Major League Baseball Promotes “Unity” By Supporting Organization that Calls for “Burning Down the System”

New York, NY July 24, 2020 – Players, coaches and teams across all 30 Major League Baseball teams engaged in a show of “unity” through a series of gestures, videos, advertisements that promoted an organization that has pledged to “burn down this system” “(i)f this country doesn’t give us what we want.”
 
MLB spokesperson Yagota B. Kidding stated, “The leadership, owners, players and coaches of organized baseball believe that the best way to bring all Americans together at this difficult time is to express our support for an organization that:

• “was founded by three self-described ‘radical Black organizers’ based on the uncontroversial belief that ‘Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise’ and 
• “recently sparked ‘peaceful protests’ in many of our cities that actually ‘targeted for demise’ small businesses, cars and other personal property, police precincts, federal courthouses, revered cultural icons and even the lives and safety of innocent people and law enforcement personnel.”

 
Continued Kidding, “MLB believes everyone will come together (especially MLB’s 83% white TV fan base) behind the healing, unifying platform and ‘demands’ of Black Lives Matter and the ‘partner organization’ with which it is part of a ‘collective,’ the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), such as:
 
-“a ‘national defunding of police’ and the ‘systemic racism’ and ‘culture of corruption’ they represents (such as the officers who provide security at every MLB game)’ 

-“’disrupt(ing) the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure’ 

-“’build(ing) a space that… is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men (like, for example, 100% of MLB players) are centered’ 

-“’the retroactive decriminalization, immediate release, and record expungement of all drug related offenses and prostitution’ 

-“’a divestment from industrial multinational use of fossil fuels (that light and power every MLB ballpark)’ 

-“’overturn(ing) US imperialism, capitalism (in other words, the way all 30 owners make money and finance our operations) and white supremacy’ 

-“denouncing Israel as ‘an apartheid state,’ a position that especially delights the nearly one dozen Jewish owners of MLB franchises 

-“investments (paid for by higher taxes on our comparatively upscale fan base) in the education, health and safety of Black people… (that) include:

• “’A constitutional right at the state and federal level to a fully-funded education which includes a clear articulation of the right to: a free education for all, special protections for queer and trans students, wrap around services, social workers, free health services (including reproductive body autonomy)’
• “’a guaranteed minimum livable income for all Black people’
• “’corporate and government reparations focused on healing ongoing physical and mental trauma, and ensuring our access and control of food sources, housing and land’
• “’real, meaningful, and equitable universal health care that guarantees: proximity to nearby comprehensive health centers, culturally competent services for all our people, specific services for queer, gender nonconforming, and trans people, full bodily autonomy, full reproductive services, mental health services, paid parental leave, and comprehensive quality child and elder care’
• 'not to mention a full range of 'reparations for past and continuing harms."

Concluded Kidding, “We’re looking forward to inspiring all our fans looking for a diversion from an epidemic and race riots during these troubling times with more shaming of their ‘white privilege’ and in-your-face ‘wokeness’ honoring this inexplicably popular movement that is committed to driving up their taxes and destroying their way of life.”
 
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Photo credit: Slgckgc (CC BY 2.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode