redblueamerica.com

As anyone who has followed the 2008 presidential campaign knows, racism is a fact of life in America.

Much of White America will not vote for Barack Obama purely on the basis of his race. We have seen that in West Virginia. We have seen it in Kentucky. We will see it on a grand scale come the general election.

John McCain has tried to exploit race. Hillary Clinton has shamelessly played the race card in her desperate attempt to gain the Democratic Party’s nomination.

We may have come a long way since Brown v. Board of Education, but recent events demonstrate that we still have a long, long road ahead of us.

The race card is not the sole province of White America, though. Every race has been guilty of playing the race card and everyone who employs it is every bit as culpable and despicable as the bigoted Whites.

Let’s take the example of New York Mets manager Willie Randolph. Randolph played the race card last week and it was every bit as offensive as the racist statements made by reactionary Whites and some of the more subtle racism employed by the anti-Obama campaigns. 

For two decades, Randolph has been a fixture in the New York sports scene. Randolph had a terrific playing career with the New York Yankees and coached for 11 years in the Yankees organization. Randolph interviewed for several managing jobs and was rejected. Did racism play a part? Based on baseball’s horrible track record with minority hiring- there’s no question that race played a part in some of those decisions. 

Finally, in 2005, Randolph was named as the manager of the New York Mets. His managing career got off to a solid start. In 2005, the Mets won 15 more games than they had won in 2004. In 2006, the Mets won the National League’s Eastern Division title before being upset by the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS. Last year, things began to unravel. With the National League’s highest payroll, the Mets got off to a great start, then unraveled in the final weeks of the season. Blowing a seven-game lead with 17 games to play, the Mets took their place in the pantheon of epic failures.

This season, despite adding one of the best pitchers in baseball, the Mets are playing terribly. Virtually to a man, they are underachieving. Worst of all, they are playing sloppy, disinterested baseball. They seem clueless when it comes to the fundamentals of the game. Physical errors are excusable, but the amount of mental errors is embarrassing.

Worst of all, there is no accountability. Players who fail to run out balls are not disciplined. Players are undisciplined at the plate. When relief pitchers fail to deliver- over and over again- Willie continues to ride with them.

There are many things a manager can’t control. But there is a whole lot he is paid to control. Randolph, blessed with one of the most talented rosters in baseball, has failed to take care of the matters that are in his hands.

The result has been predictable and appropriate. The New York media has been calling for his head and members of the Mets ownership have expressed both publicly and privately their concerns.

Randolph’s response has been to lash out. He claims that his record as the Mets’ manager is stellar, saying, “My track record speaks for itself. We had a horrible meltdown last year, but prior to that we were the best team in baseball.”

Isn’t it part of the manager’s job to avoid “horrible meltdowns?”

Taking little or no responsibility for his team’s failures, Randolph has gone on the offensive- claiming that the criticism against him is not based on his performance, but is based on the color of his skin.

“Is it racial?” Randolph asked. “Huh? It smells a little bit.”

Randolph backed this up by saying the attacks on Isaiah Thomas, perhaps the worst executive/coach in New York sports history, were also racially motivated. This is not only absurd, it is so damaging to everyone who faces real racism.

Racism is rampant and destructive in this country. But, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr., judge Willie Randolph by the quality of her performance and not by the color of his skin. Based on any color-blind judgment, Randolph has failed and must be replaced.

Randolph’s statements not only bring discredit to him, but gives ammunition to every racist who refuses to vote for Obama based on race. Arguments like the ones made by Randolph serve to undermine so much good that has gone before him.