This week, I was interviewed on a local Fox station about the latest media “outrage,” ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith’s ill-advised comments on baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani.
Stephen asserted that in what is traditionally known as “America’s Pastime,” we need players who can at least speak English. He argued that because Ohtani prefers to use a translator for all interviews, he shouldn’t be a standard-bearer for the sport — even if he has attained a level of skill not seen since Babe Ruth.
Ohtani is a proud Japanese national and Los Angeles Angel, which is a win for both America and Japan. The most traditional American pastime was exported to Japan in the 1870s and quickly adapted into mainstream Japanese life. And now the country has produced Ohtani, a legendary athlete whose success is the cherry on top of a melding of two very different cultures.
Smith is perhaps so myopic in his vision of sports and the world that he somehow missed the recent wave of anti-Asian hate crimes and the #StopAsianHate response. Even so, attacking the heritage of those who were not born in this country is ugly, no matter how you cut it. It is flat-out disrespectful to demand someone speak perfect English as a prerequisite to being an American icon.
Ohtani handled this incident like a champ, with the same dignity and discipline that has led him to be the best of the best. Not reacting is now a lost art. Every debate, political or nonpolitical, on both sides, seems to devolve into drawing your line harder in the sand and destroying any relationship that could have developed.
While I found Smith’s initial excuse for his comments, arguing he was “talking about the marketability and the promotion of the sport,” ridiculous, I applaud him for showing humility in the end. What happened to Smith was enough; he got a public flogging. If Jeffrey Toobin can get his job back with CNN — that’s the standard today — throwing hate at Smith is not going to make the world a better place. It was a teachable moment, and he can learn from it.
As an Asian American activist, I am simply grateful that today, our society is overall evolved enough to speak up against such rhetoric.
When I was a kid, “the invisible minority” was indeed invisible — in sports, movies, and music. I certainly didn’t have an Ohtani to look up to. Now that is changing. Ohtani keeps winning, and this incident only gave him more attention and acclaim. What Ohtani accomplishes on the field and off is quiet, consistent, and beautiful. So thank you, Smith, for striking that contrast.
Marc Ang ([email protected]) is the president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance in Orange County, a community organizer in Southern California, and the founder of Asian Industry B2B. His book Minority Retort will be released in late 2021.
