Ira
Smolensky
Celebrating
Jackie Robinson
Major
League Baseball (MLB) has designated this coming Sunday as Jackie Robinson Day.
On that
day, various Major League players and managers will wear RobinsonÕs #42. These gentlemen, in my opinion, will
not merely be going through the motions to put over an annual promotion. They will be paying heartfelt homage to
a gritty pioneer in the journey to social and political justice, not only in
the United States, but also around the world.
Jackie
Robinson was truly a great American and a great human being.
Of course, Robinson
had spectacular athletic ability. As
a youth, he excelled at track, football, and basketball as well as
baseball. He went on to become a
vital cog in the great Brooklyn Dodger teams of the late Ô40Õs and Ô50Õs.
I loved to
watch Robinson play for the Dodgers.
He was a smart player who hated to lose. Nor did he ever seem to be afraid. Whether in the field, at the plate, or on the bases,
Robinson always played with terrific daring and boldness.
But, even
as a young person, I knew that Robinson was more than a star ballplayer on my
favorite team. Thanks mostly to my
parents, I knew that Robinson was integrating baseball and helping to integrate
the United States, a nation that had come home from the war against Nazi racists
only to find that we could not, in good conscience, look ourselves in the
mirror.
Jackie
Robinson helped us to deal with this sobering realization, one which divided
Americans in a way that could not be glossed over. Either we were going to grow toward the noble destiny
foreseen by our most enlightened founders, or succumb all over again to the
curse of racism.
With the
help of Jackie RobinsonÕs exceptional fortitude and self-control, we took a
leap forward in national consciousness, one that helped to pave the way for
groundbreaking civil rights legislation of the Ô50Õs and Ô60Õs.
And, so, it
is a truly fine thing that MLB and others are honoring Jackie Robinson.
But it is
not enough.
We have not
yet made it to the promised land of racial equality and harmony. Our country is still divided between
those who basically embrace the dream Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King
Jr. imparted to us and those busy with explicit or tacit backlash against
perceived threats to white male Euro-American dominance.
In some
ways, things are better now than when Jackie Robinson was alive. But they are not nearly good enough to
become complacent.
To truly
honor Jackie Robinson we should, once again, be taking a long hard look at
ourselves. We may not like what we
see. But how can the truth hurt us
if we are willing to do the right thing?
There is a
lot of talk about Òcutting and runningÓ nowadays, mostly in regard to the war
in Iraq. We just canÕt just Òcut
and run,Ó the warÕs supporters tell us.
Even some folks who now think the war was a mistake, believe, as one
Zephyr letter-writer suggested last week, that you have to finish what you
start, now matter how screwed up things may have been.
What kills
me is that I canÕt find any of these same folks telling us to finish what we
started when we passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th
amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Why is
that?
4/12/07