Jackie Bradley Jr. For President

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The handmade home of a creative couple - photography by Pia Ulin

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The Story of Your Life 

February 16th

[patcasey13-blog]

Campus Event: Urban Blaze Show

I won’t write a lot about the Urban Blaze show last week, since I saw about 80% of the class there.

This was such a great show.  I haven’t been to many shows like this in my life—and I don’t just mean dance/step performances: I thought the format into which the show was organized was cool and unique.  To separate performances into different segments relating to different aspects of identity (gender, race, etc.) was especially innovative, as it allowed for me to think about the different performances with those things in mind.  This, for me, helped me understand the performances much better than I would have had I just been watching them with no context. 

[patcasey13-blog]

This piece was the most immediately striking to me upon walking into the Johnson Museum.  A black mirror is really cool looking on it’s own, but it has a much more significant meaning attached to it...

When you look into the mirror, you see yourself in the reflection as black, surrounded by blackness.  For me, at least, the experience was an emotional one: I have been racially White for my entire life, and while looking into the mirror didn’t show me what a racially Black version of myself, that was the metaphor I took away.  The fact that all of my surroundings were black in color was the most significant aspect of all: not only had my skin color changed when I looked into the mirror—everything around me did, too.  To me, this represented the fact that to be Black is not only to have a different skin color from my own, but also to have a very different world around you than the one that surrounds me. 

[patcasey13-blog]

Race Across Entertainment Mediums

Bullets still ringing, blood on the cement/

Black folks grieving, headlines reading/

Tryna pay it no mind, you just living your life/

Everyone is a witness, everyone got opinions

               “Animals” by Dr. Dre (feat. Anderson .Paak)

It's funny how Zulu and Xhosa might go to war/


Two tribal armies that want to build and destroy/


Remind me of these Compton Crip gangs that live next door/


Beefin' with Piru's, only death settle the score/

So don't matter how much I say I like to preach with the Panthers/


Or tell Georgia State "Marcus Garvey got all the answers"/


Or try to celebrate February like it's my B-Day/

Or eat watermelon, chicken, and Kool-Aid on weekdays/

Or jump high enough to get Michael Jordan endorsements/


Or watch BET cause urban support is important/

So why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street?/


When gang banging make me kill a nigga blacker than me?/

Hypocrite!

                      “The Blacker The Berry” by Kendrick Lamar

To listen to Dr. Dre’s Compton or Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly is to put oneself into the shoes of a young black man in South Central LA.  It is an opportunity I treasure, this opportunity to begin to understand the experience of a person of a different race through art.  Unfortunately, such opportunities are being offered on a large scale through only one type of popular entertainment medium: music. Hip-hop/rap, arguably the most widely listened-to and influential genre of our time, has tackled difficult questions of race and racism head-on, as the above lyrics will attest.  Television and film have not, to say the least.  It is difficult to explore race on screen when there is no racial diversity among the actors—which is the case, according to Professor Darnell Hunt of UCLA: “Minorities [are] underrepresented by a factor of more than three to one among lead roles in film… Minorities [are] underrepresented by a factor of about seven to one among lead roles in broadcast comedies and dramas.”[1]  Why is there such a difference in race consciousness across entertainment mediums?

The initial observation of music being more conscious of racial issues than visual media is explained by the fact that popular music exhibits a great deal more diversity than does popular television. But this observation raises another question: why is this the case?  Why has historically non-white music has gained such a wide audience in the first place, while the casts of popular television shows and films are still predominantly white?  I argue that this paradox is not a result of more bias against people of color among television viewers than among music listeners; rather, it results from differences in the nature of these mediums themselves, primarily the fact that music is generally less costly to create than are films and television shows, making it generally more accessible to minorities.

