Lessons for all in Rocker's racism

In Atlanta last week, as the Super Bowl at last overcame the hype and stood up as a great sporting occasion, there was a little sub-plot still unfolding in the life of the city. John Rocker. Atlanta, the city which used to describe itself as being too busy to hate, was wondering what to do with Rocker. Rocker is a big lump of a chap who makes his living playing baseball for the Atlanta Braves, a big horse-faced southerner who bears an unfortunate resemblance to Herman Munster.

For some time he has been carting about the sort of opinions which haven't been publicly aired in 30 years. Until the end of last season Rocker had enjoyed a relatively quiet, prosaic career. It would have been better for everyone if it had stayed that way.

It started with the business of New York. The Atlanta Braves were forced to play the New York Mets in the post-season as both teams chased down a World Series spot. Rocker, for whom Macon, Georgia, is the centre of the earth, opined that he was no fan of New York.

In dealing with Rocker and his thoughts it is important to take into account that this guy is no Dorothy Parker, no Oscar Wilde. It's easier to picture him wearing a pointy dunce's hat with a letter D on the front than it is to see him in a pointy Klansman's hood. Which isn't to say that Klansmen don't shape their hoods that way just so they can wear their dunces' hats beneath them. We just don't know.

Anyway. New York. Rocker was not pleased. As the games rolled by he articulated his complex feelings. He described Mets fans as "stupid asses", he spat at them, gave them the finger, offered it as his considered opinion that "the majority of Mets fans are not even human".

Needless to say late summer baseball is nothing like a night at the opera. Mets fans responded by chucking the odd battery and by chanting "Rocker sucks, Rocker sucks".

The Braves won. Fast forward. The baseball season ended. A writer from Sports Illustrated sought out Rocker for an interview. Rocker seized the opportunity to flesh out his manifesto. So John, New York, New York, if you could be hated there you could be hated anywhere?

"Imagine having to take the seven train to Shea Stadium, looking like its Beirut, next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with Aids, right next to some dude who got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old Mom with four kids."

There was more. A black team-mate was described as a "fat monkey". Not surprisingly, bigotry's renaissance man had views on ethnic diversity, too.

"The biggest thing I don't like are the foreigners. You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anyone speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get into this country? I'm not a racist or prejudiced person," he concluded reflectively, "but certain people bother me."

Of course, Rocker's remarks bothered certain people. A team-mate, Randall Simon, said he knew that Rocker was referring to him when he used the phrase "fat monkey". Rocker attempted to pass the remark off as harmless joshing. No Sale, said Simon. "If he said it to my face, I swear I'd tear him up. He has no relationship with the black guys or Latin guys on the team. He's lying to try and cover himself."

Finally baseball acted. Having ordered a psychological evaluation on Rocker soon after the remarks appeared, a series of chastisements were announced during Super Bowl week. Rocker would be fined $20,000, banned from baseball until May 1st, and ordered to undergo sensitivity training.

Needless to say Rocker came over all surly when he heard this news, announcing that he didn't feel it appropriate that he should be harshly disciplined for "my misguided speech, unaccompanied by any conduct on my part".

Rocker is too dumb to see that the suspensions and fines have done him a tremendous favour. He wears scent of burning martyr now and the debate has moved on to areas where Rocker is intellectually unlicensed to travel.

Does the ban raise freedom of speech issues? Probably. Are sports people only allowed to speak so long as they say nothing of consequence? Is it a work-place issue? How many labour laws does referring to a black team mate as a "fat monkey" trample on. Is it an incitement to hatred. Rocker is probably too dumb and resoundingly uncharismatic for that.

And of the course there is the shoot-the-messenger gang. The media shouldn't have printed his views. The media should have colluded with Rocker and organised baseball in covering up the whole thing. Same old, same old. The problem defies easy answers, but one thing is clear. From the alleged actions of Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate at Leeds, down the scale to the racial abuse delivered by Graham Geraghty to a kid in Australia, and back again to Rocker, there is a profound inability among some sports people to understand the issue of race, to come to grips with the fact that you can't say racist things and not be a racist. Look at it this way, guys. If hurts so much to be called a racist, well just think . . .

Whatever the punishment handed out and whatever debate the punishment sparks, there is always an individual or a community left behind with a scar, with another impediment to their confidence, with the knowledge that race is the first information which many other people process about them and that that information can be used as a weapon. Rocker's words didn't get hurled into a vacuum. They hurt people. The punishment from baseball was face-saving stuff, but sometimes face needs to be saved. To have done nothing would have sent the wrong message.

Things don't happen to people like Rocker. People like Rocker happen to somebody else. Baseball reacted sternly and for all of us in Ireland there is a lesson there. Too many people react to incidents like the Geraghty business, or the spats involving Sean O hAilpin or Jason Sherlock, by assuring everyone that no harm was meant and that the media is merely making things worse. That amounts to a conspiracy of silence, collusion which will make fertile the ground for us to grow our own little Rockers.

Then we'll reap the whirlwind.