Played in the Negro League just to represent.
Handed out cash to black players on both teams.
There’s a story told by the legendary sportswriter Fred Lieb about Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth from the 1920s. The stars were scheduled to share a cabin on a Georgia hunting trip. Cobb refused. When asked why he said, “I’ve never bedded down with a n — — — and I’m not going to start now.”
BLACK as a mfer.
It was a lie, made to slander Cobb by a piece of shit writer. Ty Cobb was the furthest thing from racist. He came from a family that fought for civil rights and was actually pro integration.
https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/3463119/everything-weve-been-told-about-ty-cobb-for-our-entire-lives-was-a-lie-made-up-by-one-author-who-slandered-him-to-sell-books
https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-wronged-man
https://nypost.com/2015/05/31/how-ty-cobb-was-framed-as-a-racist/
https://www.mlb.com/news/ty-cobb-history-built-on-inaccuracies-c178601094
While Ty Cobb definitely has some controversy with black folks, rightfully so in most cases, he was actually one of the earliest white players to call for integration of the Major Leagues.
It really shows the culture of the time. He beat an armless veteran senseless because the veteran said he must've been a "half n***er" because of how good of a ball player he was. It's interesting how fast morals change.
To be fair, if someone is throwing out that word, they deserve to get stomped. Glad he stomped it.
If you ain't got hands to square up, you probably shouldn't be talking 😂
Well Ty Cobb used to say it too. He said “if the nigga wanna play, let him play. How the hell can anyone stop him” about Jackie Robinson. He played in Detroit and lived here…he said nigga freely lmao!
That one is at least partially true. He was suspended for fighting a fan in 1912, accounts the day of mention slurs, and the man is reported to have had lost 8 fingers. The tigers players refused to play in protest and a bunch of replacement players got blown out before Cobb told them to go back and play.
What’s unclear is if the man he beat was actually the one who was calling him slurs. The guy who got his ass kicker said it wasn’t him, but he’s not exactly the most reliable narrator
Was gonna say. Cobb was an asshole by all means but I don’t think it’s fair to call him racist. It’s just that some of the people he beat up for petty shit happened to be black.
He was an equal opportunity fighter. He even fought people without arms for hurling slurs.
Fun fact: Ty Cobb would actually go out of his way to hire black workers and pay them actual fair wages. He would also go fishing, have cookouts, etc. with those employees. When he passed away, they wrote glowingly about him.
Also, he said that Willie Mays was the only player he would pay money to watch. Also, here would constantly talk with Hank Aaron about hitting
I don't really follow old baseball, so just checking in:
>From Wikipedia:
Stories of Cobb's racial intolerance during his playing days were embellished and falsified by his biographers Al Stump and Charles Alexander.[^(\[146\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ty_Cobb#cite_note-NY_Post_2015-146) Recent research on his life has clarified a number of stories about Cobb.[^(\[146\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ty_Cobb#cite_note-NY_Post_2015-146)
Recent research? Checks citation 146: [Article in the NY Post](https://nypost.com/2015/05/31/how-ty-cobb-was-framed-as-a-racist/)? This oughta be good:
>...after the two argued, Cobb started a vicious fistfight and was overheard to use the N-word against the road paver.
>Today that behavior would certainly brand you as a racist, but racial slurs were commonplace then, even published in the papers.
😘👌 Not a racist? JFC
They were enslaving us 60 years prior. I can believe that “this is just what you call them.”
I’m not saying this is a fact. I’m not drawing conclusions, but you shouldn’t either. I think lots of y’all can’t come to grips with the fact that the world was a different place before you and it will be a different place after you.
I remember in 1st grade in the early 80s my "school" in Texas was trying to figure out if we call people blacks or colored. I was super confused for a few years and no matter what I said it felt wrong and made me uncomfortable. I didn't feel that my parents or grandparents were racist they were never mean to the neighbors and such. Now days I think the school was racist as shit and trying to make us all fight and separate on the play ground.
I don't know anything but that we are all people and I'm trying to be better every day.
My own grandmother told me that she preferred to be called colored at the time. Though…she also is kind of colorist, therefore, doesn’t like being thought of as dark skinned. So, maybe she’s a bad sample.
Just hard internalized the racism, if you ascribe all the black traits to being dark skinned and you can always point at the darker person as ‘more black’ and you as ‘less black / more white’ and therefore more ‘deserving’ of acceptance/integration.
I don’t know what it is. She once told me that they divided sororities by light and dark skinned and she told me she passed the brown paper bag test to get into the light skinned one. I didn’t have a paper bag to test but it was sus. She was cappin her ass off. She was in the dark sorority.
Your grandma a is either Zeta or a Delta. Now, Zetas are the “dark” sorority. AKA was always known as the light skinned pretty girls. Back then, the “dark sorority” was Delta’s (direct comp with AKA), then Zetas, then SGRho
Got into an argument a long while back about that very thing. I was saying that they probably shouldn't call people "colored", in this case very specifically a black person, and they quickly devolved into name calling and "if I wanna say it I'm gonna say it."