It is much cheaper to write and record a piece of music than it is to produce a television show or a movie, the result being both more music and more diversity within music compared to TV and film. Music is thus a more accessible route of self-expression for minorities—for anyone, really—than visual media is, the result being a more diverse variety of musical options than of television programs available to the consumer.  (It is also, of course, more accessible for everyone—and this is why there are far more musicians than there are directors, more albums than movies.)  Musicians are only restricted by their own imaginations; would-be producers and directors are restricted by the financial burdens inherent to the enterprise.  This may sound abstract, but one sees the results of this everyday. Our popular artists form a smorgasbord of different races: White, Black, Asian American, etc. The people that create our favorite television shows and movies, on the other hand, are overwhelmingly white.  As Dr. Hunt notes, “Minorities [are] underrepresented by a factor of about 3 to 1 among film directors… [They are] underrepresented by a factor of nearly 5 to 1 among film writers… [and] by a factor of nearly 9 to 1 among creators of broadcast comedies and dramas.” Thus, not only are there fewer numerical options on television compared to music, there are a lesser variety of options.  

Because of the wider variety of available musical genres than of television programs and films, racists respond differently to minority musicians than they do towards minorities on the screen.  Racist music listeners can more readily avoid lashing out against rap music, for instance, because they have a lot of other listening options that may be more in line with their tastes.  This is less true in the case of television and film, given that there are relatively few viewing alternatives.  There can only be so many primetime television shows and so many films showing in theatres at any given time, so people with bias against people of color are limited in their ability to avoid different races on the screen.  In some cases there are no alternatives, a point best understood using the example of the #BoycottStarwarsVII campaign.

 #BoycottStarwarsVII grew out of anger among some Starwars fans over the fact that J.J. Abrams had cast a black lead in John Boyega for The Force Awakens.  These fans do not have the option to watch a alternate version of Starwars VII with a white lead, because no such thing exists. Since these people are unable to simply ignore actors of different races and still watch the movie, their racism boils to the surface and manifests itself in a way people can see out in the open.

So we’ve established that the apparent racial differences between music and film/TV are not due to any different racist attitudes among film/TV watchers and music listeners.  But why should that matter?  Why should we care about race in media?

Why do we care? is, to me, the most important thing this course has taught me to ask.  Even before taking it, I would have been able to use logic to come up with the argument I laid out above—but I probably wouldn’t have thought much about why it was worthwhile to look at racial differences in different industries.  I’ve always known racism was bad, but there wasn’t much more to it than that until I took this course.  Race is complicated; racial undertones can be found nearly everywhere, and every time one looks at it from a different angle, one gains a deeper, more complete understanding of race and racialization in general.

           So why do we care about race in art?

Art is literally a performance, of course—but it is also a performance in the sense that to create it is to embody a certain identity.  Judith Butler laid the groundwork for this kind of thinking in Gender Trouble, in which she argued that gender is the repetition of certain acts and behaviors, that is to say, a performance. Hip-hop and rap have their roots in jazz, blues, and soul, all of which are associated with Black American culture; simply to make a hip-hop song is thus to embody that tradition, regardless of the actual content of the music.  But we see that many of today’s most popular and influential rap artists are taking it a step further, writing lyrics that reinforce their identification with Black culture.  Kendrick Lamar’s “The Blacker The Berry” from To Pimp A Butterfly (2015) explores the black experience first by articulating how he thinks White America perceives Black America and second by discussing his own frustrations about what he sees as hypocritical and damaging aspects within Black America itself.  The song thus presents itself as a modern retelling of The Souls of Black Folks, capturing Du Bois’ concept of double-consciousness while literalizing the book’s musicality and allusions to Black lyrical traditions.  

TV and film are also performances both literal and abstract, but the lack of diversity on the screen—coupled with the long history of an industry dominated by White elites—ensures that this performance embodies only one identity: White identity.  

The power of a hip-hop music is in its ability to make a person like me understand their experiences better. And it is not surprising that it should have this effect: albums like Compton and To Pimp A Butterfly aren’t simply “discussing” Black identity—they are embodying it.

TV and film have yet to offer the same, but hopefully that will change, because, as Dr. Hunt puts it so eloquently: “when marginalized groups in society are absent from the stories a nation tells about itself, or when media images are rooted primarily in stereotype, inequality is normalized and is more likely to be rein- forced over time through our prejudices and practices.”

[shadowdragonman-blog]

This is exactly what I was taking about in my essay draft about colored superheroes in comics. All of this rage over a black main character in the new Starwars movie has brought out the old complaints about black comic book characters. In the linked tweet, the picture shows a then and now comparison between the previous star of the Starwars series (Luke Skywalker), the white versions of Captain America, Spiderman, and Colonel Nick Fury, in contrast with the new star of Starwars, and a black  Captain America, Spiderman, and Colonel Nick Fury.

