just flat out mean. Still, being informed does not absolve him either. Donohue, Dobbs, and others of a similar mindset would do well to heed the words of Barack Obama when he said that “you need to make sure that your child can speak Spanish,” rather than characterize Obama’s statement as “an elitist mindset,” as is the case within a piece that appears on one website to which Dobbs’ own website offers a link. Indeed, if anyone is being elitist, it's English-speaking people who are demanding that others conform to their mindset.

This fall, I am taking Spanish 101 along with my wife because, for years (indeed, well before either of us knew who Barack Obama is), we have been saying that we think it would be good to know and we're finally getting a good chance to do it. Yet even as I’m doing this, I’m seeing a number of instances like this case in Wichita in which English-only is being adopted as policy … most recently in the LPGA. Rather than English-speaking folks getting disgusted by the use of other languages in the United States and subsequently banning the use of languages other than English, wouldn’t a much better approach—and a much more democratic approach—promote all of us learning multiple languages? I’d much rather see a curriculum that says all students will learn Spanish, English, and at least one other language (perhaps even some choice for a third) throughout their education than see the implementation of English-only policies.

In Memory of Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones

Yesterday, Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio passed away at the age of 58, after suffering a brain aneurysm while driving in Cleveland Heights the previous evening. I am saddened by the loss of a legislator for whom I had immense respect. Had she aspired for further or higher political office, such as the Senate or even the presidency, I would have lined up behind her. I felt that I would be remiss if I did not devote at least a short post in this blog to express my sadness over her sudden and untimely passing and my deep gratitude for her service to my country.

In doing so, I am also reminded of the fragility of life that has been so prominent in the lives of my wife and me this summer. The details of Stephanie Tubbs’ death – suffering a brain aneurysm while driving, passing away the next day, only in her fifties at the time of her death – mirror those of my mother in-law, who passed away in May. On a personal level, the sadness that I feel is magnified by the timing of Tubbs Jones’ death. She died on what would have been my mother-in-law’s 53rd birthday.

May you be remembered and cherished, Representative Tubbs Jones, for your profound commitment to democracy. I know I’ll remember you that way.