What Pee Wee Reese teaches us about showing up
Standing with Jackie Robinson modeled how to support allies
There is a story about Jackie Robinson and his teammate Pee Wee Reese with the Brooklyn Dodgers when Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947. It has been retold in several books and featured in the movie “42.”
The tale, in a nutshell, goes like this: The Dodgers were in Cincinnati during Robinson’s rookie season. With its proximity to Kentucky, it was a far from favorable crowd for Robinson, a crowd, at least as the movie tells it, included some of Reese’s family. Amidst the torrent of abuse hurled Robinson’s way, Reese walked across the diamond to Robinson and very publicly put his arm around the pioneer. The gesture silenced the crowd and has been immortalized in a statue outside of the Minor League Brooklyn Cyclones’ stadium.
Now, there are some questions as to the complete veracity of the story, though most believe something similar happened at some point between the two teammates and friends in the early stages of Robinson’s career. And it would be naïve to think that Reese’s move ended racism or the vitriol Robinson heard while being the first black player in Major League Baseball.
I couldn’t help but think of this story in a post Tree of Life massacre world as I contemplate my general philosophy of my activism as a white Jewish man, and it can be summed up in three words: Just show up.
In the aftermath of the mass shooting here in my neighborhood, the outpouring of support from communities near and far has been overwhelming. But I’ve had some discomfort around how this city has been depicted on both the national and international stages.
Don’t get me wrong; I love Pittsburgh and I think it has a lot to offer a lot of people. But there’s been a bit of a white-washing — yes, I’m using the term carefully and mindfully — about the city as a whole.
Pittsburgh has a lot going for it, but to paint it as a fully unified city, where everyone has the same opportunities, just isn’t true. Like in a lot of places in this country, the system does not work for everyone. Our frontline communities are struggling. Struggling to advance economically with jobs that pay living wages, struggling to find affordable housing, struggling to ensure their children are getting the same education my children in Squirrel Hill have been fortunate enough to receive.
To put it frankly: People of color in this city have wondered where this globally-transmitted version of Pittsburgh is in reality. And this is why it is so important for the conversation about what happened at Tree of Life to continue to be about more than antisemitism. There is no question that Robert Bowers was driven by a hatred of Jews. But that only tells part of the story, one that has often been missing from the national narrative. He targeted Dor Hadash, one of the three congregations at Tree of Life, because of their participation in the National Refugee Shabbat and he targeted them because of his hatred for the organization HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), whose motto for the last century has been to “Help the Stranger and Protect the Refugee.”
This is why it was important for us at Bend the Arc: Pittsburgh to connect those dots so soon after the shooting. We talked about white nationalism as a much bigger umbrella that is hovering over too much of the country. Antisemitism falls under this umbrella, and it’s very much on the rise. But so does racism and other forms of xenophobia. It’s why we called upon the President of the United States to renounce white nationalism in the wake of the shooting ahead of his ill-timed visit to my neighborhood. And it’s why we marched. Yes, the Jewish community in Pittsburgh was attacked. But this is so much bigger than us.
There’s a big disconnect between our communities of color and the Jewish community. And for Jews of color, it’s a divide that has to be insurmountable at times, though I can’t pretend to walk in their shoes. That’s not just here in Pittsburgh. Sadly, it’s prevalent world-wide and it tears me apart. I paraphrased Abraham Joshua Heschel about praying with my feet in Changing Lanes, and I do it often. I’ve been thinking about him standing with Martin Luther King Jr. a lot lately. Maybe it’s aspirational, to think about a time when Jews and people of color are standing shoulder to shoulder to fight for justice on a regular basis. If so, then call me a dreamer.
Thousands showed up for our march when President Trump was in town. Thousands came to the vigil at Soldiers & Sailors the day after the shooting occurred. I can only imagine what people of color, many of whom showed up for us, thought when seeing all of this, when seeing how favorably the police treated us as protesters compared to when they have taken to the streets to protest, say, the shooting of Antwon Rose.
Just days before the Tree of Life shooting, two black grandparents were killed by a white man spreading hate, after initially trying to enter a black church. Yes, the magnitude of 11 being killed in a synagogue will invariably grab more headlines, but the coverage of those hate crimes was close to nonexistent. Yes, it’s true that a mass shooting, especially one based on hatred of a group and occurring in a place of worship, is beyond jarring. Maybe it’s easier to show up when it’s your own community that’s in mourning. But there are people in our community who grieve every single day. How many of us can say we’ve been there in their times of need?
What can any Jew who identifies as white do? This brings me back to my earlier point: Start by showing up. Don’t come in with an agenda. Don’t come in thinking you’re the savior who knows how to fix everything. Check your ego at the door.
Show up, then shut up. Listen, really listen. And support. Don’t do it for accolades. Don’t do it expecting positive feedback. Do it because it’s right. Do it because it’s just. And keep doing it. Over and over. Build relationships that can lead to real dialogue that can take my aspiration and move it ever so slightly towards reality.
Years later, Pee Wee Reese was talking to baseball historian Roger Kahn about his simple gesture of putting his arm around Jackie Robinson. Why did he decide to show up in that moment?
“I was just trying to make the world a little bit better,” Reese reportedly said. “That’s what you’re supposed to do with your life, isn’t it?”
