What Do Christopher Columbus, Democracy, Globalization and Culture Have in Common?

In the Todorov reading, the author spends a great deal of time summarizing Columbus’ descriptions of the Native Americans.  By looking at Columbus’ descriptions of the Native Americans and especially his fascination with their nakedness, almost describing them as animalistic, it is evident that Columbus felt this air of superiority over them. Columbus describes the Native Americans as “wild or cunning” whenever addressing Native Americans’ views that he deems irrelevant. In order to “humanize” the Native Americans, Columbus makes it his mission to convert the Native Americans to Christianity instead of respecting their own established culture; which Columbus views as inferior. In fulfilling this duty of converting the Native Americans to Christianity, he believes that he is doing a great service not only to them but also to his home country of Spain and most importantly, he is doing it for God. From Todorov’s reading, it is clear that Columbus wanted to alter the Native Americans’ culture and religion in order to make them apt citizens for European society and in the process of “Europeanizing” the Native Americans, they lost much of their own cultural practices. In reading Todorov’s piece, there are clear similarities between Columbus’ forced assimilation of Native Americans into European society and the current push by the Western world to spread democracy by means of globalization today. Although globalization and the spread of democracy in recent years has not resulted in the wiping out of an entire group’s culture, if the recent push for worldwide democracy through globalization continues at the rate at which it is moving, does it have the potential to have the same damaging impact on non-democratic societies to the same affect that Columbus’ destructive goal of assimilation had on the Native Americans?

In my history of American Education class, we spent a lot of time studying the education of various immigrant groups, minority groups and Native Americans and their experiences in the education system in the United States. One major, recurring theme that was discussed was that immigrants and minority groups were forced to assimilate to fit into American culture, society, and schools; which meant that they often had to adjust their own cultural practices in order to fit into the American “societal norm.” However, one major difference between immigrant groups assimilating into American culture versus the Native Americans’ process of assimilation is that the various immigrant groups had a homeland that they could always return to if they wished and Native Americans did not have this option. If immigrants did not like the American practices, ideals or norms, they could return to their homeland (even though this was difficult considering travel took much longer then) where the cultural practices were familiar. If these various immigrant groups did decide to stay in America and assimilate into the culture, they took comfort in knowing that they had a state across the water filled with people who shared their beliefs, values and ideals; the mere knowledge the immigrants had that their home country was there served as an active reminder of their heritage and where they came from.  When Columbus and the other European settlers came to America, they not only took over the Native Americans’ land, they left the Native Americans with no place to turn to if they ever needed a reminder of their heritage or cultural practices and they were certainly left with no place to escape the European settlers. Thus, Native Americans were forced to assimilate into American life, with no landmark reminder of their people or history. With their homeland taken over by the European settlers and their forced assimilation into this new society, Native Americans lost many of their own cultural practices.

Todorov’s piece made me think about how important it is to have a place (whether that be a state, town, community, etc.) where you can go to connect with people of your own background; that share your ideals, heritage, or cultural practices. While globalization has proven to have a wide array of advantages, (especially technologically) Todorov’s reading made me realize that globalization also poses a threat to religions, cultures, and practices that are different from the West and have been in place for hundreds of years. In class we talked about whether or not we believed that a culture could be wiped out by the increasing spread of democracy. While I don’t believe that this can happen because (as I have learned from my cross-cultural psychology class) the cultural norms found in the society we grew up with and were exposed to lays out the foundation for our personality, influences our moral understandings and cultivates our ability to reason through problems. All of these things: personality, morals and reasoning skills are influenced by the teachings of our parents and our cultural practices; the majority of which have been passed down from many generations and has thus become a foundation of who we are as individuals. With that said, I don’t think democracy can take away a culture in today’s society that has been passed down for many generations and is embedded in its people. However, I do see similarities between the United States’ push to spread democracy and Columbus’ push to spread Christianity and “Europeanize” the Native Americans. It is important that the United States’ effort to spread democracy is done so with the intent of helping other states see why democracy is a good thing, and not done with the intent of eliminating cultures that contain different ideologies than the United States. How do we ensure that the spread of democracy is done in a way that is not threatening to cultures with different ideologies? This question has been brought up in this class before, however before reading Todorov’s piece, I did not fully understand how detrimental globalization and the spread of democracy can be for non-democratic societies around the world.

