Hank Aaron, BLM and a Reflection on Black History Month

As we venture further into 2021 we enter February, and with it Black History Month. 2020 brought us a year of greater clarity regarding where race relations stand in our country, and how far from equality we still remain. The Black Lives Matter protests through the year sparked counter protests, counter movements, and a great deal of social commentary. All of these things fell short of simply acknowledging the truth: America's original sin, that of slavery and deeply ingrained racism, is alive and strong today. That is not to say any aspect of this discussion is simple; quite the opposite, all of it is complex and multi-layered. But if we cannot start from the position that racism is still a strong factor in American society then it's hard to start a dialogue to move forward. 

I thought quite a bit about 2020, Black Lives Matter, and the state of race relations when reading this article about Hank Aaron's life. Aaron, who died on January 21, 2021, was the "home run king" of baseball from 1974 until Barry Bonds passed him in 2007. Both Bonds and Aaron dealt with pushback as they approached the records, but whereas Bonds pushback was related to his reported use of performance enhancing drugs (at least on the surface), the vitriol directed at Aaron was overtly racist. If you read the article, which was published on The Ringer, you'll get vibrant examples of the hate mail and outright death threats Aaron dealt with as he approached the record, which had been held since 1921 by Babe Ruth. 

Part of my struggle in engaging in discussions with certain segments of the American population is the way in which they want to open scientific or data driven fact to debate. This is true in the area of disproportionality statistics as well. We know that black Americans are far more likely to be killed in police shootings than white Americans. We also know that there are significant disparities in the area of healthcare and health outcomes. Further, we also know that there are significant gaps in socioeconomic status between black Americans and their white counterparts, as well as frequency and impact of traumatic events in childhood. These truths, along with others, are well researched and proven. They are not a matter of opinion; they are a matter of fact. 

I'm currently reading Jon Meacham's book "His Truth is Marching on: John Lewis and the Power of Hope." While I have a ways to go in the book, reading through Lewis' early life, and realizing the relative proximity of full blown Jim Crow era America is always something that shakes me to my core. I faced that same reality reading the articles about Aaron after his death, realizing how much of his career was played in Jim Crow America. I am a sucker for pointing out how terribly human beings conceptualize time; what seems to be a "long time ago" is really the blink of an eye. The impact of what happened a generation ago cannot be understated. Simply put, I am more likely to succeed in this world because of who my parents are and where I was born. The same was true for them, and so on. 

Of course, many people rise above their "station in life," but on the whole we cannot afford to pretend that slavery from 1619 through the end of the Civil War, coupled with systemic overt racism, as well as de facto covert racism, hasn't led to the myriad of studies I noted above. As we enter Black History Month I hope that in 2021 we can take a step closer to acknowledging these impacts society wide, and committing to work on tangible action to help reduce socioeconomic inequality, justice system inequality, health inequality and childhood trauma inequalities, among other aspect I did not note. The reality is that we are far to comfortable as a society to let generations pass and let the problems change, without making the hard decisions necessary to resolve the root issues that led to and perpetuate the problems in the first place.