The “Pride Night” cap kerfuffle.
“The dullest human being is more complicated than the most complex fictional character, fuller of contradiction, fuller of love and hate and every intermediary emotion between.”
—Elizabeth McCracken, A Long Game
Cheering on a sports team is ostensibly a unifying event for a community—or at least for the hoi polloi located outside a sports venue’s luxury boxes. But, alas, professional sports teams are not immune from divisive identity politics, especially if doing so out of fear or opportunistic commercialization.
A tiresome example is when subject to the right catalyst the team is motivated to encourage pernicious tribalism under the guise of celebrating so-called diversity. The tribes are typically designated based on (non-white) skin color or (non-heterosexual) sexuality. In Major League Baseball, this means nights dedicated to various skin hues and specific sexual preferences.
Diversity? When you hear that term used as a purportedly laudable goal you can be certain that diversity inconsistent with Woke ideology is to be castigated if not outright punished. Deliberate divisiveness and punishment of wrongthink is a far more accurate description of what is intended.
The month of June is designated “Pride Month” and once was used to celebrate camaraderie in the fight for homosexual rights. Not anymore. The gay rights movement is fully co-opted by the transcult and extreme fetishists who parasitically glommed onto it to use as a Trojan Horse for institutional capture. They’ve been spectacularly successful in this regard, to the point that many gays are appalled by what their civil rights movement has transmogrified into (pun intended).
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a once pro-gay rights organization now completely beholden to transcultists at the expense of homosexuals and females, pressures corporations and sports teams to capitulate to its agenda, including the use of the bastardized “new” pride flag. One result is for corporations to rainbowfy their logos and websites during June—except of course where they do business in Muslim countries. Not offending Muslim sensibilities trump others on the victimhood hierarchy.
Sports teams with the misfortune to have seasons overlapping the month of June may sartorially submit to the HRC and other activists by wearing rainbow flag themed uniforms for a day, but the flag is often not the venerable pride flag (eight colors only), but the new one replete with hues trumpeting allegiance to transgenderism and melanin (e.g., BLM). Which is to say a flag honoring an ideology which demands male rapists be put in women’s prisons and children forcibly taken away from parents for surgical mutilation and pharmaceutical poisoning, among other atrocities. And it honors another ideology which has done tremendous harm to black communities.
For their team’s Pride Night, the San Francisco Giants provided players pride flag (not the venerable one) themed hats to wear. Two columnists at the San Francisco Chronicle are big mad that several Giants ballplayers either didn’t wear the rainbowed baseball cap or placed bible passages on these. One can imagine the courage it took to refuse to wear or modify the hat, even as a quiet protest, in the Pride capital of the world and whose local sportswriters are dunderheaded Woke cultists who mindlessly brook zero dissention.
As expected, sports columnist Ann Killion chimed in with her typical imbecilic and doctrinaire Woke take on socio-political matters (“Pitchers’ protest an affront to fans, city”). Here are some choice morsels from her screed:
- “In the name of Christianity, they took a decidedly un-Christian stance of exclusion and judgment.” [Ms. Killion is the self-proclaimed arbiter of Christian beliefs, ignorant of the fact these are quite diverse themselves. Two of the world’s largest religions don’t think kindly about homosexuality—Catholicism and Islam—the former is the world’s largest Christian faith. She sets the bar quite low for what she deems un-Christian behavior if modifying or not wearing a silly hat is the determiner. Oh, and religions do indeed judge, so how she came to believe otherwise is mystifying.]
- She quoted team broadcaster Mike Krukow who offered a comically ignorant contradictory statement: “What makes San Francisco so great is the acceptance of others—ethnicities, opinions, cultures—and that extends to the gay community.” [Wow, that is truly a doozie. Mr. Krukow is either naive as fuck or terrified to appear otherwise. Any ethnicity, opinion, or culture (except Muslims) not fully onboard with Wokeness is in for quite the opposite of acceptance, as Ms. Killion often smugly proves.]
- “The whole disastrous season has raised questions of whether this team is lacking some sort of fundamental character or leadership.” [A team not fully onboard with wearing a sexuality-based hat is apparently the canary in the coal mine with widespread implications, including a team’s hitting, fielding, and pitching.]
