You are gloriously insensitive. You see black, brown, yellow and so on and just don’t care. Gay? Straight? It doesn’t matter to you at all. You don’t care at all ‘what’ is sitting in a room with you, all you see is ‘who’. That is oddly refreshing.
“Gloriously insensitive?” Moi?
Well, in the grand scheme of things, I (Irish/French, heterosexual) could live with that on my tombstone.
The person (African American, heterosexual) who told me the above was wondering how I could understand marketing concepts if I didn’t segregate people. At least in my mind. As a friend of mine (Afro/Latin, lesbian) says, “All thought is punished.”
To a degree, her fatalistic viewpoint has merit.
But, to a larger degree, it is slowly falling away. As we watch a world of fanatics attempt to hold the future at bay, we would do well to remind ourselves that - for all the pain and suffering they can and will cause - we are witnessing their death throes.
Yesterday, as witnessed by me and a good buddy (Polish, homosexual), the White Sox (multi racial, primarily heterosexual) played in the Civil Rights Game. Hosted in part by Bill Cosby and Muhammad Ali (both African American, heterosexual), it served as a stark reminder of how far we have come as a people and how far we have yet to go. But it also showed that we are going and will eventually leave the fanatics in the past.
No longer do people say “My black friend ....” or anything like that. A person is, or is not, our friend. Their melanin count or other attributes no longer color our view of them as people.
In other words, we no longer tag them when we meet them. And that is the first true sign of progress I can cite. But, it is a good one.
Now, off my soapbox and on to baseball.
Yesterday the White Sox played the Cincinnati Reds (as mentioned above) in one of the ugliest games of professional baseball I have ever witnessed. SCOTT MERKIN (MLB.com) sums it up nicely.
Years from now, the White Sox 10-8 victory over the Reds during Major League Baseball’s third annual Civil Rights Game on Saturday night at Great American Ball Park won’t exactly be shown to impressionable young players as an example of textbook fundamental play.
There were four errors committed by the White Sox, with a chance for two more to be charged. Alexei Ramirez was picked off first base on a hit-and-run call made by manager Ozzie Guillen in the fifth, and starter Clayton Richard exited after three inconsistent innings.
Believe it or not, those were the good parts. Yet, somehow, the team rallied from a 5 run deficit to beat the surging Reds at home and stand a chance to win the series today. Gordon Beckham, the newest member on the South Side, summed it all up nicely.
“We might roll from here,” Beckham said. “Hopefully, we can put a star by that one at the end of the season.”
On the North Side, the Cubs seem to have come up with a winning formula. Give away the game for 8 innings and then win it in extra innings or, if all else fails, the bottom of the 9th. So far, that is pretty much how they have won their last 3. Kerry Wood, who seems to have forgotten which team he currently plays for, once again blew the save for the Indians. CARRIE MUSKAT (MLB.com) fills in the details.
The Cubs passed another stress test Saturday, beating Kerry Wood and the Indians with a second successive walk-off win. Only this time, there were some unlikely heroes.
Andres Blanco scored on a wild pitch by Wood with one out in the 13th inning to lift the Cubs to a 6-5 Interleague victory for their third straight walk-off win. This is the Indians’ first trip to Wrigley Field since 1998, and they may not come back.
And so it goes. The Cubs can sweep the Tribe today and the Sox can win the series against the Reds. All in all, a nice way to spend a Sunday with your friends.
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