Posted by italyprof on 6/23/2021 6:03:00 AM (view original):
addendum on already way too long comment:

laramiebob, thank you for the question. I am certainly not accusing anyone here or in admin. of being racist at all. Not until someone demonstrates consistent racist behavior is that warranted and I don't see that nor am I implying it.

But as your great question suggests, institutional racism is at work.

institutional racism is a social power that is historical in nature and often acts "behind the backs of the actors" as Hegel might have put it.

In other words, it is not based on intention. It is built-in, already there. Hard to recognize and to root out. Precisely because it is not based on a conscious intention. My comments just above are about institutional racism. The problem is not that the individual 19th or early 20th century presidents were racists, it is that the SYSTEM meant they did not have to compete with others who were more talented, and better citizens than they. That is what INSTITUTIONAL means.

Here, the institutional racism was never WIS'. It was MLB's for decades of excluding the players who ended up in the Negro Leagues. And while we could blame an individual like that (almost certainly racist) union-buster Kennesaw Mountain Landis as commissioner, the reality is that if he had campaigned to include Black players he would have been replaced by the owners. There was a system.

Americans have trouble wrapping our heads around systems. We think that if an employer pays low wages, just quit the job (individual perspective again) and find another one. But an employer that pays above average wages in their industry has a competitive disadvantage. Their competitors can sell the same products at lower prices and drive them out of business. Intention has NOTHING to do with it. It's a system. That is why the remedies to low wages are things like union contracts covering the whole industry, or higher minimum wages by law, or a public health care system (so one employer who provides a health insurance plan privately doesn't again price themselves out of the market), things that do not put any individual business at a disadvantage, but allow conditions to improve overall. Systemically. Not only bad things are Institutional or Systemic.

But WIS inherited the exclusion and has not tried to find a solution to it, letting MLB decide on this, which was not the best way to go, since the general public and baseball world has long understood the facts, that at least certain Negro Leagues played MLB-level baseball. After all, some of these guys are in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown now, but never saw a pitch in the majors.

Lethargy or lack of initiative is institutional in nature, and it takes often great will to overcome it. But it is worth the effort. But let us not throw accusations around, let's look at the institutional problems as institutional, without our egos or feelings involved, since saying that something is institutional racism means no individual is responsible. Indeed no individual can change it. Only collective, institutional action can.

Posted by d_rock97 on 6/25/2021 10:00:00 AM (view original):

Posted by italyprof on 6/23/2021 6:03:00 AM (view original):
addendum on already way too long comment:

laramiebob, thank you for the question. I am certainly not accusing anyone here or in admin. of being racist at all. Not until someone demonstrates consistent racist behavior is that warranted and I don't see that nor am I implying it.

But as your great question suggests, institutional racism is at work.

institutional racism is a social power that is historical in nature and often acts "behind the backs of the actors" as Hegel might have put it.

In other words, it is not based on intention. It is built-in, already there. Hard to recognize and to root out. Precisely because it is not based on a conscious intention. My comments just above are about institutional racism. The problem is not that the individual 19th or early 20th century presidents were racists, it is that the SYSTEM meant they did not have to compete with others who were more talented, and better citizens than they. That is what INSTITUTIONAL means.

Here, the institutional racism was never WIS'. It was MLB's for decades of excluding the players who ended up in the Negro Leagues. And while we could blame an individual like that (almost certainly racist) union-buster Kennesaw Mountain Landis as commissioner, the reality is that if he had campaigned to include Black players he would have been replaced by the owners. There was a system.

Americans have trouble wrapping our heads around systems. We think that if an employer pays low wages, just quit the job (individual perspective again) and find another one. But an employer that pays above average wages in their industry has a competitive disadvantage. Their competitors can sell the same products at lower prices and drive them out of business. Intention has NOTHING to do with it. It's a system. That is why the remedies to low wages are things like union contracts covering the whole industry, or higher minimum wages by law, or a public health care system (so one employer who provides a health insurance plan privately doesn't again price themselves out of the market), things that do not put any individual business at a disadvantage, but allow conditions to improve overall. Systemically. Not only bad things are Institutional or Systemic.

But WIS inherited the exclusion and has not tried to find a solution to it, letting MLB decide on this, which was not the best way to go, since the general public and baseball world has long understood the facts, that at least certain Negro Leagues played MLB-level baseball. After all, some of these guys are in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown now, but never saw a pitch in the majors.

Lethargy or lack of initiative is institutional in nature, and it takes often great will to overcome it. But it is worth the effort. But let us not throw accusations around, let's look at the institutional problems as institutional, without our egos or feelings involved, since saying that something is institutional racism means no individual is responsible. Indeed no individual can change it. Only collective, institutional action can.

lol

Posted by italyprof on 6/26/2021 6:12:00 PM (view original):
d_rock97, what part of my comment do you find humorous?

If this is meant as a critique of what I am arguing, then argue. Lol is not an argument,