Throughout my life, I haven't been defined by naivete. The current landscape of sexual harassment is a huge exception. I have, at times, second-guessed myself after dirty jokes; with as large as this pool of jackasses has become, I'm understanding more and more why my occasional crass joke is always forgiven by the women in my life: I could simply be so much worse than this, and all too many women have experienced it firsthand.
I knew mankind was flawed; I didn't think we were still Neanderthals.
How do we get better? Is this a good start, or a bandage that will get ripped off in time when America moves on to a different complaint? I genuinely hope we're growing right now, but I trust you'll pardon my cynicism.
On a completely different subject, R. I. P. Dick Orkin, the man who brought us "Chickenman", "The Secret Adventures of the Tooth Fairy", and many wonderful radio commercials, at age eighty-four.
I remember riding the school bus and listening to Chickenman on the radio as it ran in syndication
I was still hearing his commercials last summer.
I was thinking about yesterday's conversation re: Sano and I was thinking what a difference a few years makes.
It wasn't that long ago that [Redacted Harris] was a joke around here. I can only speak for myself but I have grown up quite a bit over the last few years. Steps towards respecting each other are always steps in the right direction. Kind of disappointed in myself that I used to be a leader to joke about this sort of thing.
Humor is often uncomfortable. I don't know how to excise discomfort without demoting the art form to something much more limited and sad.
That said, I guess I agree that in this community, we can stand to be a little better at self-monitoring, and holding each other accountable.
I'm sure I've skirted or edged over the line on rare occasions. And I think that is ok. What matters for our community is that we make an effort to be respectful and accountable and empathetic and welcoming. I'd say that that goes for pretty much every community.
This community is pretty danged disciplined in terms of mutual respect, self-monitoring and accepting chastisement. It's most of the other communities that I'm concerned about.
I think one of the yet-to-be-ironed out difficulties is that we all do feel our sexuality and, frankly, it's a pretty profound aspect of life. It's everywhere, and simultaneously suppressed, shunned...there's a lot of unwritten rules in conduct and expression that mostly get learned the hard way or by absorption, if you're lucky...I don't know...I can't shed the inkling that there is some larger, fundamental issue to be addressed here, pschologically, perhaps or...I don't know what.
Good article. The third paragraph is pretty damning.
https://sports.yahoo.com/miguel-sano-accuser-will-talk-mlb-metoo-movement-hits-baseball-101115820.html
My first reaction is as a Twins fan. Why can't we have nice things?
My second reaction is disgust. What the fuck is wrong with people?
My third reaction is a little bit of shame that I put my reactions in that order.
I think your cynicism is well warranted, Spoons. My concern with the current reckoning is that many people will think that if we name, shame, and punish the "bad" ones everything will be fine. Many men get away with it because of the power structures that insulate them from punishment, and we need to destroy those power structures. I'm not sure that will happen in my lifetime, but I think the best thing I can do, is to try to help make that happen. I believe women. I hold men accountable when I can and let them know this behavior is not okay. I vote with my wallet to the best of my knowledge. I vote for people who feel similarly. It's a long road, and I hope if nothing else this will call a lot more people into action.
Here's where I disagree, mainly because I don't even know what that kind of assertion means.
There are ALWAYS power structures. A unicorn paradise where everyone loves each other and love is free and there is no more poverty is NOT walking through that door. Tearing it all down is a juvenile fantasy (sorry, Zack -- not meaning to call you juvenile, but I don't know a better word for the sillier aspects of what some people are talking about).
What we CAN do, is what Buffalo talked about yesterday. We raise our kids to be better than us. We stand up a little more against the petty injustices we see in the world, not just the gross ones. If you see something, make an effort to say something.
These are really significant acts. They are the actions of true heroes in our society. We already honor the first responders, the ones who run toward danger. We just need to continue to extend that honor to the ones who stand up to bullying, misogyny, racism, and religion-based abuses.
I know in my own life how hard it is to be brave and to stand up in those instances. I have done it a few times, and failed on many, many others. Where we win, is where we turn that ratio around. Do The Little Things.
I think what you're talking about is steps towards eroding those things. I'm fairly radical, and while I'd love to flip a switch and make things better (and honestly spend a lot of time frustrated I can't do more to make this happen), I know we're not going to get there without incremental change. I just think we need to have a goal for that incremental change, and balancing the scales of power is a reasonable goal. Doing the little things is super important, and honestly when I have these discussions with friends in meat space, that's what I ask them to do since it does erode those power structures bit by bit.
No offense taken, by the way.
I am in an industry where these types of behaviors are just way too prevalent. Luckily, the last 14 years I have worked for companies that are all over this issue and quick to reprimand and discipline employees who step even close to "the line". Ironically enough, I am dealing with an issue of a newer employee who has made teammates uncomfortable with advances and will be sitting down with him today. I will say this, is sure feels like my industry as a whole has been more aggressive in addressing this issue and cutting ties quickly with those who abuse their power. The culture was absolutely toxic 20-25 years ago and I left several companies in which those in power preyed upon those without. I see, and hear about it, much less frequently than in the past. Part of it is generational. For the most part the 20-30 year old men I work with have been taught a level respect and appropriate boundaries in high school or college coursework. Any training I received personally was with the quality companies I have worked for through their HR proactive training programs.
