Hank Aaron calls out Republicans, gets new round of hate mail

nighttimer

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Hank Aaron was on the receiving end of hate mail from fools, idiots and bigots when he was going after Babe Ruth's record. So, what's new?

When Aaron was a younger man he stood in the fire and came out a winner. There is nothing anyone can say or write about him now that will phase him in the slightest or lessen his accomplishments in the least.

Hammerin' Hank's haters can sit on a baseball bat and spin. :e2moon:
 

jeffo

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"Whaaa! I called 55+ million people racists and people sent me hate mail."

Yeah, sorry, I don't really have any pity for him.
 

kuwisdelu

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"Whaaa! I called 55+ million people racists and people sent me hate mail."

Yeah, sorry, I don't really have any pity for him.

I doubt he'd care for your pity anyway.

The reaction to his comments just goes to show how true his comments were.

We still have a long way to go...
 
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robjvargas

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Hank Aaron provided no specifics. Calling out a whole political ideology with uncorroborated generalities and likening a whole population to a hate group.

And then ANYONE is surprised that responses are angry?

Mr Aaron, your greatness at baseball is an achievement no one in their right mind can take from you. Nor should anyone try.

Your political and social commentary, less so.

The story decries:

Aaron speaking his mind was apparently too much for some baseball fans. Some of them promised to burn Aaron's book, others called him "classless, racist," according to USA Today.

Freedom of speech, as others have pointed out in the past, is not freedom from consequence. And I'm not speaking of the violence, or the threats of it.

I'm not a Republican. I consider myself a conservative. And I have no doubt, based on the stereotyping and whiny language Hank Aaron used, that he'd put me under that umbrella.

Neither he nor those who interviewed him should be surprised that people take umbrage at what he said. And calling him classless and racist for saying them isn't hate mail. It's truth.

If you label a whole swath of the country as being no better than the KKK, then yes, you are just as racist as those you meant to call out.
 

kuwisdelu

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Disagreeing with someone is not racism.

"Hank Aaron is a scumbag piece of (expletive) (racial slur)'' a man named Edward said in an e-mail to the Braves front office and obtained by USA TODAY Sports. "My old man instilled in my mind from a young age, the only good (racial slur) is a dead (racial slur)."

Yeah. Nothing racist here. I must have been mistaken.
 

clintl

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I interpreted his comments as being directed toward the Republicans in Congress, and I think his assessment is pretty damn accurate in that regard. Obama has been treated by the opposition party differently than any recent president, especially when with regards to the use of the filibuster in the Senate and the Hastert Rule in the House to block his legislative agenda. If Tip O'Neill had treated Reagan the same way Boehner has treated Obama, then Reagan wouldn't have had much of his agenda passed, either.
 

kuwisdelu

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Hank Aaron, too, needs to think about that.

I would assume thinking about that is part of what led Hank Aaron to say what he did.

I would suspect that Hank Aaron has been thinking about that for decades.

I struggle to conceive how what he said could be considered controversial by anyone but racists.
 
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raburrell

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I saw it like clintl did, as being directed at congressional Republicans rather than that side of the public at large. Though yes, many in the general public appear to making the point for him.

IMO, the Obamacare debate left me with the impression that there's more kneejerk 'I hate Democrats' sentiment against the President's agenda than a racial component. And there's plenty of 'you were mean to our guy so we're going to be mean to yours' as well (and you can take that as far back as you'd like).

That said, if you look at the irrational consolidation of weaponry in the hands of certain segments of the population that's occurred during Obama's terms, I think anyone who tries to argue there isn't a component of racial fear in all of this has an uphill battle. It does not mean that everyone who opposes the President's agenda is a racist. Or that everyone who supports it isn't. Etc.

Big country, and all.
 

kuwisdelu

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And Aaron never said anything about agreement or disagreement. He talked about treatment.
 

robjvargas

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IMO, the Obamacare debate left me with the impression that there's more kneejerk 'I hate Democrats' sentiment against the President's agenda than a racial component. And there's plenty of 'you were mean to our guy so we're going to be mean to yours' as well (and you can take that as far back as you'd like).
That's fair.
 

Zoombie

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See, if people want to not be seen as racists, all they need to do is...not...be racist.

It's really not that hard.
 

robjvargas

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See, if people want to not be seen as racists, all they need to do is...not...be racist.

It's really not that hard.

Have congressional republicans called him out on his race? Done anything different than they did or would have done to, say, Al Gore?

Republicans are approximately half of the 535 members of the House and Senate. I'm sure *someone* has. But Hank Aaron didn't refer to particular Republicans. He referred to them all.
 

nighttimer

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Hank Aaron provided no specifics. Calling out a whole political ideology with uncorroborated generalities and likening a whole population to a hate group.