I'm a bastard

For the last two class periods, our International Relations class played risk. The class was divided into teams, and it became a free for all to complete many different missions. Each side was given an objective to complete in order to "win". What began as a divided class, quickly broke up into desperate nations trying to win, but at least survive at all costs. I found this game to be a relatively accurate and fun version of World Politics. The version of risk we played in class, was much more reflective of international relations then the original game. The reason that diplomat’s risk was so much more realistic, was because every team had separate motivations and goals, the unpredictability of the dice, and rules on warfare which makes the simulation parallel events in a way that is much more likely to occur in reality.

               My personal experience in this game was very different than that for most other people, and I’d like to reflect on what occurred in the game first. I started out on the yellow team with a certain objective, but was given a secret mission as well. I could start a schism, and create a new team if I wanted to. While this divide was very unfavorable for both my original yellow team, and my new pink team, it ended up effected a lot of how I played the game. While throughout, I was interested in playing and wining as pink, the yellow team was wildly successful as well. On top of coming very close to victory as the yellow team, I also formed a bond with them. However, in one of the final rounds, when it became clear that the yellow team was going to be frozen, and had already used their secret power, plus the distribution of property was favorable for me, I finally decided that it was time to break off. In a pleasant surprise, many old my teammates, whom I had not even discussed the schism with followed me as well. I'd like to hope that it was because I proved myself a good and clever leader, and not simply because they deemed the yellow team a lost cause. However, my schism, incidentally not only likely kept the yellow team from wining, it also allowed the black team to win. Ultimately, neither of my teams, won, however I felt that both played the game the best and most strategically. We didn’t blunder into dumb battles losing lots of troops, we used persuasion to often get what we wanted, and our political board was always to our advantage (we sometimes were at war with people that were still allies with us, haha). In reality, before the schism, I had helped lead the yellow team into a place as a world power. Despite our humble beginnings, we were the only team that could realistically rival the blue team in terms of troops and territories despite being dealt a much poorer starting position. At the end of the day, it was a great and fun game and I found it to be realistic and I believe that it is worthwhile enough to keep doing in this class moving forward.

               There were many aspects of this game that I found to be good simulations of world problems. I think that the best happened when I was talking to Ben Soder. He said something along the lines of, “What we are doing makes sense, but I just can’t make everyone else do what I want”. This is so realistic. Just like how everyone had different objectives in the game, in real life, everyone also has different objectives. While America might see the issue one way, and try to convince others to follow, other say, Iraq might see the issue totally differently. What makes sense to one group does not always to another. Even if both sides have sound logic, values and the goals that ultimately are decided based on these values may be very different. This can be very frustrating and lead to violence and wars. This ultimately came to fruition in the game, because each team had different objectives, and thus, different values on what was important. At the end of the game, I thought that I had swindled the blue team. They agreed to give me two countries in return for two troops and sanctioning their war with red. This seemed like a great deal to me because, my goal was to gain as much territory as possible and this deal, would have won me the game. However, the blue was focused on the Ukraine, so the countries they gave me amounted to nothing to them, while the sanctions were key to their goals. While in this situation, both sides profited, it’s a great example of how different values effect the choices we make. 

I also loved how the different teams, had to deal with issues of the value of war and peace. While both have their advantages, they have their drawbacks too. If you enter into an alliance with someone, it takes two complete turns to declare war on them. And similarly, being at war while, it is the only way to accomplish your goals, it is also a dangerous time where you can lose it all. Based on this each team had to very strategically make decisions about allies and wars.  

               I also loved the unpredictability of the game. The dice make the game much more realistic. I play a very conservative game for the most part. I only attack when it provides me a distinct advantage, and I will never engage in a large scale battle unless it is absolutely necessary. This is because of the unpredictability of the dice. Just because you have a lot more troops then another nations, does not mean you will always win. This is very accurate to real life, where smaller nation shave been able to fend off much stronger military forces. Examples are Vietnam and the American Revolution. The dice, were random and made each attack a difficult and unpredictable risk.

               Finally I loved how you can only attack the countries next to you. While this is not nearly as true today with the incredible powerful navies and planes, it still has a lot of good base in it. Due to supplies and troop movement, countries around the world can’t really just move an army and begin in invasion far away. Instead it is your neighbors that you need up fighting and having disputes with. This was really well simulated in the game, because you could only attack spaces right next to your country.