I realize that only a very small, but vocal, minority take issue with black characters rising to prominence, but the fact that people like this still exist at all is disconcerting. The rise of these characters is labeled as #whitegenocide, as can be seen with the #boycottstarwarsvii movement. This twitter movement, however, is much less excusable than the push-back against the black superheroes (although that was unjustified as well, in my opinion).

These protests are a sign of a greater problem on the road the equality. White fear. There are some white people, though certainly not all, that are afraid that they will lose their rights and privilege if other groups reach equality. Of course, they don’t see it as minority groups being brought up, they see it as whites being pulled down. Until this fear is eliminated, there will always be resistance to equal rights.

[patcasey13-blog]

Ta-Nehisi Coates Wins National Book Award

Ta-Nehisi Coates was awarded the National Book Award for nonfiction last night for his book Between The World And Me, which was published this past July.

I have not yet read the book, but I’ve heard a lot about it even before last night’s news.  Essentially, it is structured as a letter written to his son about the experience of being a Black person in the United States, a form inspired by James Baldwin’s 1963 classic The Fire Next Time.

Here is a powerful except I found:

It is not necessary that you believe that the officer who choked Eric Garner set out that day to destroy a body. All you need to understand is that the officer carries with him the power of the American state and the weight of an American legacy, and they necessitate that of the bodies destroyed every year, some wild and disproportionate number of them will be black.

[patcasey13-blog]

Scanning through NPR's "Code Switch" website, I came across this recent article about how the Census has transformed over the years with respect to how it asks people about race. When you fill out the census, you are asked to identify your race and given a set of categories from which to choose. The article, and the interactive graphic contained therein, track how those categories have changed over time since the first census in 1790. In general, the number of possibly choices have increased markedly over time, and have become less offensive (e.g. the change from "Indian" to "Native American," or from "Mexican" to "Hispanic/Latino"). There were several startling revelations, among them that no two census have ever offered the exact same choices for the "race question," but one in particular stood out to me: that Hispanic/Latino was not a listed category until 1970. ("Mexican" had been offered in 1920, but was removed in the following Census, and no similar category was listed until 1970.) The article ends by reflecting on the importance of these changes with regard to identity: "As the country's racial politics keep changing, so does the way we orient ourselves to it. It's worth remembering that the way we choose to identify is informed not only by how we engage with the world (and how we perceive the way we are treated in it) but also, crucially, which designations are available to us at any given time." I am curious how Hispanic/Latino identity in the United States might have changed after 1970 when the Federal Government officially "acknowledged" that designation.

[patcasey13-blog]

Pulp Fiction: America’s “War” On Cops

Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino make comments regarding high-profile police brutality against people of color: "I am a human being with a conscience, and when I see murder I cannot stand by, and I have to call the murdered the murdered, and the murderers the murderers."

Shortly thereafter the president of the NY Police Officers Union called Tarantino a "cop hater" and called for a boycott of his upcoming film, "The Hateful Eight."

___ I share this to make two points:

(1) It is impossible to have an engaged discussion about police brutality in America because whenever a person broaches the subject, he or she is accused of perpetuating a fictitious "War on Cops" in an attempt to deflect attention away from the real issue.  

(2) It is further evidence that the problem with policing in America is more than just the behavior of just a few cops.  A friend of mine made a great post on Facebook earlier this week, making this exact point:

A couple bad apples? Then a couple bad apples protecting and not reporting those bad apples? Then several more bad apples covering up for the previous two sets of apples?

Nah you're right we're not looking at an institutional failing

[patcasey13-blog]

Presentation on “The Fall”

Octavia Butler implied in a 1996 interview that her motivation for writing Kindred  was to critique the way in which people think about history, specifically their tendency to look at certain historical actors not as “actors” at all, but rather individuals submissive to the world around them.  