In the end, if human decency isn't enough to stop this from happening, you would think good business practices would. My employees are my most precious resource. They are hard to find, they are hard to replace, they are expensive to train. It is vital to my own success that they are comfortable and happy at work, so they can do the great job I expect out of them. It is much easier, and less expensive, to be proactive in training and culture building to ensure everyone knows our boundaries and expectations in regards to sexual harassment (or any harassment for that matter). I have zero tolerance for this, and I hope voices like ours are heard and the culture takes a much more dramatic shift going forward.
Obviously, that depends. The marketplace is great at driving out bad behaviors when consumers care AND there is choice in the marketplace.
This is a point that some of my more panglossian Libertarian friends/acquaintances consistently fail to appreciate. Rooting out abhorrent (or merely gross) behavior typically involves up-front costs. If the labor market is tight, employers may face significant costs in imposing restrictions on employees with undesirable traits. If the labor market is slack, employees face extra burdens in standing up to abusive employers or supervisors. If consumers have close substitutes, they can easily move their business. If not, they can't.
Naiveté. Maybe that's the word I'm looking for. I hear the statistics about the number of women who experience rape and assault and it's almost unfathomable to me how they could possibly be as high as described. I'm not going to suggest it's inaccurate in any way...I just can't relate. Our Citizen demographic not being terribly diverse here, perhaps I'm not the only one.
Part of my "problem" is that I've always operated in some pretty safe spaces, in terms of schools and residences. I'm also a larger-ish white male, and typically uninterested in other people's business. My workplaces have tended to male-heavy industries (Army, transportation, rail) and I'm sure that has contributed to my ignorance as well. Also a bit of an optimist who has a hard time relating to human capacity for evil. Maybe I don't actually want to believe that people, men, could be so awful and stupid. I want to be an ally. I’m probably not much of one.
There was a bit of a discussion yesterday on redemption. On the one hand, yes, it's necessary. It does put us on the path, though, of grading the degree of offense, which it seems like there has been hesitation to do as this movement has unfolded. This wide sweeping net is scooping in everyone in this spectrum from Franken (poor taste) to Louis C.K. (gross and obscene) to Weinstein (predatory, abuse of power). Some things I'm more willing to allow rehabilitation for than other.
Betsy's description would put Sano onto the higher end of this spectrum for me. The gall that it would take to hold another human being against their will for over ten minutes is, again, almost unfathomable. Drunken bro at the club pressuring a girl for a kiss or more is, while not acceptable, at least predictable. Restraining a woman, at a business, in the middle of the day, while sober, for an extended period of time in spite of shouts, protestation, physical exertion, to my mind, an assault in every sense of the word. If Sano did what Betsy says, in the way she describes, it's monstrous in a way that makes me not particularly interested in his redemption or rehabilitation. I'd have to believe that someone so bold as to do this has done it before, and worse. (Edit: Free’s post – there you go)
But...the monstrosity of the description as I read and envision it is so great, part of me hopes it's inaccurate or overstated. I get caught up looking for problems in the details. I’m telling myself that I don’t care for Sano’s fate in and of itself, but maybe I do. A ten minute struggle is a fight. That would be exhausting. That's longer than a wrestling match. People don’t do that. (Right?) How could such an encounter have gone unnoticed? Maybe it could have. I wasn’t there. My self-identification as a “progressive” (or whatever I am) man in this society demands that I believe every word of Betsy’s claim. I just don’t want to, and I haven’t exactly determined why. I also don’t (want to) believe that victims just make things up (which was pointed out by more than one yesterday), so even if the story as remembered isn’t 100% accurate, it’s probably still true.
All of which makes me mad. And sad, for all of us.
I had hoped Sano's case was isolated, but in reading how the Lookouts had to avoid placing female ushers near the home dugout has me shaking my head.
While my current employer may be male centric out in the field, it certainly is not in the HQ, and company policies are very specifically spelled out (and required training yearly). I have not heard of any complaints, thankfully, but I do recall a director at my first job in the defense industry who was closer to the Weinstein end of the equation, and the company did not pursue his activities until it was forced to by an outside customer.
I don't think anyone could have convinced me that someone willing to do something like this, to this degree, would just do it out of the blue in an "isolated" incident. Maybe not so naive as I imply...
Where'd the "usher placement" part come from? Didn't see that in free's article.
here.
Ick.
This also starts to raise my ire at the organization. Especially when taking a step back and seeing that a boy from a machismo culture was given money and power, and a sense of destiny...immunity. Everyone tries to work around him instead of confronting the problem, and now they'll act shocked, just shocked, that this could have happened.
Yeah, I don't think they'll be shocked.