               While I loved the game and simulation there were definitely flaws. Among these were that it does not take into account modern weapons such as missiles or any sort of economy or industrial complex. However, on the whole, the game is about international relations and dealing with others, and that’s ultimately what this class is really about, and to that end, this game does a fantastic job simulating those issues and difficulties.        

-William Chandler

Enviornmental Changes

The need to change the way the world abuses the environment becomes greater every day. Many scientists already say that it is too late for the world to be able to heal itself, but doing something about it now could save us a lot time on the earth. The major issues that the earth faces today are the depleting ozone layer, rising global temperatures, and the greenhouse gases and other harmful emissions that are poured into the atmosphere every day.  In order to be able to reduce these issues to the point that the world could begin to heal, many things are going to need to be put into place. First, technology that acts as substitutes for harmful substances is critical because money will most of the time take priority over the environment and therefore if is no substitute companies will continue to produce the harmful substance in order to make money. Secondly, an international regime that does a very good job in holding all countries accountable for all emissions that they produce. It is critical that the regime hold every country to extremely strict standards. If not we would see something like the Kyoto Protocol, where countries were not held responsible enough and it was therefore not a success. Finally, the regime should come up with a set of protocol to show exactly how to reduce emissions. It should not say to countries that they must reduce emissions to this number and that’s it. The protocol should lay out how countries need to reduce emissions so that countries are even more accountable for their actions. If a country is not reducing emissions than the regime can see if they were doing the correct things.

 There is no question that to clean up the earth will take a lot of time and a lot of capital. If we do not make changes though the earth will certainly begin to have major issues that will not be fixable. The UN must decide that this is absolutely necessary no matter how much money it costs. Scientists need to be paid whatever it takes in order to solve the technological issues first. Then these advances must be put into place in all countries and the countries must be strictly held accountable for every emission they put into the atmosphere. There must be consequences then for not following the protocol, and this could be easily done through trade restrictions. If it is just left up to the countries themselves to solve these global issues it will never get done. No country wants to put more effort than another country for economic reasons, which is why this must be an international problem that is solved internationally. More prosperous countries can put in more resources but it is most likely that those prosperous countries are doing most of the polluting. Without a regime like this, the world is almost guaranteed to get to a point that there is really nothing we can do anymore.  

Have Some Respect

        After discussing the Christopher Columbus reading, I realized how close-minded and selfish some individuals can be, and how this can be applied to IR. This was the case for Columbus. Columbus made no effort to try to learn the natives’ language, appreciate their culture, and accept them for who they are. The 1492 discovery of America has carried many consequences for the world, as the West has not tried to learn about other cultures enough and has tried to convert them to the ideals of democracy. However, we are content with where we stand as a nation (for the most part), and we seem to carry little regret over Columbus’s atrocities. That being said, this could have a devastating effect; therefore, we must accept other cultures for who they are.

In our small groups, we discussed the lessons for IR. I thought about ISIS. I realized that part of the reason they and the rest of the non-Western world doesn’t like us is because of our greedy, selfish nature and our inability to appreciate their culture. I mean, obviously, ISIS is messed up. But I’m talking about other cultures in the Middle East and further east, too. We also have tried endlessly to get them to accept the ideals of democracy. Consequentially, ISIS has tried to convert its non-members to Islam. There has been a significant backlash. Can’t we just all get along?

It’d be great if we could. But the reality is, we can’t expect people to change their beliefs solely because we think ours are right. We must be open-minded, and we must be willing to take the next step to learn about other cultures and appreciate them for who they are. While this may seem like a difficult task, it’s entirely possible. Some say that the only people who understand culture best are the ones who live in that culture. This may be true, but that doesn’t mean we can’t strive to fully understand the beliefs of other cultures. After all, a world filled with diversity is what we want.

A few years ago, I would wonder about other cultures, such as those in the Middle East: “Why do they dress so differently? Why is the music they listen to so…strange? Why do they pray so much?” See, I would ask these questions because I didn’t know any better. I always thought that the U.S. was the greatest country in the world and everything we did was right, was better than everyone else. I think it’s a common misconception. A lot of people think these other countries practices are outrageous and not “right”. But I didn’t understand their values and their beliefs. To this day, I am still trying to improve my understanding; I think all of can strive to improve this understanding. For all we know, our culture could seem ridiculous to them. We don’t know. We can’t just say our culture is “right” and theirs isn’t.

