Wednesday 8/14/24
I've written a lot over the course of this Red Sox season about the play of Jarren Duran and what I thought was his turnaround as a player and a person, but I won't be doing any more of that going forward.
I didn't see any of the Red Sox' last two games--both of which were must-needed wins--but I did check the box scores, of course, which tell me most of what I need to know. Duran was not in the line-up for either game, which was strange to me. It was odd to see him out of any game. Every night he was in the line-up, he had said his goal was to play all 162, and I didn't think there was any way that manager Alex Cora was going to take him out this year.
An injury seemed unlikely, because the news of that would have likely just made it to me without any looking. I figured that perhaps Duran was on the bereavement list--that a grandparent had died, perhaps.
This morning I looked into what was going on, and learned that Duran was suspended two games for using an anti-gay slur (which was picked up on the NESN broadcast) in response to a heckling fan at Fenway. I don't dig that deeply into something like this. I don't need to know what the word or terms were, because what matters is that any like that were used at all. Nor do I need to know what the fan said, because, paradoxically to some, maybe, but not to me, that's not relevant. I do think it was something very benign anyway--like that Duran couldn't hit a baseball with a tennis racket.
I'm disgusted by this. Jarren Duran has mental health issues. And it's apparent to me that he's gotten a ton of support in his life, all along the way, despite probably being a pain in the ass and not a good guy. I would imagine that at times he's felt ostracized because of these issues. If anything, he should be sensitive to people who are targeted by other people simply for being who they are.
There are a lot of Red Sox fans who are gay. Now, if I was gay, I wouldn't be hurt or feel unwelcome at a place where someone used such a term, the same as I am not hurt or made to feel whatever if someone says some stupid thing that might nominally touch upon some outer aspect of who I am.
For instance: the term bastard. It's a different sort of example, because that word has its own separate meaning, I guess, in that there's no intent to actually put down someone based upon the circumstances of their birth and no one is trying to hurt someone by saying they're like how such a person born in such a fashion would be. Anti-gay slurs are usually directed at non-gay people, as in, "You are this very bad thing." Anti-gay slurs are meant to stand alone as an insult; they create a kind of third party--they're not about gay people but rather what gay people represent. It's dehumanizing, because these slurs stand alone and apart. They don't require someone to be gay. The person element is removed; the insult element is what becomes the living aspect, takes on its own life.
What I would think, if I were a gay Red Sox fan, is "This asshole isn't worth my time," which is what I think now as a straight Red Sox fan. I think that about a lot of people for a lot of reasons.
You're never actually welcome or unwelcome. You're there, you went, you came, you left. If you knew people well, you wouldn't like them. In this journal, I say things. I don't hold back what is in my mind. Everything I say is reasonable and very difficult if not impossible to rebut (why do you think virtually no one does it, or is embarrassed and made to look like a fool when they do?), but I am putting things out there. You put enough out there, and it's real, and people will get upset. For all sorts of reasons.
If you said to one of those people, "So you think that was wrong? Why do you think it was wrong? Why did it bother you?" they wouldn't have good answers, or valid answers. ("So you think Motollah was amazing? Why do you think it was amazing? Well, Sigrid Rausing? So why are you so upset that I said it wasn't amazing? Did you not publish it for reasons that had nothing to do with its quality? Was it not published because it was done by someone you deemed the right kind of person for reasons having nothing to do with their ability? Is that not how a bigot operates?" Someone trying to make a point of standing against me--which is really a matter of forcing an agenda in what is easily seen as a blatant and absurd and pathetic manner--might say, with that Granta example, that parts of the presentation are what produce someone else's ire, that not everything was cheery and rosy, but there is context, there is lead-up, there's that which has happened, been said, been done, the length of the timeline of events, the myriad examples of discriminatory behavior and bigotry over many years, all of which one can also read about; this is called context, reality, and what is called for, merited, appropriate, fitting, reasonable, and natural; cheery and rosy, at that juncture, would not have been natural, or called for, or appropriate, or fitting, etc. But even still--everything is rooted in truth and fact; not emotion, not anger.)