I vaguely remember the fan base being upset with Jeff Smith for being too hard on Sano years ago.
Yeah, this certainly changes the way I feel about the organization.
But I think it's also indicative of a wider problem. We generally do a good job taking care of "our own" (in this case, other ushers) by avoiding problems, but we don't go out of our way to fix things before they become bigger. If Sano's behavior would have been addressed at this point, maybe things never escalate? Again, that's where I want communities and organizations to say "this is our problem too" and if the Twins had done some of what CH recommends below... all the better. For them financially (they don't have to deal with this mess), for the victims that wouldn't be victimized, and for society more generally.
One thing to remember when talking about the role of the Twins' organization is that Sano was in Chattanooga in 2015, before the new front office took charge. It's certainly possible that they were told about these things after they took over, but it's also possible that they weren't.
I always appreciate tempering considerations, padre. Thanks.
Doug Mientkiewicz managed the Lookouts in 2015. I don't really think this is connected to his firing, but since we were never given an explanation, it's at least possible.
What fundamentally challenged my belief in who worthy of redemption was reading and teaching Bryan Stevenson‘s Just Mercy. I’d been traveling the road from being a staunch supporter of capital punishment when I was younger to becoming a unequivocal opponent, with important points along the way including personal experience abroad and reassessment of my religious alignment. To me, if those convicted of capital offenses — even those truly guilty of committing crimes judged worthy of the maximum sentence — are redeemable, then our mission to be to redeem everyone. It doesn’t mean that we restore them to the position in life they held prior to doing whatever it is they did, of course, because forfeiting that status & power is part of the redemption process, but it does mean saying no one who desires redemption & is willing to do the work necessary for it is thrown away.
That said, the more we are learning about Sanó, they clearer it becomes that he has a long road ahead of him should he desire forgiveness. It’s going to have to be earned, and the more we learn about abuses in the past, the more that must be done in the future for him to square himself with the world.
As I said yesterday, the Twins organization bears some of the responsibility here. They made a 16-year-old boy their employee, then surrounded him with the best physical development team they could put together. Did the Twins, or does any other organization, invest a similar amount of energy & resources into the mental & emotional development of their young workers? Cognitive science tells us the brain is still finishing development at Sanó’s current age. I’m not saying he’s too young to know better, because even at 16 he should’ve known better. But to privilege the body and neglect the mind with people so young strikes me as legalized abuse. One of the MLB-wide outcomes for this and the other cases surely to come ought to be the institution of human development programs for players in the minors that support them holistically.
I was the fifth of my family to have this stomach bug, succumbing last night around 8pm. CER completed the set around midnight. HPR and LBR got hit sometime yesterday afternoon while I was at the office.
We're just lucky that EAR had it two days earlier so she could care for us last night. AJR got it hours before EAR on the 26th. We were at the in-laws' cabin then, and I hardly slept caring for AJR while EAR barely cared for herself. Can you imagine a house without Ice Cream Buckets? AJR last threw up as we were walking to the van leaving the cabin. EAR sometime after we got home.
We've had to cancel 2nd Christmas with my parents this weekend.
So I'm not sure if this Sanó thing is what made me feel ill when I first read it.
On Sano:
1) If true (and based on no one really stepping forward to defend him, I’d say it’s likely), then that’s awful
2) Based on what RR posted about the Lookouts, either the Twins knew about Sano in general or they are completely incompentent. Their players are their investments and it’s their job to know as much as possible about them, so I think it’s fair for the organization to get reprimanded on this, whether it’s by the fans or MLB or both.
I'm not a religious man, but after going into the MoA for court at 12:15, I now firmly believe in a hell.
I'm imagining a boutique, convenience-courtroom of some sort there that I didn't know about, where they handle cases for, I don't know, the discerning appellant...
But the food court sounds like hell, too, if that's what you meant.
Goram auto correct
I hope you had earbuds with the appropriate music, of which I think you should have plenty.
No ear buds I had to keep all senses open to not lose the kids in that mass of humanity.
oh, THAT level of hell
Blaze orange baseball Caps.
I hope you were at least able to get a Shake Shack burger to salve some of your wounds.
If he went to Shake Shack, it will be another hour before he gets his burger.
This. I took the easy way out and got a pita while my wife waited in line at panda express for 45 minutes.
I’ve been working on a ‘been away from the internet joke’ for a few minutes, but really I just circle back to the why do people suck question.
A look at some other recent sexual assault charges for baseball players and the punishments handed out in those cases. The world has changed significantly in recent months in this area, of course, so how much these will be relied upon as precedent is an open question.
Hmmm. It looks as if the link doesn't work. I don't know why. It's from puckettspond.com, so I assume you can go there and find it if you're interested.
Doubled protocol (the
https://part). I removed it so the link works.sean to the rescue again. Thanks!
It's a little frustrating when you go to paste in a full URL and it has HTTP:// already there, which has to be deleted before pasting.
Yep, especially on mobile. #firstworldproblems