High anxiety about racism

Years ago, Sean McDonough was the regular TV announcer for the Red Sox. I liked him, and thought he did a good job. I can't remember why he was fired: Wanted too much money? Too candid for the powers that be were? He's been back doing part time radio announcing for the Sox, but - even though I think baseball on the radio is great - I don't usually listen to games; I watch them. 

Anyway, McDonough is in a bit of hot water for making a crack the other night about the name of SF Giants executive Farhan Zaidi, who is of Pakistani descent, and the first Muslim GM in Major League Baseball. (Not to mention a brainiac, with an undergraduate degree from MIT and a PhD in economics from Berkeley.)

When one of his colleagues in the booth mentioned Zaidi, McDonough's off the cuff reaction was, “Their GM’s name is ‘High Anxiety’?”

Not exactly a grand witticism, but not the end of the world, either. 

To me it was kind of dumb. A junior-high level comment making light fun of someone's name. Because, at the junior-high level, people's names get made fun of. Even a dirt-common last name like Rogers came in for a jape or two back in the day. C.f., Roy Rogers (and Trigger), Ginger Rogers (vs. people who aren't great dancers). 

One of my brothers had a high school friend named Butts. You can just imagine what came his way.

While McDonough's comment was by no means uproariously funny, it was a tiny bit funny. I'm guessing that, if they let themselves, every baseball GM would be in a state of high anxiety pretty much all the time. Of course, they didn't get to where they are by not being able to manage the pressure, channel their anxiety, etc.

The Giants were the winningest team in baseball this season, but nipping at their heals - finishing just a game back - were their archrivals the LA Dodgers. Maybe "high anxiety" isn't the exact feeling, but the pressure sure is on for them to beat the Dodgers in their series, and go on to win it all. 

And, let's face it, the name Zaidi does sound like anxiety without the anx. 

So dumbish joke, but no big deal.

Not so fast.

All of a sudden, McDonough's being accused of insensitivity at best, and racism at worst. 

Boston, of course, has a long and sometimes well deserved reputation for racism. I suspect that it's not all that much worse here than in most other large American cities, but we do have our share of iconic (in a terrible way) incidents. Who can forget the picture of the young white guy (Irish, South Boston) charging Ted Landsmark, an African American lawyer, using an American flag as a spear, just outside of Boston City Hall during the busing crisis of the 1970's? 

And I suspect that, when it comes to racism, Boston gets judged more harshly than other places because we have an equal reputation as a liberal bastion full of smug, holier than thou progressives, looking down our smug, progressive noses at the rest of the country. 

All this said, we haven't had anything near the types of racist cop incidents that have been recorded in NYC, Chicago, or Minneapolis. It could be worse... 

Still, there's no denying that we're a city with a largely white male entrenched power structure. (And plenty of virulent racists, most of them not, I'll venture, part of that entrenched power structure.)

Whoever our new mayor is, come November, the entrenched power structure will be placed a bit on its ear. Two women are running, one an Asian-American, the other of half-Tunisian descent who identifies as a POC. Whatever happens, our mayor is not going to be an Irish- or Italian-American for the first time in, like, forever. (Make that mostly Irish with one Italian disruptor/interruptor, Tom Menino, along the way.)

But the September primary run-off brought up all the old accusations of racism. There were five candidates. (It's a non-partisan position and election, but everyone who runs is a Democrat.) Three were African-American, but the two candidates who advanced to the final were not. Out came the cries of racism. But not if you do the math. Blacks make up about one-quarter of Boston's population. Black candidates for mayor received 40% of the vote. Since Black turnout was proportionately lower than white turnout, it looks like a lot of whites voted for a Black candidate. And every voter voted for a person of color. 

But the day after the primary, out came the cries of racism. Once you get a reputation, it's hard to live it down.

As for Boston baseball, the charges of racism are built on a solid foundation. Tom Yawkey - not a Bostonian, I will note; he was from South Carolina - was the old-school racist owner of the Red Sox who made sure the Red Sox were the last team to have a Black player on the roster. Yawkey rejected the opportunity to bring up Jackie Robinson. And waited until twelve years later to bring on Elijah "Pumpsie" Green to break the Red Sox color barrier. (Supposedly, Tom Yawkey came around in his old age.)

So there's that lurking in the background of Sean McDonough's clumsy comment.

And that's all it was. At least IMHO.

He wasn't making fun of Farhan Zaidi for his Pakistani origins, making a crack of the why isn't he running a cricket team variety. He wasn't laughing about Zaidi's being a Muslim. He was just remarking on the fact that his last name happens to sound a bit like the word anxiety. Trite, not racist. As we used to say in Worcester, "Count to three and I'll laugh for you." One. Two. "Ha-ha, couldn't wait."

There's plenty of problems with racism in Boston, in Massachusetts, in the United States, in the world. 

Words matter, but making Sean McDonough's little not-so-bon-mot the center of anyone's attention is, to me, a diversion from the really ugly things that are happening out there. 

We should all have some level of high anxiety about racism, and we should be doing more about it than freezing in place in our anxiety. As white folks, however, we deserve to experience anxiety over racism. 

Maybe I'm just not the sensitive type, but I'm not sensing racism in Sean McDonough's crack. 

Nothing to see here, folks. Let's move on.