By: Andrew Fields- September 21, 2017

                                  By: Andrew Fields

                  Last Wednesday during the fourth inning of the Red Sox game against the Oakland Athletics, a sign was dropped from the green monster saying “Racism is as American As Baseball”. The shocking wording  depicted on the sign was something nobody was expected. Soon after the sign was dropped security went and removed culprits from the park. 

Individuals attend baseball games with their families who hold a great deal of pride for the sport.  The dropping of the flag with that kind of wording served to be very unpatriotic and disappointing to people with such pride. That sign shouldn’t have been dropped and only caused tension in the park.

                 It took a couple of months to plan the unfolding of the banner at Fenway Park and a few days to make.  The activists say it was worth the couple of minutes they were able to unfurl the sign over the side of the green monster. One of the Activists said that the security staff checked the bag quickly and let them proceed.

                They say the problem is a culture of bigotry which denies racial minorities fair access to quality education and equal treatment from law enforcement. Afterwards they explained their message that racism is an american institution and that it  needs to be stopped. The sign was given a booing response which they said was expected. People also believe this was the wrong place to unfurl a sign with such a strong message behind it. She later stated she wants to keep the group anonymous so they could keep combating racism , rather than focusing on their own personal biographies.

             The first activist later in the interview stated “ I think there is a narrative that  because we live in the northeast, that we are progressive and not as racist as other parts of the country. She also addressed the initial confusion of the sign because when it went viral people didn’t know what to make of it, some people thought it was an endorsement of racism. There were even mixed signals about who hung the banner, a group called “Boston Antifa” quickly claimed responsibility for the sign, but many have pegged their accounts as parody to a bigger anti fascist group.

       She say’s that one action isn’t going to change the world which she tells herself everyday and that’s why this is lifelong work. The five later released a statement “We are a group of Anti-Racist protesters.  We want to remind everyone that baseball is a fundamental to American culture and history, so too is racism”. I believe that is a true statement speaking in which that racism was started in America and dates back to slavery. Getting past that point was a huge step but were still dealing with people who still continue to believe that they are superior. That is why we need to keep doing things like this to get people to realize that they shouldn’t think of themselves as superior but equal as everybody around them.