Let’s go back to Columbus. While what he did was unethical and morally wrong, he succeeded. He founded America. As a result of his discovery, America has more or less thrived since its inception, and we thank Columbus for what he did. But what if Columbus didn’t take advantage of the natives; what if America wasn’t based on Western materialist values? What if the Native Americans created a country based on their ideals and culture? It’s very interesting to think about. Citizens today love the U.S. for what it is. In a sense, therefore, we are not regretful of the past. We instead treat the exploitation of the Native Americans as a move that was necessary. In 2015, we sit as relatively happy citizens with many freedoms. But will our greed, selfishness, and desire to spread our values have a backlash in the near future? Could our reputation get the best of us? It very well could. Therefore, we must make an effort to understand and appreciate other cultures for what they are. This, in turn, can improve our reputation.

Easy, right? It should be, but it’s not. The reality is, people are always going to be stubborn towards other cultures—that’s just how it goes. In the world today, there isn’t much certainty. Uncertainty surrounds us, and we don’t know where we as an international community will be going as the years unfold. It could be a dangerous road ahead. Even domestically, people think they’re right all the time, and don’t want to listen to the other side. Each and every one of us should be cognizant of our actions as a nation. There are people in this class, in this school, throughout this country and this world, who have the power to bring the world together. It’s a daunting task, but it can only be done if all sides are listened to, and if we respect other cultures for they are. While Columbus gave us the land we love, we should try to avoid his example of exploitation; however, we should still try to do what’s best for our nation, in the most respectful way possible, while appreciating other cultures for what they are and not forcing our beliefs upon other people.

Note on Risk: I really liked this game. It allowed us to use a game to see how countries actually interact with each other. I liked how there was diplomacy involved, unlike the classic game. We had to really think about our moves, and we had to factor in what other teams would do as well. A lot of thinking involved. I got pretty competitive and I got into it. That being said, there was a fair share of waiting around, but I guess that’s just how it had to work. Also, it was frustrating at times not being able to see the board when other teams were moving. I think the only improvement that can be made is constant class involvement and engagement. Aside from that, this game was awesome and educating, and it should definitely be played in the future. It’s a really nice way to end the semester.

The Preface to Manifest Destiny

Christopher Columbus’s arrival to North America started what would become the template for colonizing a country. He came in search of riches? for the Spanish crown, but what he found was vastly more valuable than that. But the fertile land he had discovered was already home to a native population. His interactions with these people immediately set a terrible precedent for how countries would treat the people that could get in the way of having control of lands or resources that they desire. What he sparked would eventually lead to Manifest Destiny in the United States. The end result was a near-total re-settlement of the North American continent. A fundamental aspect of this historical narrative, as discussed by Tzvetan Todorov is how Columbus’s discomfort with the Native American’s differences led him to almost completely destroy their culture.

A key element that played into Columbus’s view of the Native Americans is the way in which human beings struggle to understand people who share different views, beliefs, or customs. Those who aren’t similar to us tend to be viewed as different or lesser because we as humans don’t feel we can connect with them as much. This is clearly  Columbus’s inability to respect the native’s form of ‘other’, coupled with his belief that his views were better, led him to strip them of their culture and replace it with his. For example Todorov discusses how Columbus sees their lack of clothing as animalistic in comparison to what Europeans wore at the time. Columbus’s gold-hungry view and feeling of divine right lead him to overlook the value of the Native American’s knowledge of the land and worth as people.

Both in the specific case of Columbus, and historically in the larger conflict between ‘us’ and ‘others’, a major bone of contention is differences is religious beliefs. Being that Columbus was just coming from Spain where they had successfully kicked the Moors out of the Iberian Peninsula, the ‘successful’ spread of Catholicism was fresh in his and the mind of others. The trials and tribulations of Luther and the Reformation were still in Europe’s future so there was no doubt in Europe of the supremacy of their Catholic beliefs. As shown by those events, even small differences in religions challenge the most fundamental beliefs amongst humans about life and death, and right and wrong. Religion often dictates a lot about how people believe life should be lived.  By easily labeling others as ‘infidel’ and ‘non-believer’, the worst of human nature springs to life. Unable to match the disease, horses, and guns that the Europeans brought, the Native Americans were given a life and death choice of whether or not they would stick to their own beliefs or convert to Catholicism and submit to the ‘superior’ Columbus. Too much conquering and bloodshed is done in the name of religion  

