SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. — Crowds of protesters began gathering at 8 a.m. on a cold, cloudy Saturday. They’d come to see Nazis. But, two hours later, there were still none.
Around 10:30 a.m., one of the organizers of the counterprotest grabbed a microphone and began taunting the handful of rallygoers who had just shown up across the street.
“Some master race,” he snickered. “Can’t even show up on time.”
Local residents and leaders spent most of the week anxiously wondering how many would travel the rural highway that snakes south from Nashville over Christmas Creek into Shelbyville for a “White Lives Matter” rally planned by several national white supremacist groups.
Such rallies have turned violent, even deadly, in recent months, sparking fears that the Shelbyville gathering could as well. Once the white supremacists showed up — the rally started about an hour late — there was yelling, but no violence.
[One dead as car strikes crowds amid protests of white nationalist gathering in Charlottesville; two police die in helicopter crash]
Rally organizers had anticipated about 175 people, while Tennessee’s racial justice and liberal groups were unsure of how many of their members would attend. Ultimately it appeared that about 300 people attended — about 100 “White Lives Matter” attendees and twice as many counterprotesters.
An elaborate set of police barricades kept the white supremacists and protesters on opposite sides of the street. Police formed a line between the groups, as other officers with large weapons perched on nearby rooftops.
“This right here is what it’s all about!” declared Scott Lacey, who has spoken at White Lives Matter rallies across the country.” “It’s all about the color of our skin!”
Organizers included the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi group; the Traditionalist Worker Party, which wants a separate white ethno-state; Anti-Communist Action, a right-wing group that believes America is being threatened by communists; and Vanguard America, a white supremacist group that believes America is inherently a white nation that must be preserved. This rally, they said, was specifically about immigration and refugee policies.
The plan was for speakers to address the assembled white supremacists, some of whom carried shields and Confederate flags, before the group would depart to nearby Murfreesboro for another rally.
At moments, the rally speakers spouted verbose diatribes about a “genocide” they claim is being perpetrated against “the white race” and “white Southern culture.” At other times, the speeches seemed to be a grab-bag of talking points. One speaker complained that black Americans often say the n-word, but when he does, people are offended. The speaker after him railed against Black History Month.
“What about me? Me and my children have a right to exist,” screamed another speaker, his voice cracking as it wailed into a microphone. “White lives matter!”
Local residents spent two weeks preparing their opposition to the rally, holding vigils and prayer services and practicing their chants.
[‘White Lives Matter’ rally organizers adjust strategy to avoid becoming ‘another Charlottesville’]
“We don’t want these people here, trying to recruit our neighbors to this disgusting cause,” said David Clark, who helped organize Shelbyville LOVES, the primary counterprotest group.
Throughout the morning, the counterprotest oscillated between mocking the rally and drowning it out with music. At various points, they played the “Ghostbusters” song, Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” and the theme song to “Jeopardy.” When the rally’s speakers tried to address the crowd they were drown out by “black lives matter” chants. In between speakers, organizers teased the white supremacists.
“Yo, Nazis!” a counterprotester with a megaphone shouted. “How does it feel knowing your daughters are probably all at home listening to rap music and hanging out with their black boyfriends right now?”
“It was an effective show of force,” said Kubby Barry, 39, who traveled from nearby DeKalb County with her roommate and sheepdog, Molly, who wore a sign that declared “farm dogs against fascism.”
“It was important to show up and show people that we don’t stand for their message,” Barry said.
Promptly at 1 p.m., the assembled ralliers bowed their heads in prayer and, after being told that boxed lunches were available on the bus, departed.
In Murfreesboro, about 20 minutes away, a second set of counterprotesters lined the roadway, ready to challenge attendees of the second rally. But the rally didn’t happen; the bus of white supremacists never showed up.
Yuli Gurriel rounds the bases ater homering off Yu Darvish in Game 3. (Matt Slocum/Associated Press)
HOUSTON — Shocking acts of civility, common sense, accountability and generosity have broken out at the World Series. Please, someone put a stop to this before it spreads.
On Saturday, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred suspended Yuli Gurriel of the Houston Astros without pay for five games at the beginning of next season for making a racially insensitive gesture and yelling an anti-Asian insult at Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Yu Darvish during Game 3 of the World Series on Friday night. It is not expected that the player’s union will contest the discipline.
Gurriel’s immediate expression of remorse after the game, as well as a full apology and a desire to meet Darvish personally to apologize, may have helped the Astros first baseman avoid being suspended during this World Series.
Just as pertinent, Darvish, after saying that Gurriel’s acts were “disrespectful” to Asians around the world, wrote in a tweet that, “I believe we should put our effort into learning rather than to accuse him. . . . Let’s stay positive and move forward instead of focusing on anger. I’m counting on everyone’s big love.”
What is the world coming to?
First, an apology for ugly acts that appears sincere and without strings attached. Then, generosity from the victim toward the man who has insulted him. And, the next day, in a situation where there probably is no perfect discipline, a punishment to which everyone involved appears to have agreed to agree.
Gurriel will have to live with whatever damage he has done to his reputation both by his acts and by his honesty in admitting to them. But his team will not be punished during the World Series. And the Dodgers, who had the family of Jackie Robinson involved in pregame ceremonies earlier this month, appear to agree with Darvish that this is a moment for education and conciliation, not outrage.
In this incident, the devil, but also the instant disgust, apparently followed by dignity and decency, truly is in the details. Let’s go through them.