Professor Lisa Yaszek of the Georgia Institute of Technology points out in her “‘A Grim Fantasy’: Remaking American History in Octavia Butler’s Kindred” how this goal is apparent from the opening pages of Kindred.  She notes first how the novel is similar in this regard to a school in academia that emerged in the 1960s and “began to appreciate how ‘history’ was made not solely by the imperial powers of a nation but also by those without any discernable power.”  She then goes on to explain how Butler accomplishes this through her use of science fiction:

Throughout the first half of Kindred, Butler specifically uses the science fiction device of time travel to problematize the production of historical memory, especially in its commercialized form.

Upon opening the book, people expect to read a story fitting their perceived idea of what slavery looked like, only to immediately be disoriented by such things as time travel and present day California.  (Yaszek doesn’t mention this, but it doesn’t seem to be coincidentally that Dana literally becomes dizzy whenever she travels back to Rufus’ time—she is literally having her entire understanding of slavery in America rocked to the core.)

I argue that we see can also this theme at work through Butler’s recurrent use of imagery concerning various characters’ eyes.  Dana as a narrator more than once points out the “paleness” and “distance” of both Kevin’s and Tom’s eyes.  She also notes several times the colorful expressiveness of Rufus’ and Margaret’s.  One’s eyes, of course, are the lens through which one sees the outside world, and looks back at history.  Paleness, in this case, represents a sort of cold detachment from historical reality—a tendency to think of certain historical (or, in Tom’s case, contemporary) actors as passive non-agents.  Colorfulness, in contrast, represents a more complex view of the world, one that acknowledges that even enslaved persons can exert some degree of agency in their lives.

The eye motif is also relevant for Dana, despite her never actually describing the physical features of her own eyes.  I will argue that we can see (through her eyes) how her understanding of the history of slavery in America becomes more nuanced and complicated as she spends more time actually living during it.  So while we don't know what her eyes look like, we do see through them a tension between how people perceive history from a distance vs. what the experience was actually like.

This tension lies at the core of a exchange between Dana and Kevin that I will have the class look at.  In this scene, right after they encounter the slave children holding a mock slave auction, Kevin and Dana argue, in effect, about what “history” means.  Kevin believes that “history is history” and thus cannot be changed, even by someone like Dana.  Dana, on the other hand, rejects this, arguing that she knows that she must “do something.”  Kevin thus continues to cling to his slaves-as-passive historical worldview, while Dana see’s the historical narrative as far more complex, active, and fluid, a sign of her character’s evolution from earlier in the book.

[shadowdragonman-blog]

This is exactly what I was taking about in my essay draft about colored superheroes in comics. All of this rage over a black main character in the new Starwars movie has brought out the old complaints about black comic book characters. In the linked tweet, the picture shows a then and now comparison between the previous star of the Starwars series (Luke Skywalker), the white versions of Captain America, Spiderman, and Colonel Nick Fury, in contrast with the new star of Starwars, and a black  Captain America, Spiderman, and Colonel Nick Fury.

I realize that only a very small, but vocal, minority take issue with black characters rising to prominence, but the fact that people like this still exist at all is disconcerting. The rise of these characters is labeled as #whitegenocide, as can be seen with the #boycottstarwarsvii movement. This twitter movement, however, is much less excusable than the push-back against the black superheroes (although that was unjustified as well, in my opinion).

These protests are a sign of a greater problem on the road the equality. White fear. There are some white people, though certainly not all, that are afraid that they will lose their rights and privilege if other groups reach equality. Of course, they don’t see it as minority groups being brought up, they see it as whites being pulled down. Until this fear is eliminated, there will always be resistance to equal rights.

[patcasey13-blog]

The Election of 2008, Revisited

Our trip Tuesday to Kroch Library’s Rare and Manuscript Collections brought me back to November 5th, 2008, the morning after Barack Obama was elected president of the United States.  Strong supporters of his candidacy well before he was a household name, my entire family was elated.  Sensing the election’s historical context, we had the good sense to buy extra newspapers that day; to this day, I personally own five copies of that morning’s The Boston Globe—items that, according to the folks at the library, are artifacts worthy of preservation.

It’s peculiar to watch history unfold before your eyes: for me, it’s really only happened twice—first in September 2001 then again in November 2008.

