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Jackie Robinson Statue Defaced in Brooklyn With N-word and Swastika

Travel Jackie Robinson's Brooklyn

A statue that depicts the famous moment when Pee Wee Reese put his arm around Jackie Robinson to show his support during Robinson’s rookie year has been vandalized with hateful words and a swastika:

A swastika, along with the phrases “Heil Hitler,” “die n****r,” “f**k n****r,” and “f**k Jackie Robinson” were all scrawled on the statue, which depicts Hall of Famers Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese in a famous pose from 1947, 1010 WINS reported.

Reese, a southerner, famously put his arm around Robinson in response to the many taunts and threats that Robinson received when he broke the color barrier in baseball.  It was Reese’s way of showing that Robinson was his teammate and he stood by him.  Back then baseball was a truly national institution and its breaking the color barrier was significant.  That the southerner captain of one of baseball’s best teams (the Brooklyn Dodgers won 6 of 10 National League pennants between 1947 and 1956) showed his support in such a manner meant a great deal.

The inscription at the statue’s base reads:

This monument honors Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese: teammates, friends, and men of courage and conviction. Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball, Reese supported him, and together they made history. In May 1947, on Cincinnati’s Crosley Field, Robinson endured racist taunts, jeers, and death threats that would have broken the spirit of a lesser man. Reese, captain of the Brooklyn Dodgers, walked over to his teammate Robinson and stood by his side, silencing the taunts of the crowd. This simple gesture challenged prejudice and created a powerful and enduring friendship.

The statue stands outside MCU Park in Coney Island.  The park is near the western end of Coney Island’s amusement area and the Coney Island boardwalk runs behind the park.  I live about a 5-minute drive from the park, although it’s been about 6 or 7 years since I last went to a game there, so I’m somewhat familiar with the area.

I wish I could say that this comes as a shock, but given the bigotry we have seen come to the fore the past few years it is not.  Hate crimes happen all the time and while the more startling ones such as these make the news, most do not.  I hope we’re seeing the last stands of the bigots, but then we thought that a few years ago and it’s only gotten worse.  Their stupidity can be cured, but sadly they don’t want to take their medicine (education).

Still, I’m proud to call myself a Brooklynite.  It was where history was made in April 1947 and it’s a place where even with all the problems we generally manage to get along.


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/ 13 Comments

13 comments

  1. Mets102

    as ‘criticism’ of the President when what they really can’t stand is the fact that there’s a black man in the White House.

  3. JanF

    ’47 Percent Negro’: Anti-Obama Protest Turns Racist In Phoenix

    As President Barack Obama spoke in Phoenix Tuesday about responsible home ownership, hundreds of people stood outside protesting his policies, many shouting and carrying racially charged chants and signs.

    “Bye Bye Black Sheep,” the protestors shouted at one point, a reference to the president’s skin color, according to the Arizona Republic.

    Another protestor carried a sign that said “Impeach the Half-White Muslim!”

    “He’s 47 percent Negro,” one protestor shouted.

    “We have gone back so many years,” Judy Burris told the Republic. “He’s divided all the races. I hate him for that.”

         

  5. DeniseVelez

    in a way, I’m glad it is so open.  It is opening eyes.  Many people haven’t understood what we’ve lived with each day for our whole lives.

  6. plf515

    years ago (and not that many years ago) we would not have been shocked.

    And not so many years before that, a lot of educated opinion would have agreed with the racists.

    I have just been reading about Louis Agassiz (1807-1883). He was a famous scientist, specializing in  paleontology. He engaged in debates about race. The big debate was not whether the “White” race was superior – pretty much everyone was sure they were – but whether the different races shared a common ancestor (Agassiz held that they did not).  

    Things change. Mostly for the better.

    In graduate school I studied the work of Lewis Terman. Terman (1877-1956) was a noted psychologist. He is most famous for a long term study of gifted youth. In his initial reports, he noted that there were 4 Black kids in his sample of about 1000 gifted kids. But, he noted, 2 of them had one White parent, so it wasn’t really so shocking that there were any.  

    Things change. Mostly for the better.

    When my father graduated law school (in 1948, from Harvard, where he was editor of the law review) he joined a very small firm. No good firm would hire Jews in any number (some not at all, some had low quotas). His firm grew and was one of the first big firms to make a woman a partner and to make a Black person a partner.

    Things change. Mostly for the better.

    In “Better Angels of Our Nature” Steven Pinker set out to study the history of violence. He found lots of data on wars throughout history, but very little about genocide. Not because genocide is rare, but because, until recently, it was more or less expected.

    Things change. Mostly for the better.

    When I was in 4th or 5th grade (I am 54 now) one of my teachers used, as an example of something startling “A Black person reading the NY Times”.

    Things change. Mostly for the better.

    Are there still bigots? Of course there are. There probably always will be. Is there equality of races, ethnicities, sexes etc.? Not yet.  

    But if you look to the next generation…. Well, my son was lucky enough to go to an elementary school where there are lots of kids from all over and who look all sorts of different ways and speak many different languages (IIRC, there were about 50 different native languages in the school) and all sorts of families. And he plays with them based on whether he likes them and whether they share interests, coming close to “the content of their character” not the “color of their skin”.

    Things change. Mostly for the better.

  7. kishik

    the $&#%@& didn’t even spell Heil correctly.  The Daily News showed a picture where it’s spelled Hile.

    Ugh!

    This just makes me sick.

    Hoping the $&#%@& are dumb enough to brag and that someone who hears about it rats them out.

  8. bfitzinAR

    that’s bringing all the rats out from the sewers.  The surprise to many who’ve lived from times of segregation to times of a Black president is that there are so many of them.  I’m not surprised but then I’m rather cynical about the great mass of easily manipulable, fear-driven people.

  9. Chris Blask

    I think the comments in this thread are right on base, however.

    Dee

    Many people haven’t understood what we’ve lived with each day for our whole lives.

    Mets

    However, until we are able to move past that white privilege (and the discrimination against non-whites that comes with it) will be a sad, and important, characteristic of our society.

    plf515

    years ago (and not that many years ago) we would not have been shocked.

    And not so many years before that, a lot of educated opinion would have agreed with the racists.

    I am one of the people learning and changing. We all are (and where we don’t think so, we mostly need to look harder). I have seen more of the subtlety and arc of history of racism in American in the past few years, and it has helped me understand where we are and perhaps where we are going.

    I continue to agree with plf515

    Things change. Mostly for the better.

    and my rosy optimism and support for our system has not faded or changed. But I have a better understanding of both the lingering problem with racism in this country as well as some more evolved thoughts on what can be done about it.

    This isn’t 1969 or 1929. It’s 2013 with its own set of problems, extrapolated from those and earlier times. The solutions of yesterday are not the solutions of today, the challenges are in some ways the same and in others different.

    It is good that we are talking about race, in total. We still are not talking about the topic with any effectiveness whatsoever. But we are talking about it. The President being black, the actions of stupid people, the discomfort of so many to have the conversation at all… – each and all of these things pile up to push the issue. This will work to continue the progress along the arc of justice that we have been progressing for a long time, and knobs who deface statues will continue to be further on the wrong side of history.

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