And then ANYONE is surprised that responses are angry?

Mr Aaron, your greatness at baseball is an achievement no one in their right mind can take from you. Nor should anyone try.

Your political and social commentary, less so.

The story decries:

Freedom of speech, as others have pointed out in the past, is not freedom from consequence. And I'm not speaking of the violence, or the threats of it.

I'm not a Republican. I consider myself a conservative. And I have no doubt, based on the stereotyping and whiny language Hank Aaron used, that he'd put me under that umbrella.

Neither he nor those who interviewed him should be surprised that people take umbrage at what he said. And calling him classless and racist for saying them isn't hate mail. It's truth.

If you label a whole swath of the country as being no better than the KKK, then yes, you are just as racist as those you meant to call out.

I call bullshit.

Hank Aaron said:
"We can talk about baseball. Talk about politics. Sure, this country has a black president, but when you look at a black president, President Obama is left with his foot stuck in the mud from all of the Republicans with the way he's treated. We have moved in the right direction, and there have been improvements, but we still have a long ways to go in the country. The bigger difference is that back then they had hoods. Now they have neckties and starched shirts."

Anyone who thinks conservatives are being maligned unfairly in how they have treated President Obama is either insufferably naive or purposefully ignorant. Neither is helpful and hardly rebuts Hank Aaron's opinion.

Aaron is as entitled to his opinion as anyone. Certainly as much as a grizzled old fuck like Ted Nugent whom the GOP treats like a rock god even as he calls the President of the United States "a subhuman mongrel."

If Republicans and conservatives dislike so much being lumped in with the racist worst of the worst, then it's real easy how to avoid the association. Make it plain for Reince Preibus to Ted Cruz to John McCain to George Will to Ann Coulter to Roger Ailes and all the rest in-between there is zero tolerance for racists, dog whistles to barely-concealed bigotry and nodding and winking to assholes like Nugent when he vomits up vile idiocy after vile idiocy about the president.

Hank Aaron was right and that's what burns the butts of his critics. The truth will set you free but first it will piss you off.

So spare me the sputtering outrage. If you didn't have any for Nugent's outrageous statement, I don't care how much you have for Aaron's relatively mild one.
 

William Haskins

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hank aaron earned the right to say whatever the hell he wants, and earned it the hard way. given the abuse he took as a player, it's not surprising that he sees opposition to obama through the prism of race, and there certainly is some validity to that view.

but defaulting to that position is nevertheless intellectually lazy and ignores the trajectory of partisan venom that has always permeated national politics and has only intensified in the age of the internet.

for every person who honestly feels that obama's ability to do his job and that the quality of our national conversation has been undermined by racism, there are 10 people ready to cry wolf at every opportunity in an attempt to immunize obama against dissent or disagreement by instilling the fear of being called a racist.

and it's only a matter of time before the same people crack open the playbook once again and do a search/replace of "obama" to "clinton" and "racist" to "sexist."

it won't change the fact that there are racists and sexists out there, but it also won't change the fact that there is such a thing as righteous dissent as well as such a thing as trying to create a broader perception of bigotry than actually exists to wield as a political weapon.
 

kuwisdelu

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it won't change the fact that there are racists and sexists out there, but it also won't change the fact that there is such a thing as righteous dissent as well as such a thing as trying to create a broader perception of bigotry than actually exists to wield as a political weapon.

The fact that some may use it as a political weapon doesn't make the observation less valid.
 

rugcat

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hank aaron earned the right to say whatever the hell he wants, and earned it the hard way. given the abuse he took as a player, it's not surprising that he sees opposition to obama through the prism of race, and there certainly is some validity to that view.

but defaulting to that position is nevertheless intellectually lazy and ignores the trajectory of partisan venom that has always permeated national politics and has only intensified in the age of the internet.
I think you are under estimating the racist component.

It is certainly true that not all opposition to Obama stems from race. It is also true that much of the opposition is indeed to "liberal "policies that would be decried no matter who is in office.

But it's not that simple. The opposition to Obama goes deeper, and is rooted in a visceral dislike of the man that really cannot be explained by his policy initiatives. As has been noted many times, Obama has been a disappointment to progressives, because basically he is a centrist Democrat far too willing to compromise, and far too willing to promote policies that are not approved by the left.

And the ones on the right who are the most oppositional and even vitriolic against him are indeed representative of a subset of conservatives to whom race really does matter – not in the sense of, "oh I hate this guy because he's black" but by a real sense of "this guy is not like us. He's different. He is not a true American."

And by that, they mean he is not part of American culture. That is, not their culture – instead, the culture of minorities, urban dwellers, and to be quite frank, black people.

I think you give way too much credit to the good intentions of people – quite unlike you, William.