No one, not even kids, are safe from being accused as racists by left-wing media.
During the Little League Classic game between the Boston Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday night at the Little League World Series (LLWS) in Williamsport, Pa, an odd yet humorous scene unfolded in the stands. Members of the Davenport, IA team were sitting in the bleachers placing the stuffing from some toys on the head of one of their teammates. It was a harmless scene where middle-schoolers were just acting innocently goofy, like most middle-schoolers do.
However, ESPN and left-wing media nutjobs used this clip below to attempt to frame the white teammates in the video below as racist.
Little League officials tell me there’s no “ill-intent” behind this incident that aired Sunday showing players on the Midwest team from Iowa putting what appears to be cotton in their Black teammate’s hair. pic.twitter.com/Wmjxu4rbNL pic.twitter.com/vaAtSN4JbM
— Chenue Her (@ChenueHer) August 23, 2022
Now for most sensible people, there’s nothing to see here. But if you believe everything and everyone is racist, there’s definitely something here.
The leftist media pounced on this clip and accused the white players of placing cotton on the black player’s head in a move that harkened back to the American slave trade of the early to mid-19th century. The Huffington Post and The Daily Mail created headlines that read ‘Black Player Covered In Cotton By White Teammates At Little League World Series, and ‘Black Little League player’s hair is filled with cotton by teammates,’ respectively.
Darren M. Haynes, an anchor at WUSA9 in D.C., was more charitable in a news segment in which he said, “I believe the kids were not trying to be racist. They just didn’t know what they were doing was racist.”
White players putting cotton on a black teammates head sparks outrage on social media
— Darren M. Haynes (@DarrenMHaynes) August 23, 2022
Here’s my take:@wusa9 pic.twitter.com/3Mcca810fn
But all of these outlets completely got a wrong read on the situation because they failed to get the whole story and provide context for this unexpected event.
The little leaguer’s intent was to give each other fake mohawks as an ode to Jaron Lancaster, a pitcher for the team from Hawaii that has taken the tournament by storm with dominant two-way play, garnering the admiration of his peers and major leaguers alike.
A Snapchat video from one of the teammates was posted with the caption “new jarron lancaster,” and also revealed that the young black kid was enjoying the antics and flexed to the crowd in pride over his new hairdo.
Here’s the context. Lancaster from Hawaii is a straight stud baseball player. All the kids are getting his autograph. pic.twitter.com/pEuu1R8h37
— Author, K.E. Ganshert (@KEganshert) August 23, 2022
Oh, and by the way, there were other white teammates who did the exact same thing, rendering the argument that this was a targeted stunt towards the black player nonsensical.
Many of the teammates were participating, Black and white. They were imitating the stud pitcher from Hawaii who has an awesome white-dyed Mohawk. There’s a video where the player making headlines is flexing and smiling with the words “the new Jarron Lancaster” pic.twitter.com/kode6vT3oD
— Author, K.E. Ganshert (@KEganshert) August 23, 2022
But neither of these clips were included in the stories because they failed to follow the most basic principle of journalism: get the whole story.
Because of this -- whether simply through poor reporting skills or a malicious disregard fort the whole story -- a group of middle schoolers are being framed as racist bigots who should be punished and “educated,” as Haynes said.
This is the damage that can be done when you combine poor news reporting with outlets that have an agenda to push. Every outlet that did not include context did so because they were more concerned with being viewed as virtuous for calling out racism. But in the process, they forever skewed the way this Iowa team will be viewed by the public at large.
And that is a tragedy.