I remember everything that happened on 9/11—living 10 miles from the Pentagon, having one’s entire elementary school dismissed an hour after class began, it’d be difficult not to—but I couldn’t possibly have grasped what it all meant.  With Obama, it was different.  I was 14 the night he was elected, a freshman in high school, able to recognize on some level the magnitude of what had just taken place: the American presidency, the epicenter of so much history, had transformed fundamentally and forever.  

We are beginning to see the effects of that transformation. Hillary Clinton’s email account is far more relevant than her gender these days.  Ben Carson is running a close second in Republican primary polls at the same time as conservative pundits and party activists condemn a movement called Black Lives Matter.  Did you even know Bernie Sanders was Jewish?  

This was never the case in America before 2008: Obama’s election has begun to change the way in which people think about what a president should look like.  No longer is JFK the model.  Barack Obama has opened the door of opportunity for minority candidates to mount serious campaigns moving forward, a door that had for long remained shut. To be sure, such candidates face an uphill climb: discrimination is still an undeniable fact of American life. So the door is only ajar—but at least it’s unlocked.

[infinityandcyanide]

Happy Birthday, Jamie Collins

[patcasey13-blog]

Over at Jacobin magazine, two former corps members break down the politics behind TFA's decision making, and say they need change.

This recent article from NPR's "Code Switch" website reviews a longer article in which two Teach For America alums argue that the program has subtle and troubling racist characteristics.

Although the particular phrase is never used, essentially the argument here is that TFA encourages and promotes the "white savior complex," which we've discussed at length in this class.  I've never thought about the program in this way—but it actually makes a lot of sense.  As the author notes, a program which places college graduate as teachers in poor neighborhoods with primarily minority populations will necessarily attract "idealists."  It's a bit counterintuitive at first to think that recruiting young, educated "idealists" to teach in poor schools is at all problematic, but that certainly seems to be the case—and not only because it is a blatant manifestation of the white savior complex.  The article argues further that because these schools are so poorly funded, and because the people they attract are so often unprepared for jobs in teaching, the program does not really help raise overall educational achievement in such schools.  This frustrates TFA teachers, very often reinforcing and strengthening their (often unconscious) racist beliefs.

I do get uncomfortable when a group of corps members come together and start the "they can't. . . " or "they don't. . ." game. Never heard of it? Here is what it sounds like: "They can't sit silently." "Yeah! They don't want to learn!" "Tell'em! They can't even read a sentence!" . . . These corps members are making gross generalizations . . . Racial stereotypes like, "They're not even worthy." You hear a lot of corps members saying these things, "They can't read, they can't do this, they don't want to learn."

The article doesn't make this point, but one could argue that TFA is part of  a larger institutionally racist system as well.  The article mentions that predominately white inner-city schools, which often aren't part of TFA, receive more funding than predominantly minority ones, which often are part of TFA.  In this way, TFA is used as a sort of "substitute" for additional funding in poor, minority schools.  But this is a pretty bad deal for these schools, because, as the article notes, while TFA certainly makes an impact on individual students, it doesn't actually do a lot to improve educational outcomes in participating schools on the whole.  It thus could be argued that TFA, which is hugely popular, is a mechanism through which the government can hold back poor minority groups while looking like it is trying to do the opposite.

[patcasey13-blog]

The Racialization of Hanley Ramirez

The 2016 Red Sox will be the most diverse team in all of American professional sports.  Their outfield will consist of two African Americans and a Cuban; their infield, a white guy from California, an Aruban, a Venezuelan, and a Dominican; their catching corps, a Puerto Rican and a white Texan; the back end of their bullpen, two Japanese immigrants.

Unfortunately, there are often subtly racist attitudes underlying criticisms made by fans and media against minority players, especially those from Latin America.  Nowhere is this more obvious than in the case of Hanley Ramirez.

Hanley was born and raised in the Dominican Republic before, at age 15, signing a minor league contract with the Red Sox.  He quickly worked his way through the organization and soon was considered the best prospect in all of baseball.  In 2005, the Red Sox traded him to the Florida Marlins in a blockbuster deal.  The next year, Hanley, finally in the majors, won the NL Rookie of the Year Award.  He was a super star.