They'd have answers that revealed their own shortcomings, insecurities, biases, etc. All of that would come out in that dialogue. They'd sputter and fume, realize there was no valid basis for how they felt, what they were doing, and you know what? That would likely make them more angry at you. Rare is the person who would be like, "Jesus...you're right. I'm sorry. I'm embarrassed. Will you forgive me?" To which I'd likely say, "Yes, I forgive you," and stick out my hand so we could shake, and there's a good chance I would just carry on with them, in business or in life. I'm not that deeply invested in the person they are. I'm deeply invested in the person I am. In my work, no one is more deeply invested in anything--never has been, never will be--than I am in the person that people are. And though I am my work, these things are still separate. This is both simple and complicated.
I don't have that dialogue with people, though. There aren't Zoom meetings based on entries in this journal or the op-eds, are there? Here's the key: people don't have that dialogue with themselves. They don't ask themselves the questions I just listed. That would stop them--or make it less practical/doable--for them to go, "I hate Fleming! I am going to throw a tantrum! Why, I'll do this, I'll do that, he can't come here, he can't go there, I won't let him do blah blah blah, he can't be in here, I won't read a single word again, I'll show him, I'll be passive aggressive! I'll smear him! I'll bad mouth him! I'll get so and so to do something to them, too!" etc., etc., etc.
If you knew what the people in your favorite band were like, or the people on your favorite team, or, let's be honest, the people in your life (or, dare I say, yourself?), because you basically don't know any of them very well at all--not really--you'd feel unwelcome, or be offended, or swear them off, unless you were someone who rose above, and people who rise above excel at a very important thing: Seeing things for what they are. People who see things for what they are don't do tantrums or "I'll show you!" so much as they proceed in life--knowingly.
But most people move forward--such as they move forward at all--out of a kind of necessary ignorance. They need to know people less, in order to follow them, like them, be friends with them, marry them.
Be them.
Think about that.
Not me. I don't need to be ignorant. I don't have illusions. I have knowledge and I make choices. Balanced choices. I root for the Boston Red Sox. Always have, always will. But I'm sure I wouldn't be able to stand these people. I'm sure I'd think little of many of them as people. I know this, because I know how the world is and how people are. I am able to separate. I am not threatened. I know what I am, and I know what others are almost always not.
Which is my way of saying there's a difference between people doing the victim-status, I was triggered thing--which is what these kinds of things often turn into--and recognizing that someone is just an asshole.
This isn't some nineteen-year-old. Jarren Duran is in his late twenties. He's had a microphone in front of his face many times during this breakout season of his, and many times in his life. And he can't control himself. Can't control what comes out of his mouth.
Now, that's bad enough. But what's worse is that he is such a troglodyte, that this is how he thinks. The words are there in his brain, as part of his thoughts, and it's very likely that they're part of his conversations with other people. He speaks about the role his dad has played in his life, and something like his makes me question the parenting, what was said in a house, what is still considered to be okay to say.
I'm going to see my nephew today, and I'm going to say something to him. He's ten--he'll be eleven in November--and he's at that age, you know? Where things are picked up. He plays sports, and playing baseball is a big part of his life right now. You know boys. In their groups. Their pecking orders. Their power struggles. The things they do to try and be cool.
I will make mention of this Jarren Duran incident to my nephew and tell him that you should never say things like that and never have them in your heart. You shouldn't be okay with other people saying them, you don't have to go along with what others are saying things, while reinforcing that I know he is a good person with a good heart, but those things get challenged. They're challenged by environment, peer pressure.
But there are no excuses. Not for patterns and repeated bad behaviors. Mental illness isn't an excuse for Jarren Duran, because Jarren Duran knows better, or ought to.
I can do that thing where I show you the numbers that makes you see a player in a different way, but I won't be doing any more of that with Duran. If he hits some home run to tie a game late, I'll say that in recounting a game, but nothing else.
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