            This lack of understanding and respect of cultures, religions, and people that are different from what is considered “normal” to one human being has led to the death of many peoples and their ideas. In the case of North America, Christopher Columbus came in with the desire of gold, and the feeling of divine direction, which lead to the near complete decimation of a whole continent of people.  The sense of superiority and entitlement is dangerous because greed and righteousness leads people to act without empathy for fellow people. Both Manifest Destiny and the feelings of the Spaniards following their successes caused people to strip other human beings of their culture, land, and livelihoods. In international relations today we have continued, and will continue, to see this if we do not make a conscious effort to better understand one another as individuals and value them as equals.  

Power + Goals = A Different Actor, A Different Other

                The conjunction of having power and having a goal changes how we act and how we perceive “the other.”  I observed this in the Todorov reading and in our class’ rendition of Risk.  In the Todorov reading, Columbus is a conqueror of the New World and as such, he is in a place of power over the natives; this directly influences his perception of them.  As an empowered, dominant actor, he has the privilege of viewing the natives on his own terms, as a version of himself and his people albeit an inferior one (Todorov 38, 42).  If he had come into the Americas on equal power terms with the natives, not as a conqueror but rather simply an explorer or some other role power-neutral role (if that is possible), he would have had a better chance of being able to view them as the other in their own right.  In addition, his goal of getting gold from them made him see them as resources rather than human beings (Todorov 45).  Furthermore, his goal of evangelization made it so that he saw the natives, the “others,” as lacking.  He saw them as lacking in the religiosity that he wanted to instill in them (Todorov 34-36).  His empowered status and his goals of gold and religion also changed his actions in that they enabled and justified his patronizing, utilitarian, and abusive treatment of the natives (for example, treating them like savages, using them for gold and slave work, holding them hostage and allowing them to be raped). 

                The same phenomenon was clear to me in class when we played Risk.  As I recall from previous class discussions, a large number of students in class are rather ideological.  Early on in class, very few people condoned realism’s imperative for offense as defense, aka proactive violence.  In short, a good portion of us, especially the people who ended up being on my Risk team, do not seem to be personally very violent or power-driven people.  However, when my team headed up to the board for the first time, our personalities changed quickly, including my own.  Our team was the most militarily powerful team in the game at the start, and our assigned objective was to keep that hegemony and gain more power.  With this interaction of power and a driving goal, almost immediately, everyone on the team was insistently asserting the need to attack another team.  There was no hesitation or questioning, but rather mutual agreement at not only the validity but also the urgency of this need for violence.  If someone had asked us theoretically whether a powerful country should attack another less powerful country without provocation, it is quite likely (given precedence from similar questions in old classes) that we would have said “no.”  And yet, with power and a goal, our modus operandi changed drastically.

Similarly, I noticed how quickly into the game we assigned identities to the “other,” in this case our opposing teams.  When the game began, we were all indiscernible groups of students.  We were on teams bearing the name of a color so that no team held an inherent meaning or significance. Based on our desire to keep and grow our power, however, my team quickly identified the others based on how much of a threat they were to our power or to our goal.  We rolled our eyes when a “belligerent” team attacked us, acting as if it was typical of them, showing how we had already assigned them an identity based on our own power situation and goal.  This made me realize how, in all the discussions where politicians or political groups are vilified for their actions and people ask, “How could he? How could they?,” the answer is that power and an end goal can influence people to do things that they would not otherwise do and to see others in a completely different light.

How baseball Explains the World

Will Chandler

November 11^th, 2015

Shirk IR

Blog Post 4

On May 4^th, 1869, the first professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings played the Great Westerns of Cincinnati, and America’s past time became a business. In 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first black baseball player in the MLB. Jump forward about a 65 years, and the Kansas City Royals just defeated the New York Mets for the World Series title in front of an average 14.7 million fans. The two teams featured about 23 international players throughout the season in live game action. Overall, about 41% of all MLB players are of color (2015 Major League Baseball Racial and Gender Report Card). While this may seem like progress, there is still much evidence of racism in baseball, however it is a microcosm of globalization and its double edged abilities because baseball has been affected by globalization’s ability to disseminate information, exposure and mass scrutiny and deal with social issues on a national scale while avoiding actual mass violence.