The next eight years, split between Miami and later Los Angeles, were filled with ups and downs for Hanley, as minor injuries interrupted his production during a number of seasons.  Yet his bat was still considered elite in November 2014—when the prodigal prospect returned, signing a four-year deal with the Red Sox, the plan being for him to switch positions from short stop to left field…

His triumphant return did not go as planned.  To say Hanley never quite took to his new position is an understatement of outrageous proportions: statistically, he the worst defensive player of any position in the league this year.  But Boston signed him for his hitting, which was superb—for a little while. while Hanley was undisputedly the most dominant hitter in baseball for the first month of the season, a shoulder injury in May and, later, a freak injury to his hand dramatically affected his production at the plate.

The result?  Ramirez is hated and criticized by many fans and members of the Boston sports media. I believe these attacks to be completely unjustified and, as I will argue in this piece, racially charged. Specifically, I will argue that the manner is which Hanley is portrayed by fans and in the media parallels the wider racialization of Latino people in American culture.

STEREOTYPES OF LATINOS

We are all familiar with the stereotypes often associated with Latinos, but description serves as a concise reminder: 

Hispanics have been portrayed by the media as lazy, unintelligent, greasy, criminal, and alien. Their contributions culturally, economically, and historically have never been properly documented or appreciated. Instead, Hispanics in general, and American Hispanics in particular, have been the victims of racist stereotyping in an unbroken string of images and portrayals that began with the battle over Mexican land in the Southwest as America expanded during the frontier era.  – (Source: brown-face.com)

I will attempt to de-construct the criticisms made against Hanley Ramirez in light of these broader cultural stereotypes of Latinos.

PERCEPTIONS OF HANLEY (AND OTHERS)

Hanley is cast as lazy and indifferent, an overpaid, underperforming burden on the club.  He is hated—hated—by Bostonians, as a quick Twitter search of his name will demonstrate:

I do not want to see Hanley Ramirez on this team next season. This fucking slug just sucks the life right out of the ‪#Redsox and their fans. @mattbomford81 (8/17/15)

So if ‪@BrockStar4Lyf is making plays like that off of pure hustle, why ever put Hanley back in the line up? His bat sucks anyways. @mickeymagic1 (6/10/15)

Hanley Ramirez is lazy slob. Looks like thug. Plays lazy. Embarrassing. ‪@RedSox - @xfranman (8/5/15)

Much like how Latin American immigrants are criticized for draining American resources, Hanley is attacked because his hefty contract prevents the Red Sox from using that money elsewhere.  He “just sucks the life right out of the Red Sox and their fans,” as @mattbomford81 puts it.

These tweets also reinforce the popular perception of Hanley as lazy—a theme we also see in tweets about other Latino American Red Sox, especially Pablo Sandoval.  Consider these:

 Sandoval that's a routine grounder you fat fuck ‪#RedSox - @reece_joint (8/31/15) 

I've never seen such a fat fuck playing baseball. Sandoval is not an athlete. He is a fat deflector for baseballs. - @llormas (6/12/15)

 Fat ass Sandoval get you're shit and get the fuck Out of my city. Putrid signing from the get go. ‪#redsox - @Nick_Vandal87 (6/4/15)

(That last tweet is particularly telling: one need not look far to find the racial undertones of get the fuck Out of my city…)  

Even David Ortiz, the single most transformative player in Red Sox history—who, at age 39, had another monster season in 2015—cannot escape the stereotype:

It never ceases to amaze me how much of a lazy ass David Ortiz is. I've never seen him run out a ground ball. - @ryguyblake (6/9/15)

David Ortiz is lazy. Should be benched for not sprinting to first. Easily could have made it after a bobble. Good job Fenway for booing him. - @CharlieUmland47 (7/25/15)

Another fine play by the overweight, lazy, overpaid, useless old man ‪@davidortiz ‪#OrtizRetire You cost the ‪#RedSox we're better off w/o U - @BoSoxSully59 (8/30/15)

BUT… ARE THESE PERCEPTIONS ACCURATE?

 One of the dominant themes common throughout criticisms of Hanley is the notion that he is lazy, that he just doesn’t care about the team. When one looks at the facts, however, this narrative begins to fall apart.

It was Hanley who initiated a dialogue with the Red Sox last November, Hanley who offered to move to left field for the chance to play in Boston, Hanley who left money on the table from other teams in order to return to the organization that he grew up with. 

