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Way Beyond Hyphenated Americans
A friend of mine on Facebook posted that he was disgusted with his favorite baseball team (the Cincinnati Reds) kneeling during the national anthem. Another FB friend posted the picture to the right, with the following comment: “Not defending, maybe just rationalizing a bit, but two black guys, a Mexican and a Canadian, kneeling while 5 guys born in America stand with hat over heart, one with his hand on the shoulder of his black teammate.” As I understand his comment, he’s saying that the foreigners (Canadian and the Mexican) kneel during the American national anthem, and this makes sense to him. I would point out that Americans don’t kneel during the Canadian national anthem when we play there, but whatever.
The part of his comment that really bothers me, though, is that he seems to equate being a black American to being a foreigner – not a true American citizen like the others. This is poison. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement fought hard for the right to fully join American Society. And now, Colin Kapernick and Black Lives Matter are fighting for the right to fully leave American society. Not to be hyphenated Americans (African-Americans), which is still way too segregated for my taste. No, they do not want to be Americans at all. They have declared that they do not respect what America stands for, and refuse to be part of America. “What America stands for – I don’t stand for that. I kneel.” They openly disdain America as a country.
But they do not intend to leave.
His phrase from his comment breaks my heart: “… 5 guys born in America stand with hat over heart, one with his hand on the shoulder of his black teammate.” He’s touched by the show of solidarity between Americans and black people. His unspoken message: Because black people aren’t really Americans, even if they’re born here.
Why, of course not. Surely you understand.
The function of our national anthem is to promote unity. Which, clearly, is the opposite of the goal of the American left. The Democrat party has become the anti-American party. And it will remain so until Democrat politicians clearly denounce such divisiveness. They have not done so. Quite the contrary.
This is heartbreaking.
This is poison.
Published in General
America made that Canadian a very wealthy man. He lives in Florida during the off-season season in order to ease his tax burdens, too. Perhaps he should talk to his third baseman, the man who hails from Venezuela, and ask him how Marxism has “blessed” that country.
All true and brilliantly presented. But I don’t think the majority of blackfolk will fall for this approach.
This is what they are doing. Not us. They are doing this. Now we can expect a separate national anthem for blacks.
They should act like Americans.
If they can’t stand for the anthem of this country, perhaps they should play ball in a country where they can.
Stop playing the National Anthem. Let ’em kneel for “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Written by an Englishman, I believe.
They want to fit in, supposedly, or at least they wanted to at one time. Now they are doing everything they can to be alienated from America. It’s very, very sad.
If only it wasn’t such a fundraising windfall for them.
“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts ‘native’ before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul.“ Theodore Roosevelt
As They say, “read the whole thang.”
It is heartbreaking. Black Americans were here from the beginning—fighting alongside white Americans during the Revolution (in integrated units!) and fighting for America during the Civil War too, not to mention WW1 and WW2, despite coming home from the battles against Hitler in Italy, France and Germany and against the Japanese in the Pacific, to face racism at home.
Still, they believed. America is what it is because there are and have always been black Americans. Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth are as American as Abraham Lincoln and Susan B. Anthony.
It’s important for everyone to take a loyalty oath and say the pledge of allegiance: “Black Lives Matter.” If you can’t do that, you aren’t a loyal American.
No! Not baseball too! If so, I’m done.
This is evil. The worst form of Marxism.
This is America. They have freedom of speech. As do I. And thousands of sports fans about to take up cribbage or curling. It’s the virus, I’m sure. People are leery. You betchya.
Given that the civil authorities can’t even sanely manage something as simple as women’s sports, let’s convert the stadiums and arenas into detention centers for holding rioters until the city in question has had 53 consecutive good night sleeps. Trump was always big on eminent domain.
Baseball is so stupid.
The game is outdoors where the risk of transmission is low.
Every player is socially distanced except for the catcher and home plate umpire.
I suppose the dugout could be a ‘danger’ zone.
Just a suspicion, but i doubt that most covid transmissions in the world of sports are player to player.
‘Black Lives Matter’ will be stenciled on Busch Stadium mound, says Cardinals pitcher
Major League Baseball is following the lead of the NBA and NFL when it comes to using its platform to promote social justice.
The concise statement, “Black lives matter” is most certainly true, but that isn’t what it means in the context of the various sports arenas. “Black Lives Matter” there is as much a political rallying slogan as “Liberté, égalité, fraternité.”
Beautifully articulated.
If extreme behavior works it expands, if not it will shrink. Don’t watch the games, don’t buy the products advertised, if you don’t care enough for such minor gestures, forget about it. You can also write saying as long as such behavior continues you won’t watch or, if relevant, use the product advertised. If there is no cost, it will continue as it’s good PR for them.
The latest line being trotted out is that kneeling “isn’t a sign of disrespect”, that it merely is a demonstration of a personal cause. Joe Rogan trotted that line out yesterday with Shapiro on his show. Seems the kneelers want it both ways, to maintain the perks of American pride while simultaneously destroying the ideas that support it.
The message on the BLM home page has shifted from eliminating the nuclear family and defund the police to planks in the Democratic platform. Ergo, “Black Lives Matter” is now an endorsement of both the Communist front organization and the Democratic Party. Lot’s of overlap, there, I know. Bye, bye, baseball.
That Venn diagram would look like just one big circle, I suspect…
I never thought I’d say this but MLB can go to hell.
The Cleveland Indians, apparently, took a different approach. They look like a team.
Good for them.
There is a meme that I am too lazy too find that has Kaepernick on it. The meme says, “America a nation so great, the people who hate it don’t leave.” If only they would.
Scoop Jackson and Ronald Reagan cooperated to force the USSR to respect the right of emigration for refusenicks. The right of emigration never came up about America if I recall.
I don’t mean to be condescending but black solders tended to be a bit braver than the non-Irish white soldiers. They had something to prove.