Jackie Robinson and Equality, 2022
It has been 75 years since major league baseball began integrating African-American players into the sport. Back then in the United States Blacks were called Negros. There were Negro Leagues that had the best baseball players in the country playing separately.
The Brooklyn Dodgers chose to change things up, and this was important to all. Our country has always had a hard time integrating all its diversity. This is true of the native Americans that were here in North America first, it is true of the enslaved inhabitants of Africa that were taken to the Americas in chains and forced to work sub-humanly (although others were taken to other parts of the world, like the same African continent and the Middle East). The country went through a large civil war and legislated Constitutional amendments to try to correct the slave and citizen issues.
But even this week, mid-April 2022, millions claim that racism is still more than a minor issue, when Patrick Lyoya is shot after an arrest attempt in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Work and opportunity, education and perception are still issues in the Black community, which is now more fluid than ever, as there are many mixed-race people and other minorities apart from African-Americans.
Spanish speaking denizens of the new world have had continuous struggles integrating into what is the United States, not to mention the other lands of the Western Hemisphere. We see major issues in the 21st century in nations like Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico. Politics and economics, drug trades and violence.
There is violence in the 50 states, the federal district, and seven territories of our great land. Much of it has to do with illicit drugs. Things may not seem equal to some based on those laws and how we execute them. We have a chance to vote changes and make things different, when it comes to laws and rights, and equalities and those aspirations.
Women of all backgrounds did not have equal rights and access for much of U.S. history, and many would argue that it is still not so. Now with same gender marriage and equal treatment of people of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Queer and other identities and orientations (non-binary, transgender, etcetera), some claim that there is too much discrimination towards their populations still.
But, in 2022, things are much better here than in Ukraine and Russia.
Agreed? And it is not so much about race, but about culture, power, and access, which is also known as opportunity.
Jackie and the others integrated so well, good on him for withstanding the hate and vitriol, always. He is a hero.
We need to celebrate him and look for more.