Hanley transformed his body between November and March, adding 25 lbs. of muscle to facilitate his transition from a nimble short stop to a power hitting outfielder.  

“[T]he monster has arrived, and he is the most imposing sight of Red Sox camp.  First-time visitors to JetBlue Park have been picking their jaws off the sidewalk since the start of spring, when Ramirez strode in sporting biceps that look like they've grafted onto his body from Prince Fielder.  Always big by shortstop standards, Ramirez is now big by pro wrestler standards.” (Source: Weei.com

I wish I could find a link to it, but I distinctly remember Baseball Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley, now a Red Sox analyst on NESN, pointing out how hard Hanley runs to first on plays in which he has a chance of reaching safely.

Hanley sent out two tweets after his initial shoulder injury on May 4: 

(1) A bit sore, but back soon. Hang in there ‪#RedSoxNation, and thanks for all the prayers 

(2) I promise, gonna try to be back as soon as I can 

Hanley often tweets things that he hopes will inspire Red Sox Nation; for example, when, right before the All Star Break, the surging Red Sox were heading into a make-or-break series against New York, Hanley published this tweet: “We gotta get this one today ‪#RedSoxNation Let's Goooooo” (7/12/5)

Hanley offered no complaints when the organization decided it was it everyone’s best interest to transition him back into the infield as a first baseman, another position at which he had no previous experience.

Quite on the contrary, he embraced the decision: “He was like, ‘If you put this guy over here and put this guy in left field, how would the team look?’ And I was thinking about that, too. I was thinking, ‘Yeah, we’re a way better team with me on first and with Jackie and Mookie and Casty on the field.’ Hopefully, we can do it and they can keep doing what they’re doing, playing great outfield and keep hitting, because we’re going to need that.’”

When David Ortiz hit his 500th career home run in September, Hanley had a cake waiting for him in the clubhouse after the game to celebrate the occasion.

WHEN THE FACTS ARE AGAINST YOU, MAKE SOMETHING UP

 In recent weeks, the Boston media has invented a new and absurd way of portraying Hanley as lazy: calling into question his physical fitness.  Hanley, it turns out, was out of shape all season; poor conditioning hampered his athleticism, and because of this he was ineffective on the field and at the plate. Here is Boston Globe columnist Nick Cafardo on the subject:

It’ll be no more, “Oh, that’s just the way Pablo is.” The Red Sox will want to see an offseason conditioning program that has Sandoval reaching an appropriate weight for his body and position. Ramirez is so bulked up he looks much different than during the years he played shortstop.

 If Ramirez and Sandoval don’t get into shape, they’ll keep getting hurt as they did this season.

 For the money they’ll be making — they will be paid a combined $39 million in 2016 — they need to have the pride to at least provide a baseline of conditioning that they can work off. Is this not the most basic of things a professional athlete can do?

 (Hanley does look “much different than during the years he played shortstop.”  But it should probably also be noted that Hanley does not play shortstop anymore: he signed last winter with the intention of playing left field, a position where agility is far less important.)

 All of this talk as of late about Ramirez having shown up for the season out-of-shape becomes especially suspect, however, when one looks what the Boston media was writing about Hanley during spring training.  Here are five articles published in major Boston media outlets from March and April.

“Hanley Ramirez Has Added All The Muscle” from Over The Monster http://www.overthemonster.com/2015/3/5/8157957/hanley-ramirez-bulked-up-red-sox

 “Hanley Ramirez Is Massive, And Red Sox Hope His Muscles Translate To Monster Production” from Weei.com

http://www.weei.com/sports/boston/baseball/red-sox/john-tomase/2015/03/04/hanley-ramirez-massive-and-red-sox-hope-his-mu

 “Hanley Ramirez’s Huge Muscles Amaze David Ortiz, Red Sox Teammates” from NESN.com

http://nesn.com/2015/03/hanley-ramirezs-impressive-physique-amazes-boston-red-sox-teammates/

 “Red Sox’s Hanley Ramirez Adds Muscle In Order To Improve Durability” from CBSSports.com

http://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/news/red-soxs-hanley-ramirez-adds-muscle-in-order-to-improve-durability/