 

Baseball shows us that racism is still inherent in people, however, under the pressure of masses for equality, it can disappear. The sacred, just mediators of baseball are the umpires. Yet they have fallen into the same bias and racist tendencies common around the world. “SMU found that home-plate umpires call disproportionately more strikes for pitchers in their same ethnic group…  the data suggest that racial bias is probably operating at a subconscious level, where the umpire doesn't even recognize it.” Racism is still common in our culture, as much as we may try to hide it, it exists at a subconscious level. However, there are way to minimize it’s effects. “Researchers found that umpires' racial biases diminished when they knew they were being monitored by the computer. Same thing for high-profile moments. During those important points in games when umpires knew fans were more carefully watching the calls, the racial bias all but vanished. Likewise, the same-race preference was less pronounced at high-attendance games, where umps knew there would be more crowd scrutiny”. When people are being more highly scrutinized, they are able to overcome these subconscious plagues, and behave in the right way. Globalization gives access to these resources we need in order to possess a positive pressure for equality. Just as 14.7 million viewers at home, all with access to instant replay positively influence umpires to make the correct call, regardless of bias, government and corporations around the world are similar effected by the internet and modern communication to clean up their act because due to globalization, they are held accountable for their actions by thousands of viewers around the globe.   

 

 

“You don’t belong here n*****. You hear me, why don’t you look in the mirror? This a white man’s game. Alright? Get that through your think monkey skull!”

-Opposing Coach in 42

 

Jackie Robinson faced extreme odds and violence when he became the first black player in the major leagues. He faced violent opposition and extreme prejudice by both fans, umpires and even teammates. The expansion of the baseball, from a backyard sport for fun, to a small business, quickly became a large scale operation as it popularity grew wildly throughout the 20^th century. As more franchises popped up, and the pressure to win championships increased front offices, in the hunt for the best players began looking at new sources. While the sport grew in popularity in America, it also expanded around the world. Other groups quickly picked up baseball, it was especially popular among black youth, and an independent league, “The Negro Leagues” was even formed. However, the demand for the best players, spurred by its growing business and popularity caused the Brooklyn Dodgers to sign and play Jackie Robinson in 1947. This started a rush of incredible racism and brutality as the current race issue in America was put on the national stage. Jackie Robinson’s success lead to alleviated tensions and was a major example of flawed white American ethnocentricism.

 

"We're opening this game to everyone that can play. However, if you're going to come into our country and make our American dollars, you need to respect a game that has been here for over a hundred years..."

-Bud Norris

 

Since inception in 1869, baseball has spread out all over the World. From a young age, kids all over the globe have come to love and play “America’s pastime.” In fact, there is an international tournament held every year in Williamsport, Pa for American and international youth. Despite baseball’s identification as a purely American sport, more international teams have won the Little League World Series title, then American ones, despite an even American to International team ratio. This trend continues, as seen in the World Baseball classic, where the US has never finished in the top 3 places! And since its inception as an Olympic sport, the US has one just 1 gold medal, while Cuba leads the way with 3. Despite all of the evidence to the contrary, professional baseball is still seen as an American sport, and as such, there is a common sentiment that it should be played in an American way. Current MLB player Bud Norris, expresses this sentiment above, this extends off the field as well, “And that, dear Latino player, is a lesson you can apply to every single aspect of your life in American baseball: your music, your dress, your emotions, your playing style. If any of it ever offends one of the locals, the rationale is always, ‘Hey! America! Our country, our music, our money, our way!’" (Racism in Baseball isn’t going Anywhere). Sentiment among active American players, is that despite clear evidence to the contrary, baseball practices around the world are significantly inferior to the American style. In fact a common phrase in baseball when it comes to hot headed, flashy foreigners, is that are a danger to the game. Hot shot Cuban outfielder Yusiel Puig has been a polarizing example of this, as he allows his emotions to clearly enter into his play, this has been met with opposition as “staunch traditionalists argue for preserving the integrity of the game” (sportress of blogitude). The expansion of baseball, has led to racial backlash, othering and violence between white American traditionalists and different races and cultures around the world.

 

               The globalization of baseball has been full of positives and negatives. This is because globalization is inherently a double edged sword. While it puts pressure on countries because it holds them responsible for their actions, and allows social issues to be tackled without direct violence, it also can lead to racism and othering.         

“Maybe next time we will all wear 42, that way that won’t tell us apart.”

-Pee Wee “42”