Racism is the practice of thinking that one’s race is superior to another. Racism happens when people are treated unfairly just because their skin color is different from others. It is a kind of discrimination and it causes great harm to people. On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson at age 28 became the first African American player in Major League Baseball (MLB) wearing number 42 for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Although Jackie broke the color barrier in a sport that had been segregated for more than 50 years, still he faced tremendous racial discrimination from the white because of the prejudice, thinking that an African American man should not be allowed in the league. Additionally, the Jim Crow Laws prevented Jackie from using the same hotels and restaurants as his teammates while playing in the South. Even though Jackie was treated unfairly, he had never responded negatively or argued with people who tried to insult him. Instead, those insults serve as a motivation to make him play even harder or run faster around the bases. Jackie Robinson forever changed the depictions of baseball by making African Americans eligible to join major leagues. Based on the story of Jackie Robinson, let’s talk about racism in depth in terms of Prejudice & Discrimination, Resilience & Success, and Social Change & Revolution.
With biased opinions, people hold prejudiced thoughts, which leads to discrimination, consisting of a series of actions against a specific group of people. Prejudice and discrimination are both ways of racism. Prejudice is a system of beliefs that unreasonably favors a particular group of people, while discrimination is doing actions that go along with the beliefs of the prejudice. Back in 1947 in a segregated country, most Americans viewed MLB as a white man’s sport and regarded Jackie Robinson as an “outlier” in the baseball field. No matter how talented Jackie was in baseball, the white discredited his abilities due to the color of his skin. In the book I Never Had It Made, Jackie described “Some of my own teammates refused to accept me because I was black.” Sadly, the white’s prejudice brought tremendous racial discrimination toward colored people, which was not only very unfair but also caused huge pressure. Prejudice and discrimination create a lot of inconvenience for colored groups of people and this can result in serious psychological effects. The article Did Racism Kill Jackie Robinson? mentioned that “Prejudice and discrimination contribute to poor health outcomes among communities of color.” Discrimination and prejudice is absolutely intolerable in the world. Prejudice and discrimination make people uncomfortable with their surroundings and make them feel emotionally depressed.
Resilience serves as a channel to help people recover from challenging life experiences and keep pushing themselves moving forward for the success of their goal. Resilience is the key ingredient of success because it leads people to take the pain of prejudice and discrimination and uses it as a fuel to propel them. Jackie Robinson never responded negatively and or argued with people who discriminated against him. Jackie just got his mood up and played harder or ran faster in the game he was playing, hoping people could focus on his ability of playing baseball rather than the color of his skin. Resilience is always a key to success. It paves the way and ignores the discouragements, such as failures or people saying that you could not do that. It makes people tough and want to go through the last minute, until they know they cannot go any more. They want to achieve the goal no matter what. Timothy Lorber in Leadership, Sport Leaders writes even though Robinson being humiliated and insulted, “Robinson’s resilient personality willingness to persevere against all odds is a classic example of human achievement under adverse circumstances.” Resilience teaches people who are treated unfairly to be strong and propel them to keep moving forward until they succeed no matter how hard the battles are.
Social change, an alternation in society, improves racial equality, which brings the anti-racism revolution. Social change is important as it can empower citizens so that they can make life better for future generations. Jackie Robinson, an African American man, made an important racial breakthrough in sports. His courage and determination changed the views of racist toward colored people. Also, he encouraged many African Americans to reach their full potential and do jobs that only white people could do previously. His appearance in baseball play promoted all other sports and began to become more integrated and accepting of minorities. Racism and segregation had previously ruled everything in the society, and no colored people could have the ability to change it. However, with courage and determination, colored people like Jackie Robinson could awaken the public’s awareness of the unfair rules and bring social change, thinking people should not be treated differently just because of their skin color. He uses his own actions and beliefs to encourage individuals to take a stand against things they find wrong and work with other people to remove them from society, which then changes the way in which human interactions, relationships, behavior patterns, and cultural norms towards African Americans. Eventually, new laws were passed to eliminate some of the unfairness. For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 opened public facilities to all races. People need to stop the wrong things or injustice and make some social changes for a better life, bringing a revolution or social change.
Jackie Robinson was a courageous person who had changed the depiction of baseball from white only to being available for many people, of all races. Prejudice and discrimination had made many people’s lives inconvenient, and restricted many people’s rights. Then many people didn’t want to do this, but they were restricted from having a voice. Resilience and success helped them to have a successful change in their lives, and they had done it. Then they started a social movement, trying to get the government to ban discrimination and segregation in daily social activities. But nowadays, racism cannot disappear fully, because some people will still have a feeling of hate for others. But the good news is that the degree of racism has decreased over time, and the environment has banned slavery and discrimination, also meaning segregation. On the basis of being respectful and not hurting others, we can all live in a peaceful society, where everyone is not feeling prejudiced. Jackie Robinson was more than a baseball player. He was a pioneer, and social activist, and a man who initiated the change in American sports and society toward racism.
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