Not to be left out, entertainment columnist Tony Bravo added his own moronic two cents—and I’m being far too generous with its purported worth (“Pride Night becomes Embarrassment Night”). Here are some of his morsels:
- “Those players’ defacement of their hats felt as shocking as suddenly getting gay-bashed by the team’s mascot, Lou the Seal. [Drama much, Mr. Bravo? The words are violence nonsense.]
- “In a moment when many gay, lesbian and bisexual athletes still don’t feel comfortable being open about their sexuality and transgender athletes’ rights to participate in sports are debated in halls of government, Pride events are especially needed.” [I’m sure most gays somehow survived the horror of a few players not sporting an unmolested hat. Transgender athletes are not banned from sports—and he surely knows this. The discussion is around requiring them to participate in the sport matching their actual gender, not their so-called “internal feelings” and to likewise use the appropriate locker-room rather than invade female spaces. A moral person of any sexuality would oppose these hats just on the inclusion of the transcult’s colors.]
Here’s some more of my take:
- These and other columnists at the Chronicle are masters at hypocrisy. They lauded the courage of former San Francisco 49er Colin Kaepernick kneeling in protest during the National Anthem, which at the time offended many fans, including I’m sure patriotic gay ones. In other words, offense given by a Woke-endorsed protest is fine-and-dandy, a non-Woke one is not. Chronicle employees shall let you know which protests are allowable.
- They harp about offending gay fans and condescendingly assume these are a monolith fully onboard with Woke ideology. The Woke’s identity politics requires everyone conform and think alike, be offended alike—or else. Woke nitwits like Ms. Killion and Mr. Bravo are unable to understand there exist homosexuals who don’t like the pride flag (old or new), support gun rights, want immigration laws enforced, believe in free speech, and have other decidedly non-Woke views on other issues.
- That the offense of not wearing or modifying a baseball cap warranted days of Woke pearl clutching is quite pathetic. (Yes, they’d accuse the other side of pearl clutching also.)
- If the Giant players had been Muslim and acted similarly, I’m certain Ms. Killion and Mr. Bravo would’ve been silent as sin. I’d bet a lot of money on this. At the very least, their articles would’ve equivocated like a mother fucker. I’m certain Ms. Killion would not have presented herself as the arbiter of Muslim morality.
- Mr. Bravo reacted as a drama queen rather than drama critic. A person has serious mental health issues if his or her very existence is contingent on every member of a professional sports team unfailingly positively affirming his or her sexuality, including the wearing of a stupid hat.
- The Woke want a world of miserable sameness, in word, thought, and deed, and where fealty to Wokeism is absolute and dissent in even its mildest forms is excoriated if not outright crushed.
- Do not be fooled by these Chronicle Woke fascists. The Woke are not well-meaning in the least. The shrill intolerance of these columnists is typical of the Woke. I’ll also bet a lot of money the heretical ballplayers are far, far better people than Ms. Killion and Mr. Bravo.
Setting aside the cathartic need for ad hominen attacks, my advice to these columnists is do your journalistic due diligence and see the harm transgender ideology does to women, children, vulnerable adults, and the gay community. There are gay people who recognize this and courageously speak out against it, thereby bringing down upon themselves Woke wrath. The new and not-improved pride flag honors this odious ideology. Any flag other than the American flag, or perhaps a state flag, is meant to divide us if it is forced upon people either by decree or societal pressure. A required celebration is not a celebration; it is indoctrination and a means of identifying dissenters.
I must again share two of my favorite quotes, ones the aforementioned arbiters of morality (Killion and Bravo) are wise to heed:
The victims of cruelty or injustice are not only no better than their tormentors; they are more often than not just waiting to change places with them.
—Kanan Makiya
“We love the sound of the future,” your audience cries. “It has everything we have always wanted.”
“So it has,” you reply, “which is why you will hate it.”
—Nick Cohen, What’s Left? How Liberals Lost Their Way
Here are links to the referenced articles (may be behind a paywall and under various titles):
https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/giants-pride-caps-bible-verse-22309929.php
Be First to Comment