Sports Column | Les Winkeler: 'A shock to my system' - The Southern
Beckemeyer, and by extension Clinton County, were lily-white enclaves when I was growing up in the 1960s.
How white was it? I didn’t know a Black person by name until high school.
While aware of racist attitudes surrounding me, I was naïve. Ironically enough, Beckemeyer was something of an outlier from the rest of the German Catholics and Lutheran community. There were Spaniards, Poles, Lithuanians mixed in with the German population, but, make no mistake, in terms of color there was no diversity.
Since the entire population was white, racism seemed theoretical, not real. To my 15-year-old mind, that sanitized the clearly misguided attitudes. That blissful state of denial, dare I say ignorance, existed until the summer of 1973.
After all, the same people who casually dropped the N-word every time they spoke of African Americans were huge fans of Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Bill White and Curt Flood. As an aside, I didn’t learn until many years later the racial indignities these Cardinals greats were forced to endure.
But, by the summer of 1973, I had become exponentially more sophisticated — bear in mind that’s a relative term because the baseline was incredibly low. I was home from college after my first year at Southern Illinois University.
That first month of college — what an eye-opening experience. And, I’m not talking about the classroom. Coming from an homogenous environment and being thrust into the swirling diversity of a major college campus was perhaps the greatest lesson SIU taught me.
There were people of color on my floor. The Center for English as a Second Language was thriving at the time, so several Middle Eastern languages were spoken on my dormitory floor.
Again, in my naïve state, I felt enlightened. Yet, I refused to accept the fact that the racism I witnessed at home was a virulent strain. Since it didn’t seem to affect anyone directly, I rationalized it as benign. After all, the people I knew really couldn’t be harboring actual hate.
That’s where Hank Aaron comes in.
Late in the summer of 1973, Aaron was closing in on Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record, a record that seemed unassailable for 30 years.
I happened to be in the Beckemeyer American Legion home late one evening after a softball game. Since the American Legion was the social center of town, that’s where the softball team carpool gathered.
There were several regulars at the bar that night, watching the Cardinals playing the Atlanta Braves. Aaron must have hit a home run that night because the announcers mentioned he was closing in on Babe Ruth.
That touched a nerve.
The two men sitting in front of the television launched into a racial tirade that shocked my young sensibilities. The expletive-riddled rant was a personal attack on Aaron, was heavily laden with white superiority and ended with a declaration that the numbers were irrelevant, Babe Ruth would always be baseball’s home run king.
Even at a young age, I was unable to hold my tongue. I knew both of the men well enough to insert myself in the conversation. I pointed out that the numbers didn’t lie. If someone hit 715 home runs, regardless of their color, they would be the all-time leader.
They turned on me with a ferocity I didn’t expect. In that instant I realized there was nothing theoretical or benign about ill-informed racial attitudes.
It was a shock to my system. I’ve thought about that moment many times in the intervening years. That raw anger frightened me, and I could walk away from it anytime I chose. I can’t imagine what it must be like to live with that every day.
I thought of that incident again last week when Aaron passed away. And, his stature grew even greater when I surrounded his accomplishments in the context of the racial hatred he endured.
RIP Hank – you deserve it.
LES WINKELER is the former sports editor for The Southern Illinoisan. Contact him at les@winkelerswingsandwildlife.com, on Twitter @LesWinkeler.
2021-01-29 02:30:00Z
https://thesouthern.com/sports/sports-column-les-winkeler-a-shock-to-my-system/article_9acb7218-cbfd-542a-ac30-3e93f6bf2d94.html
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