Hader's Hate, and Milwaukee's Miscue

Josh Hader has come in the headlines not for his accomplishment in becoming an all-star relief pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers, but for his racist and homophobic tweets.  He published these tweets, which have come to light recently, when he was a teenager (2011 and 2012). To be clear, these tweets were wrong, horrifying and disturbing. Hader’s punishment, handed by the MLB as the Brewers will not issue a punishment, is that he must attend “sensitivity training and attend diversity initiatives.” Further, Hader has apologized publicly and privately cried to his teammates. Many of Hader’s teammates, past and present, have also come to his side, saying they never saw any sort of racist or homophobic behavior (many of these players were minorities).  Finally, in Hader’s first appearance on the mound since the racist tweets came to national attention, the Milwaukee Brewer fans (who were almost all white) gave Hader a standing ovation!

Hader’s public apology seems, from reading it, more of a long argued excuse. The following, from NBCSports’ reporter Bill Baer, is Hader’s apology, “I was 17 years old, and as a child I was immature, and obviously I said some things that were inexcusable . . . I’m ready for any consequences that happen for what happened seven years ago.”

The above apology, if it can even be considered an apology, was more along the lines of a passive aggressive apology. First, Hader should have just come out straight and said something like, “I am sorry.  The things I said were obviously inexcusable. I’m willing to accept any resulting consequences for my disgusting behavior and actions.” Please notice in my hypothetical apology for Hader, I don’t use age as a way to excuse behavior. Hader needs to understand that he should allow the court of public opinion and the media to develop his age defense, not him. By him being the one to initially offer up the age excuse is to illustrate his inability but, more importantly, his unwillingness to take full actions for his behavior (for the record, a 17 year old should know not to use racist language, or homophobic language, especially on a public domain such as Twitter).

Further, Hader already has the greatest defense in sports – he is white. There are certain rights afforded to those who are “playing while white”. In David Leonard’s book, Playing While White, he talks about how the media developed Riley Cooper’s defense/redemption when Cooper, a white former Philadelphia Eagles’ wide receiver, used the N-word while drunk at a country music concert.  As Leonard noted, “[t]o redeem Cooper was to redeem white America. No wonder redemption was a guarantee. It is fundamental to playing, living, and breathing, while white.” Cooper offered his apology, and did not use intoxication as an excuse. Then Cooper’s black teammates came to his side to speak up for him, exonerating Cooper, and, in turn, exonerating the white America. As Leonard notes, “[t]he constant depiction of Cooper as a good guy being unfairly demonized, as a man who at worst made a bad choice because of too many beers and a bad temper, who was humble enough to apologize and make amends, whose good nature could be seen in the love from his black teammates made it so Cooper didn’t need to walk the pathway toward redemption. His redemption was inevitable. #MakingMistakesWhileWhite makes that always the case.”

So, when Hader took the mound, less than a week after the racist story broke, it wasn’t amazing to see a mostly white stadium give him a standing ovation. What is even worse is that Milwaukee is one of the most heavily segregated cities in America. So what this ovation illustrated was that white America desperately wanted to “redeem” itself. They wanted to quickly applaud Hader for being able to “move past and grow” from his inexcusable behavior. However, the only way this would have been a credible ovation is if the entire stadium attendees were African – American. By a mostly white crowd standing, applauding Hader, they inadvertently admit to their implied racism/bias. If America wants to claim itself to be a “post-racial” society, as many on the right claim it is, then when situations like this happen the initial and persistent reaction should be to demand accountability from the culprit. They shouldn’t have stood, they should have publicly denounced Hader, underscoring that, “at 17, in today’s society, it is not permissible to state racial slurs.” Instead, they, the white public, chose to immediately forgive Hader.

Finally, Wisconsin is a state that voted for Trump. Trump is the same man who refuses to criticize white supremacist groups, who believes in order over law, who demands that NFL players who kneel for the National Anthem be “fired.”

Trump was elected, not by a “post-racial America”, but by a seasonally dormant, yet well rooted racist society.  That racist weed emerged, for a brief moment, when that crowd stood for Hader.