On Tuesday night, a major controversy started brewing when ESPN baseball writer Jeff Passann posted that Jackie Robinson‘s page had infuriatingly and disrespectfully been scrubbed from the US Department of Defense’s website.
“The ghouls who did this should be ashamed. Jackie Robinson was the embodiment of an American hero. Fix this now,” exclaimed Passan in a post on X.
The post quickly went viral and after being bombarded with posts of anger and disgust all day on Wednesday, the military finally restored the page, which had been taken down after being classified as part of this administration’s racist anti-DEI crusade.
While the page was restored, the damage was done and the message was clear.
In this administration, Black lives, even those who served and died for this country, are expendable and considered unqualified under the racist anti-DEI movement.
Since returning to power, T**** has been on a crusade of vengeance, hate and retribution, and one of his primary targets has been Black America.
Enabling Elon Musk’s vicious and thoughtless budget cuts, lives are being impacted and the futures of many are being harmed. The elimination of program funding and jobs threaten all, but Black people in particular are extremely vulnerable, especially through the anti-DEI movement that’s swept across the country.
We all know the real purpose of targeting DEI and the the coded language it entails.
Now military and American heroes, which this administration claims to love and support, has been caught up in the effort to eliminate history, which is as disgusting as it is racist.
And including global icon Jackie Robinson in the effort to eliminate Black history, which is American history, is even more despicable.
Robinson, who T**** said during Black History Month last month he would add a statue of in the Garden of Heroes along with Muhammad Ali and Kobe Bryant, was more than a baseball player.
He was an Army veteran, history-maker, corporate executive, labor fighter, banker, developer, businessman and an amazing athlete.
He remains the only athlete in UCLA history to letter in four different sports (football, baseball, basketball and track). He was drafted and served in the US Army before becoming a phys ed teacher and player-coach at Samuel Huston College in Austin, TX.
Robinson then because a star for the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro Leagues before being signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers’ minor league team, the Montreal Royals, and ultimately breaking baseball’s color barrier by stepping onto the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15th, 1947.
Robinson’s Hall of Fame career is well known by all, as is his role in integrating baseball.
But, as we wrote in this story in 2022, Robinson’s life was about much more than baseball.
Robinson fought for corporate integration as an executive with the Chock Full o’ Nuts restaurant chain. He supported small businesses, including a Black-owned bank in Harlem, and joined the fight for affordable housing. In 1969, he refused an offer to play in the Old Timers game because of baseball’s refusal to hire Black managers.
Robinson got involved in politics. He supported both Republican and Democratic candidates and participated in the national Civil Rights movement. He backed the Teamsters after they supported Black communities and the fight for equal rights.
Based on his life story, and the goal of DEI, some might consider Robinson the ultimate example of the benefits of DEI, for he would normally have been overlooked for all of the positions he assumed due to the color of his skin. Yet because he was QUALIFIED for these positions, and given the opportunity to pursue them, he excelled in these roles when given the chance.
That’s the purpose of DEI; not to discriminate against any group, but to make sure traditionally marginalized groups, which are QUALIFIED, aren’t overlooked.
While Robinson’s page was ultimately restored, the broad erasure of Black military history caused by the anti-DEI mandates and inhuman, senseless algorithms is a racist stab in the back to all those who served and died for this country.
Fortunately, Jackie Robinson’s life, which, despite the efforts of MAGA lovers to eliminate, involved race and is too important and impactful to erase.
And, as this administration will continue to learn, Black history as a whole is too big and too important to eliminate.
