Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Some opposition

In Where Have We Gone, Mr. Robinson Gerald Early tries to prove that Jackie Robinson was not as successful in ending segregation as most people would like to think. He tries to do this by questioning just how integrated sports really are stating "So what would Robinson make of the relationship between the game he loved and African Americans today? He would find reasons to be encouraged: baseball is more diversified and more international than ever, racism is considerably lessened, and there are nearly twice as many teams as when Robinson first broke in 60 years ago. But African Americans are disappearing from baseball. Blacks make up 8% of major league baseball players today and only 3% of players on NCAA Division I baseball teams." (Early, 2007) but he forgets to add that the NCAA is not the only place where professional athletes get recruted and that in the 70's and 80's there were nearly 10 times as many blacks in professional baseball as today. This may be because talent in the black community is going down or they are less interested but nonetheless this has nothing to do with Robinson because without him these numbers could still be at 0.

Source:
Early, G. (2007). Where have we gone, Mr. Robinson?. time, 169(17), 48-49.

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