The Cuban-born Gurriel was brushed back Friday night by a 93-mph fastball thrown in the second inning by Darvish, who is of Japanese-Iranian descent. Gurriel retaliated, as hitters have always tried to do, by hitting a homer on the next pitch.
When Gurriel returned to the Houston dugout, he did what countless hitters have done in such emotional competitive moments. He made a disparaging comment directed at the pitcher and added an insulting gesture.
If Gurriel had yelled that Darvish was a gutless cheap-shot artist and added the universal gesture for “choker” by grabbing his throat, then no big deal — just hardball. Maybe the Dodgers or Darvish see it and Gurriel or some Astro gets drilled.
But, instead, in a split-second of self-destructive glee, Gurriel made the universal insulting gesture, seen all over the world for generations, of using his fingers to pull his eyes until they looked slanted. And he yelled “Chinito,” which literally translates as “little Chinese boy.”
At this point, because the moment was captured on video, American social media exploded with predictable racial vitriol, packed with anonymous insults that would make anything Gurriel did seem mild.
Then a remarkable thing happened. After the game, won by the Astros, Houston Manager A.J. Hinch praised the 33-year-old Gurriel for his slugging, a homer and double. But when asked about the racially charged incident, Hinch faced it immediately. “I am aware of it,” Hinch said. “He’s remorseful. He’s going to have a statement.”
Not just “sorry,” but remorseful, a stronger choice of words.
Gurriel answered questions afterward at his locker. In one answer, he seemed to duck behind the excuse that he was simply telling teammates that he’d had bad luck in the past against Asians. In the end, far from trying to gloss over what he had done, he volunteered that he had played for a year in Japan and knew that “Chinito” was an insult.
“In Cuba and in other places, we call all Asian people Chinese,” Gurriel said through team interpreter Alex Cintron. “But I played in Japan and I know [that is] offensive, so I apologize for that.”
Gurriel did not say that his word had been misunderstood by dugout lip-readers, or that it had been taken out of context, or that he did not consider the term an insult. Gurriel had used a race-based disparaging word and he simply said, “I apologize for that.” He did not excuse himself by citing the heat of the moment or the proximity of the previous fastball.
“I didn’t want to offend anybody,” Gurriel added. “I don’t want to offend him or anybody in Japan. I have a lot of respect. I played in Japan.”
Clearly, at least for a couple of seconds, Gurriel intended to offend Darvish, just as generations of hitters have yelled baseball’s magic twelve-letter word at pitchers after an apparent brushback, followed by a home run. But I’ll give Gurriel the benefit of the doubt that he really does respect people in Japan, is familiar with their culture and wishes he could stuff that “Chinito” back in his lungs, not simply because he was caught — on camera — but because he really feels shame.
Because Gurriel answered several similar questions, he did, at least in translation, appear to fall into the fashionable dodge of apologizing to anybody who was offended — the backhanded non-apology apology. But, to me, these are the words that count: “Of course, I want to talk to him, because I don’t have anything against him,” Gurriel said. “I want to apologize to him.”
That’s an apology-apology. No hairsplitting. No blame-ducking. But, also, Gurriel did not accuse himself of being a racist, either. In the direct way of many athletes, he stepped up, faced the hard moment and did his best to apologize.
As for the slant-eyed gesture, that requires as much interpretation as a raised middle finger. It means what it means. Those who deny it merely self-identify as sympathizers with those who use racially derogatory gestures, words and symbols. Thanks. That’s always useful information.
Darvish, the “victim” in current parlance, gave a distinguished account of his own character in his balanced but forgiving response.
Immediately after the game, Darvish said, through an interpreter: “Of course, Houston has Asian fans and Japanese fans. Acting like that is disrespectful to people around the world and the Houston organization.”
Later, in a tweet, Davish wrote, “No one is perfect. That includes both you and I. What he [did] today isn’t right, but I believe we should put our effort into learning rather than to accuse him. If we can take something from this, this is a giant step for mankind.”
Both my cynicism barometer and my irony meter just broke.
In recent times, American culture has become addicted to the adrenaline rush of outrage. Each day, we awake as a nation looking for something to disagree and get angry about. We don’t even realize what is most obvious: This is sickness. If a family acted this way, it would destroy itself and maximize its own misery. Yet we not only excuse deliberate divisiveness in politics, we ignore it by the gross.
Perhaps we can look to a Cuban, in this country for less than two years, for an example of the ability to make both an ugly mistake and a direct apology.
And to someone of Japanese-Iranian descent who grew up in Osaka, Japan, and came to America only five years ago, to hear a voice that says we should “count on everyone’s big love” and “put our effort into learning rather than to accuse.”
MLB’s ability to impose discipline quickly was helped by Hinch’s appropriate response. Balanced against that, Darvish’s broad-minded response laid the ground for discipline that, MLB hopes, was proportional to the act.
If only, on larger scales, our opportunities for maximizing our divisions could be handled as well as Gurriel and Darvish handled theirs. Gurriel acknowledged that he shamed his own decency and will have to live with the consequences. That’s hard to do. Darvish saw an ancient ugliness raise its head again but chose to view it as a moment for education and understanding. That’s mighty tough, too.
For more by Thomas Boswell, visit washingtonpost.com/boswell.
Read more baseball:
Astros’ Yuli Gurriel banned five games for racist gesture, but not during World Series
Chris Christie: World Series is a bridge the Nationals just can’t cross
Joe Girardi out as Yankees manager, and the Nationals just happen to have an opening
Yasiel Puig and his infant son get blue mohawks for the World Series
