Kurt Kiyoshi Suzuki, the catcher for the Washington Nationals, committed a politically incorrect “crime” this week. He donned the much-reviled red MAGA cap at the White House celebration for the unlikely hometown World Series champions, humbly declaring to the assembly, “I love you all!”
Even worse, Suzuki received a hug from President Trump himself.
For this, he found himself pilloried by self-styled liberals and the well-oiled Silicon Valley social-media machine, which marred the celebratory occasion by amplifying tweets about Suzuki’s supposed “betrayal.”
Japanese Americans at birth customarily are given middle names such as “Kiyoshi” as a dignified statement of cultural continuity between the land of our forefathers and our beloved United States of America, for which we have spilled blood in two world wars and too many overseas “conflicts.” Other than a middle name, most of us do not feel the need to loudly declaim ethnic pride. We are loath to boast of our achievements in a manner obviously self-serving and cynical as self-appointed leaders of racial minority groups often do.
We are fortunate to enjoy the richness and beauty of a plural society, which like all other societies, undeniably has its problems. If there is tension, conflict, and division within American society, the university is the institution most responsible for creating the deep fissures. Regrettably, I must admit to having contributed to “weaponized multiculturalism” long before the current parade of conservative think-tankers, radical left bloggers, and YouTube celebrity wannabes on both sides of the political fault line.
That is, for over two decades, I taught in the Department of Asian American Studies at the University of California-Davis before being pressured out in 2017 as a full professor with tenure once my lectures and scholarship departed from the academic orthodoxy that requires loyalty and obedience to grievance politics. Worst of all, I was a known supporter of President Trump.
Had I not been purged from the UC system, I would have used the hideous cackle of tweets aimed at Kurt Suzuki as a teaching moment for students. Most of them are oblivious to the left-authoritarianism that now reigns over academia across all disciplines.
Suzuki’s critics have not bothered to follow his bumpy career. He bounced around the minors before making it to the Show. Once in the majors, he was traded back and forth between teams before returning to the lowly Nationals for a second stint in 2018. Throughout his playing career, starting at Cal State-Fullerton and in the professional ranks, Suzuki was among an ethnically diverse bunch of individuals whose only criterion for team membership was the single-minded pursuit of athletic excellence. They aimed for and in 2004 achieved their goal of winning a national championship.
To be sure, the world outside of professional sports is far from the meritocracy most Americans profess to embrace. This is because the belief in equality of opportunity, passionately held as the core animating values of the American Republic, make us all easy prey for manipulators who understand how to foster resentment and harness anger on call. Even corporations have gotten in on this act, engaging in “socially conscious” grandstanding to exploit racial and ethnic tensions for profit.
Diversity, equality, and justice cannot be manufactured by the uniform minds that conduct corporate-government-sponsored research at the university. The decades-long social experiment of offering applicants preferential admission based on race, ethnicity, and gender has proven to be a failure. Along with the Tech Left, whose very existence owes to educational opportunities afforded to the best and brightest, the university and the larger society would be better served by following the example embodied by Kurt Suzuki.
Through God-given ability, family support, self-discipline, mentoring and coaching, talented teammates, persistence, and a winning spirit, every American has the possibility of earning a championship. In his long zigzag journey toward the MLB championship 2019, Kurt “Klutch” Suzuki stands proudly as the rule that proves the American exception.
As members of our capital’s perpetual underdog team, Kurt and his teammates have proven that good sportsmanship and a winning attitude can make America great again. That holds true for both sides of the political divide, because everyone should be celebrating this remarkable achievement.
Darrell Y. Hamamoto is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Davis. His most recent book is Servitors of Empire: Studies in the Dark Side of Asian America.
