Carrol
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Marxism] Barry Bonds Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 17:54:04 -0400 From: Fred Feldman <ffeldman at bellatlantic.net> Reply-To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition<marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu> To: marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu
I just got back online after a several-week hiatus. I want to make some comments on the discussion of Barry Bonds' record.
One theme that appeared several times was that there have been no "open" racist comments by fans taunting or booing Bonds. Only recently, of course, has the media begun to admit that the big majority of the fans booing and condemning Bonds were white. And only now are the polls showing that a racial polarization on this matter getting wide publicity. Until recently, the media -- whose basic stance has been to urge on the hostile fans -- as presented the booing in purely nonracial terms,\
Of course any fan who shouted racist epithets at Bonds would be viewed as ruining things for everybody else. It would be a big blow to the moral authority of what is supposed to be a "color blind" morality campaign against a Black man.
Of course, it is a good thing that anti-Black epithets are substantially discredited, even among a great many whites. It is a good thing that racist campaigns, intense or low-keyed, must now be waged primarily in "color blind" terms if they are to be effective. Society has gone forward to that extent.
Whst is still taking time to register with the left is the degree to which "color blindness" has become the defensive mask of institutionalized racism, much more important right now than open declarations of racial hatred or white superiority. It is precisely the refusal to recognize race as a central factor that becomes the justification for racism, and the means of lining up whites in particular behind racist stances and efforts. The measure of antiracism becomes one's refusal to differentiate by color, to notice the stratification, to see discrimination, and so on.
Thus the Supreme Court can uphold de facto segregation on the grounds
that to do otherwise would be to "discriminate by race." You don't like
that Blacks make up 69 percent of prisoners and fill the death rows.
>"Criminals are criminals! Why drag race into this. After all, no judge, no prosecuting attorney, no cop, and no juror used the word "n-word" in the courtroom or spoke against Bl;ack people in general. (Of course, it was not always thus -- but why do some Black people and others have to carry on like nothing had changed!)
"Color blindness" means a willed inability to see racism. And so a confrontation like the OJ Simpson case, or the Barry Bonds issue or many others become purely abstract nonracial morality campaigns against a Black man. On one side, there are the majority of decent white folks who have put aside prejudice and discrimination and respond to these matters on the basis of pure morality and simple truth. OJ did it! Bonds did "it.
But the Blacks find it hard to unify on the line of purely nonracial, purely moral "morality>" They fail the test of the post-racist era by continuing to push this outmoded and outgrown issue to the fore. They just can't get ovcr it. So they end up on the "wrong" side in the eyes of reformed, "nonracial" color blind White America. (Which once saw racial stratification quite clearly, when it was more in its interest to do so, but now considers recognizing racial stratification as "dragging race into everything.")
Now the argument that racism has nothing to do with the Barry Bonds campaign has been dealt a hard blow by someone the campaigners had been trying to use as their "nonracial" Black "white hope." Henry Aaron.
In a NY Times interview Sunday, he made it clear that he rejects the idea that the booing and denunciations of Bonds as he approached the record had nothing to do with race, that the situation was totally different from what he and his family faced when he approached Ruth's record. He makes it clear that he sees similarity between what Bonds is facing and what he faced -- although the racism against Aaron was much more gross and open.
He has also made it clear that in his eyes Bonds' record is not conditional on the steroids investigation and so on. His stance is that a new record has been set and this is a great accomplishment in baseball -- period.
The media campaigners against Bonds had song a bill of goods to the effect that Aaron was seething with outrage as Bonds approached the record, boiling with indignation about steroids and so on. This didn't fit my image of Aaron as a rather level-headed and thoughtful person, and it turned out that this image -- created virtually without quoting Aaron at all but reading his mind -- was pure bull.
I am inclined to give Bonds the benefit when he says he didn't use steroids, but even if he did, I don't think he "cheated." Using steroids was simply not against the rules in baseball when he is alleged to have done so -- period. Outlawing and drug testing all came very recently. The witch-hunting into the past of every player which is being encouraged is simply an outrageous invasion of rights -- ex post facto legislation pure and simple
Because steroid use was not outlawed in baseball, we have no way of knowing and, I really think, no need to know how far back it went and how nmany were involved. If it was not against the rules of the game, quite a few players may well have given it a try.
The current steroids were not around for Babe Ruth but I doubt he felt any moral qualms about using performance enhancers that were available to him. And we know of course that he generally flowed into work in a river of alcohol.
I think it is important that we be clear that if steroids are to be banned, it should not be for enhancing performance but to the extent that they endanger life and health.\
I do not see why we should be opposed to enhancing human performance, including in sports. After all, no cave person would have hit 714 home runs even they had been miraculously given a bat and a ball park. It took thousands of years of performance enhancement to create Babe Ruth and the beat goes on.
If steroids are to be banned, it should not be for making people stronger, faster, or whatever, but for the damage they are found to do to human beings. Even then, the necessity of outlawing them, in law or in baseball, should be weighed more carefully than is being done today.
The whole steroid debate keeps reminding me of my favorite Lily Tomlin one-liner: "Do you ever worry that drugs may be making us more creative than we really are?"
Of course we should also oppose making steroids a new front in the war against drugs -- which is doing more harm to humanity than any of the drugs it targets. Perhaps when we note the racial composition of those who go to jail for using or selling steroids, it will become a little clearer to all of us that there was something racist in the campaign against Barry Bonds. Fred Feldman
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