On Saturday St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa and slugger Albert Pujols were included as presenter and speaker at a rally sponsored by talk show host Glenn Beck. Beck is no friend to Americans of color, as evidenced by his many rants, including the absurd claim that President Barack Obama – who had a white mother and was raised by her white parents – harbors a “deep-seated hatred of white people.” Beck was joined by former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who remains a beacon for the angry white right.
Though the EYE resents taking the bait and naming these light-weight demagogues alongside the great man, this rally to “take back the Civil Rights Movement” was organized on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s most famous speech, and at the same location: the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall.
Enter La Russa and Pujols.
Both attended the rally under the pretense of it being an apolitical, faith-based event. (Are they kidding?) Beck trotted Pujols out, gave him a medal. They capitalized on the photo op with the Latino slugger and his name magic, as in, “Hey look, everyone, Albert and Tony are with us.”
You would think Pujols would oppose Beck and Palin – and La Russa, for that matter – for their highly politicized stances in favor of the Arizona anti-immigrant law. After all, if Pujols were pulled over by an Arizona cop who didn’t follow baseball box scores, he would be plunged into racial profiling hell. Sorry, Albert, you barely get a pass in Ladue after sundown on game day. You need to show more of the savvy in the political arena that you show on the ballfield.
If the Cardinals only had a black player to try this theory on. Well, there is Randy Winn. If Winn is smart, he should stay close to the ball park. If the Cardinals only had some senior black executives to dicuss these matters with. But, no.
Pujols can not be that naïve, can he? Does he really know nothing about Beck’s hate-mongering on Fox News? Or does he think he is not a person of color? If he took the time to count the people of color in the audience at Beck’s rally, he wouldn’t have needed many more fingers than are needed to count balls and strikes.
La Russa also got played, or he is trying to play us. How can a man who prides himself on being a cosmopolitan individual who deals with people from various countries put himself in a hot box like this? He is an attorney who often is celebrated for his cerebral approach to baseball. Since La Russa isn’t stupid, then we are left with the conclusion that he shares the political views of Beck and Palin and was prepared to tell the world as much. After all, he smugly offered his support earlier for Arizona’s racial profiling legislation targeted at Hispanics.
What do the lily-white Cardinals have to say about this? Brian Bartow, Cardinals director of media relations, passed up the opportunity to discuss the matter with The St. Louis American and its readers. Bartow knew what was coming from us and decided to take a powder on defending the team, its manager and its franchise player to Black St. Louis.
No surprise, really, that La Russa is prepared to join Beck and Palin in offending and insulting veterans and descendents of the Civil Rights Movement, which claimed innocent American lives. Despite the Latin star players on his current roster, La Russa’s reputation with people of color – Ozzie Smith being at the top of the list – has become shaky over the years.
La Russa claims to take pride in the Cardinals, the uniform and the tradition. If so, then maybe the Cardinals are no longer a team for everyone to support, as this central symbol of the team, its leader on the field, has taken a strong, controversial, public, political stance – with no outrage (or comment) forthcoming from the front office.
While La Russa and Pujols are free to exercise their freedoms of speech and assembly, they should expect to face the consequences of their advocacy. It is odd that the Cardinals have not said word one either way. This silence is louder than words. Black folks have been knowing about this, though, for quite some time. The stands at Busch Stadium, a public-assisted project, are not only a sea of red – they are also a sea of white. And getting whiter all the time.
Darlene supports earnings tax
Comptroller Darlene Green has accepted an invitation to deliver the keynote address to a group that is opposing a ballot initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot in Missouri designed to eliminate the earnings tax in St. Louis and Kansas City, and prevent a similar tax being enacted in any other municipality in the state.
Green will speak 8-10 a.m. Friday, October 1 to the Workers’ Rights Board, a project of St. Louis Jobs with Justice, at the Old North Restoration Group building, 2700 North 14th Street.
“It is with great pleasure that we learned from Workers’ Right Board member State Representative Jeanette Mott Oxford of your opposition to the Sinquefield ballot initiative to repeal the St. Louis earnings tax,” Green was told by the board co-chairs, Martín Rafanan and Joan Suarez.
Green opposes the initiative, funded and promoted by billionaire Rex Sinquefield, because it is the single largest and most reliable revenue stream the City of St. Louis has for funding government services, such as police and fire protection.
Mayor Francis G. Slay, who counts Sinquefield as his single largest campaign donor, has been quiet about the initiative, though he has admitted on his campaign site that he has no plan for replacing the lost revenue.
If the measure, Proposition A, passes on Nov. 2, then St. Louis voters would face it on the April 2011 ballot and then (if it loses) every five years after that. Green’s editorial arguing for voters to oppose Prop A appears today on The American’s Editorial page, A4.
We hope to hear more from the comptroller on this matter – and anything at all from aldermanic president Lewis Reed, whose chief of staff joined the mayor’s chief of staff in ignoring our request for comment.
