Current Mariners pitcher and former Los Angeles Angels hurler Keynan Middleton had to fend off racist attacks in his DM.
Trying to make a name for himself in Seattle after a few up and down years with the Los Angeles Angels, flame-throwing reliever Keynan Middleton used a destructive week in recent American history to show off just how deep the current obscenity-filled culture war has spread.
Middleton jumped ship to the Mariners this offseason, but a few Anaheim “fans” still appear to be laser focused on attempting to diminish his personal worth, based on an unsolicited and terrible racist DM the reliever showed off, opening his inbox to the general public in an effort to show the type of hate athletes of color have to deal with all the time these days.
Rest assured, the language is very much not safe for work — or safe for any part of a functioning society.
This isn’t a “both sides” issue, not when one side feels entitled to this kind of behavior.
— Lookout Landing (@LookoutLanding) January 9, 2021
“It’s probably just a dumb kid.” Well they learned it somewhere. “They wouldn’t say that in person.” So saying it hiding behind a keyboard is better? “Not all...” stop right there. pic.twitter.com/bkuP7ElL9P
As Lookout Landing so helpfully reminds us, this is not an issue of equivalent harassment by both sides. This is a group of objectionable power-wielders, emboldened over the course of the past decade to say whatever they want, whenever they want.
This week, the hate took center stage, as a group of aggrieved rioters marched on the United States Capitol in Washington, DC. But Middleton wanted to make sure he let everyone know that there’s so much more below the surface that the news won’t cover.
Every athlete of color deals with such targeted harassment simply for existing, and Middleton allowing us to peek under the covers should scare everyone who’s stayed silent in recent years.
Just this week, the St. Louis-mocking Twitter account “Baseball’s Best Fans” showed us a deluge of similar messages that Cardinals ace Jack Flaherty received simply for voicing his political opinion once.
Divisive rhetoric has had too prominent a place in the overall discourse in recent years, and said rhetoric often crosses lines we thought we’d painted over decades prior.
As Middleton chose to show us, that isn’t the case at all.