August 06, 2008

Univ. of Alabama Baseball Team Will Visit Cuba.

“Alabama authorities are famous for setting ferocious German shepherds on Civil rights marchers, for brutalizing them with fire hoses and for bashing their heads with billy clubs. Alabama residents are famous for fire-bombing black churches. And an Alabama Governor is famous for personally preventing blacks from entering the doors of the Univ.of Alabama. This southern state's racist cruelties inspired Neil Young to some of his biggest hits. Yet the racist regime that jailed and tortured the longest suffering Black political prisoners in modern history is hosting the Univ. of Alabama's Baseball Team to loud fanfare from Alabama officials. “

It so happens that I'm quite fond of Alabama and Alabamians (especially during deer-season.) A tiny number of sadist kooks--utterly unrepresentative of the state's friendly people, in my experience-- were responsible for all the above. But I wrote the above while envisioning the Mainstream Media treatment of the Univ. of Alabama's baseball team visiting South Africa in 1986, with President Pik Botha's blessing —something utterly unthinkable by Crimson Tide officials.

Alas, I would have been wrong even had it happened. Because the longest suffering black political prisoner in history, and the black political prisoners suffering jail and torture TODAY for quoting Martin Luther King, were jailed and tortured –not by South Africa—but by the regime that will ROLL out the red-carpet next week for a visit from the Crimson Tide's Baseball Team. This visit is being hailed by the Media along with Alabama officials.

“We are very grateful to all the people that worked so hard to make this trip possible," gushed Alabama baseball coach Jim Wells. "This will be the opportunity of a lifetime for the players, coaches and staff that will participate in this event. The trip to Havana will be a valuable educational tool for all of us.”

I bet. Cuban women and girls whose mothers and grandmothers enjoyed rights and incomes no black in Alabama could dream of in 1958, will be available to these fellows at bargain-basement rates.

Posted by Humberto at August 6, 2008 12:28 PM



Comments

Waiting for an Alabama Player to defect to Cuba, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting... -S-

Posted by: Dr.Shalit [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 6, 2008 01:51 PM

As I read this, I find myself trying to figure out exactly how, or by what lost element of reality is it that these persons convene on this experience with excitement. How is it exactly that these people have found themselves primed for flight to a despotic, communist nation still holding on to this notion of it being an "educational tool". Have the tides changed in America, such that it is no longer something to be frowned upon when those who wield power in a nation strangle an entire population on every conceivable facet of life or so called public life? Or is it that things in Cuba are not as bad as some would have the public believe? That in fact, Cuba is fantastic and utopian? Those in the echelon of power address the public and voice to them that the reason why mothers dont have enough milk to go around for their children, the reason they cannot eat even a slice of steak, the reason they have to wait four hours in line for a pound of rice? Yanquis. Which complex is it that these "Alabamians" believe? Is it the line that that everything is great in Cuba? Is it the line that the device-of-evil (c)astro brothers spew, that things really are'nt great, but its THE AMERICANs fault? and if so, why would they be honored as guests in such a nation? and further still, bearing this was valid, how does one approach going to a place for a sports game "knowing" you're the cause of the greater suffering in the nation hosting you? OR is it that they justify themselves unblemished by their american-ness due to their sympathetic ideology with this regime? a la : We know its Americas fault, but we're learned Yanquis, and we want to play nice now, will you ever forgive us?

Posted by: Aaron [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 7, 2008 12:27 AM

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