Adam Jones and the Bigger Picture

I'm not the type of person to speak out on social and political topics in the world. Having opinions that I keep to myself and believe in personally is how I typically do things when it comes to those matters. The Adam Jones situation is a matter that takes a lot of factors and brings into the light. The underlying subject about it is that only 62 African-American players were on Opening Day rosters. That number is very low if you consider that roughly 24 players on each team. The reality is we need to somehow get more involvement from our African-American youths to enjoy the sport of baseball. At the very least let them play all sports and hopefully, more involvement into the game of baseball will come about. The negative effect of this particular incident is going to make parents and children think that other sports show less to no racism and sway them in other directions. So just as far as the game itself is concerned this is a bad look and black eye. The bigger issue here though is why use racist slurs to heckle when as a fan you can go with any number of things to heckle a player. Heckling is a part of every sport in some way and is actually good for the game but why go to something like race when you can talk about him in almost any other way to get into his head. Talk about his stats, mom jokes, team jokes, or almost anything else but when crossing race lines as a society we know that it is a major problem even though I don't agree with some of the other heckling techniques it is much better than what was used. The bigger issue that this brings into the light, along with many other things the last few years, is how prominent racism is in America. To publicly use racial slurs around 38,000 people without any thoughts about it and having no problem with it is a cause for concern. The reality is everyone has their own opinions and thoughts about everything in the world and that's what makes us unique. We grow up in different environments and get taught different things. No one is born a racist and individuals get taught at a very young age that it is okay to be that way when in fact society does not and should not accept it in any way. We have come a long way since the days of Martin Luther King Jr. but the fact is it will never be out of our society. Always going to be people who do wrong and treat others with disrespect because that is life but the more we work as a whole to change racism the more we can make the world a better place. I have never understood determining who someone is based on race. If you take objection to someone and dislike them than dislike them for the right reasons or for reasons that are controlled not for a reason like race. We aren't going to go through life getting along with everyone we meet or come in contact with because we are all different in personality and thought process but we can dislike them for those reasons unrelated to your perception of someone based on race. The perception of someone based on race is an asinine assumption that is made too often. I see people as friends and decent human beings until they prove me wrong by actions. Why isn't that the world we live in? Why is using racial slurs even needed when we can go insult people using other words in the dictionary? The hope is that racism dies and the use of racist words fazes out but in reality, it never will but I know the type of person I am and that racism may never die but it won't be because of my efforts and because of my actions. The Adam Jones story is just a small sample of the bigger picture that racism exists but we all can attempt to make progress against it.