 “Hanley Ramirez’s Elite Power Defining His Red Sox Homecoming” from Bleacher Report

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2448211-hanley-ramirezs-elite-power-defining-his-boston-red-sox-homecoming

Visuals also help to dispel the myth that Hanley didn’t take his offseason conditioning seriously.  Here is a slender Hanley in November, at the press conference announcing his signing:

Here is a picture Hanley posted on Instagram shortly before the start of spring training:

Clearly the Hanley-As-Out-Of-Shape narrative is fictitious… It may be true that Hanley actually did show up to spring training “too bulky.”  But this wouldn’t have been the result of poor offseason conditioning: on the contrary, if he was in fact too built, it was because he tried too hard to deliver on his contract. It’s absurd to criticize a power hitter for trying to get stronger; it’s just pathetic to call this laziness. Having been signed for his bat, Hanley trained like a maniac over the winter, adding 25 lbs.—25 lbs.—of muscle between November and March.  That this could be spinned so as to portray Ramirez as lazy speaks to just how far some people will go in order to justify their racially-charged beliefs.

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN STYLES OF PLAY

It seems to me that it’s Hanley’s style of play that has created the perception that he is lazy—and there is a racial component at play here as well.  People like Derek Jeter are beloved by “traditional” baseball fans because they “play the game the right way,” doing things like running out ground balls even when there is no chance of reaching base safely.  This is why, for instance, “scrappy white guys” like Dustin Pedroia, Brock Holt, and Johnny Gomes are heroes in Boston.

This style is sharply different from how, in particular, many Latino superstars—people like Hanley, David Ortiz, Yasiel Puig—handle themselves on the field.  These players “pimp” their home runs, taking their sweet time rounding the bases. They don’t see any benefit to sprinting to first if they’re going to be out regardless (why risk tweaking a muscle?).  They absolutely play hard, but they do so with swagger.  

There is no meaningful difference between these styles of play: both are done for show. When the Derek Jeters of the world sprint to first on an infield pop-up, they aren’t doing so because they think they might change the inevitable outcome of the play.  It’s all theatrics, the same as is the case when Hanley stands to watch his home runs leave the yard.  

WHAT DONALD TRUMP REVEALS ABOUT HANLEY

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems.” – Donald Trump, 2015 

The Trump quote also raises another curious parallel: one could argue that there is a certain amount of “Make America Great Again” coded within these attacks on Hanley:  Imagine how good the team would be, if we could only get rid of this guy… Of course, such cries that Hanley be sent packing do not make a great deal of sense; to ignore the one-plus month this season in which he was healthy—not to mention his entire pre-Boston career—is silly. Nevertheless, the press does often does exactly that, literally demanding that Ramirez be gotten rid of.

Here is one such example of htis, written by the usually respectable Ken Rosenthal, titled “Red Sox Need To Dump Sandoval, Ramirez, Like, Now” (http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/boston-red-sox-pablo-sandoval-hanley-ramirez-trade-ken-rosenthal-061915).  

 Here is another, written by my favorite sports writer, the (otherwise) brilliant Chad Finn: (http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/2015/09/30/time-for-hanley-ramirez/GWSXNUrLwDum0N9FrmZI5J/story.html).  

 Another, this time from Nick Cafardo: (http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/09/29/sending-hanley-ramirez-home-best-for-red-sox/3aOb1xheQYIqi4Bgy12CaK/story.html?event=event25). 

Here’s what the Boston Globe’s Peter Abraham said should be one of the top two priorities of the Sox this winter: Peter Abraham, Red Sox beat writer for The Boston Globe, yesterday wrote an article titled “Two Important Tasks Top Red Sox’ Offseason Agenda.”  Here is what he argues should be the team’s second biggest priority in the coming months: They must get rid of Hanley Ramirez by any means necessary. Beyond that, Ramirez is not the clubhouse presence you want around a roster that is trending young. Is he the guy you want throwing an arm around the shoulder of Yoan Moncada in spring training?  (The player whom Abraham and Cafardo have suggested as a replacement for Hanley is Baltimore Orioles first baseman Chris Davis, who has a history with performance enhancing drugs and is well-known for his heavy tobacco use.  And Hanley is the bad influence on younger players.  Go figure.)

GO HANLEY