How is crying “racism” different from crying “wolf”? The answer is that if you cry “wolf” enough times, people will stop taking you seriously, whereas if you cry racism,” someone will always rush to defend you against the latest instance of evil incarnate, no matter how many times you’ve called it before.
This is a lesson learned long ago and well by the “Reverends” Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who never miss an opportunity to play the race card, whether one presents itself or not. It is Jackson who is guilty of the latest charge of racism. The Chicago-based race huckster leveled the allegation against the International Little League, which stripped the championship title from the Chicago-area Jackie Robinson West team after it was revealed that the adult organizers of the team cheated.
According to ESPN:
The organization found that Jackie Robinson West used a falsified boundary map and that team officials met with neighboring Little League districts in Illinois to claim players and build what amounts to a superteam.
As a result, the United States championship has been awarded to Mountain Ridge Little League from Las Vegas.
“Quite honestly, we had to do this,” Little League International president and CEO Stephen D. Keener told ESPN on Wednesday. “We had no choice. We had to maintain the integrity of the Little League program…. As painful as this is, it’s a necessary outcome from what we finally have been able to confirm.
“The real troubling part of this is that we feel horribly for the kids who are involved with this. Certainly, no one should cast any blame, any aspersions on the children who participated on this team. To the best of our knowledge, they had no knowledge that they were doing anything wrong. They were just kids out playing baseball, which is the way it should be. They were celebrated for that by many, many organizations, many people. What we’re most concerned about today is that it’s going to be hard on these kids. And that’s the part that breaks your heart.”
And now Jesse Jackson is teaching those same kids an important life lesson: that when the coaches they thought they could trust are caught bending the rules, rather than holding the adults accountable, they should blame the “system” (aka “the Man”). That’s ’70s nomenclature for the Establishment, which is currently overseen by a black man, but never mind that. It’s the other man — the racist man — that is denying them their hard-fought title. Said Jackson:
This decision is untimely and inappropriate at this time. It should not take six months after a team has played a championship game to determine eligibility to play the game in the first place… Is this about boundaries or race?
There are two reasons the ruling took as long as it did to make its determination. First, the organizers were extra cautious to make sure they had the facts. Second, new evidence came to light. Said Keener:
“During our review, it became clear that both Jackie Robinson West officials and District Administrator Mike Kelly signed documents to make players eligible who should not have been.”
The national organization said it was Kelly’s responsibility to verify player eligibility based on player information that is gathered and signed by the league president, player agent and team manager.
Little League said that it wasn’t until meetings in January that local league officials acknowledged that they knew of the violation but had never reported it to Little League International.
But why should any of that matter to Jesse Jackson? Apparently, in his world, breaking the rules is OK as long as you don’t get caught. And if you do get caught, just cry “racism.” It works every time.
Howard Portnoy contributed to this report.
Cross-posted at The Lid