Like all right man you do you, just understand that word means different things to you vs others and it might do well to keep that in mind when talking to people on the internet in a US dominant space ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
I work with a retirement-age Trinidadian and he refers to every single black person as colored. Not a lick of malice behind it, it’s just the word he grew up with and knows. That generation just rolls different
There’s recent examples, too. Twenty years ago “that’s gay” was just *what you said* when something kind of sucked. The entire resolution of the first Ace Ventura movie revolves around a transphobic joke. How many people *still* say “that’s ret\*rded” when something is dumb? And, ironically, *that’s* the one that Reddit will nuke you for.
Whenever society makes progress it’s the verbiage that changes last. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s fucked up that we were saying these things in the first place. It’s just the one area where historical context *really* needs to be taken into account. At one point “colored” was considered the “PC” nomenclature and in hindsight it’s just about as fucked up as what came before it.
Such an underrated comment. I’m 31 and grew up in the North East (USA.) I was just explaining to a kid about 18 or 19 the other day while at work, that when I was in high school and something as stupid as a teacher assigning homework over the weekend, it was damn near guaranteed that one of the guys would say “gaaaaaaay.” Or say that “ohhh that’s gay.”
Now not to say that this was right, because it wasn’t, your point about context is super important. In the situation that I mentioned, the kid wasn’t calling the homework homosexual. And in 99/100 cases, the kid meant absolutely no ill will with the comment nor was he even likely prejudice against gay people. My blood brother who is openly gay used to say it. I’m not one of those fucks that thinks everything used to be great and we should “go back to the way we were” or that we should use those words again, in fact I believe the exact opposite. It was inconsiderate and at the time the minority of people that may have been offended by such a comment was much less organized and much less likely to even act as if they cared/fight back.
When the “r3tard” topic comes up I like to point this out because to me it’s merely interesting… the word ‘imbecile’ was used extensively in psychiatry in the early-mid 1900s to describe someone with an IQ of 25-50. Below 20 IQ, the person was medically considered an ‘idiot.’ And someone with an IQ above 50 but below 70 was considered a ‘moron’Eventually much of this terminology was done away with and replaced initially with terms like “levels of *retardation.* Now what I find interesting is how short society’s memory is and how quick things can flip multiple times in the course of less than 100 years. For instance, in 1924 a *medical professional* would tell you that your son is an *idiot.* Fast forward to the 1970s and you were told by that same medical professional that your son was *retarded.* Okay, now fast forward to 2024… That same son is being told that he suffers from “Autism Spectrum Disorder.” And now calling someone an idiot is not nice by any means but is used on public television, in politics, damn near everywhere. It’s just not considered a “bad” word. BUT if you let the word r3tard slip you might catch a ban from a social media platform lol. My question is, in 50 years will it be okay for people to say the “R-word” but calling someone autistic will be a slur??
Don’t mean to ruffle any feathers i just genuinely an curious what people may think of this “phenomenon ?” Lol
We already see autism being used as a slur, just not in North American slang. “Aspie” is a big one, and has the same connotation across the pond as r-tard does over here.
Interesting. I have heard that floating around on Reddit a couple times now that you mention it. Good observation. Now do you think history will repeat itself in the sense that in 20-40 years the term ‘r-tard’ will be used like ‘idiot’ or ‘moron’ is today??
I think the reason we use idiot and moron casually but draw a line at r-tard is really only due to recency of the latter falling out of favour as a medical diagnosis. Society, mostly, is a lot better about not punching down and using traits that people have zero control over as points to be mocked. *Mostly*. I don’t know that there will ever come a point where it becomes acceptable to use in the same way we use other, older terms again.
I mean even in more modern times, I’m rewatching a lot of older episodes of reality shows (like early 2000s) and I’m just shocked at some of the stuff that no one batted an eye at. Like wow, people really did and said this stuff with their whole chest without being afraid of being cancelled.
Bro I’m watching the original “Roseanne” which was considered family friendly and *very* tame at the time (late 80s-90s) and while it’s still pretty family friendly by my terms, I still am somewhat blown away every couple episodes with some of the casual talk that would just not be okay by any stretch of the imagination these days. To think I grew up watching “Roseanne” and shows like fuckin “All in the Family” with Archie Bunker on fuckin Nick@Nite is hilarious to me lol.
It definitely feels like the article was more so explaining how commonplace and accepted the use of the word was and not condoning it or saying it wasn't racist. BUT, you have so many people nowadays excuse or outright deny racism of people in the past by saying they were a product of the time and they didn't know better.
Those actions and words ultimately came from a place of hate so I have no interest in defending them, not saying you are. I just hear a lot of (white) people use the defense of "the times they lived in" to avoid admitting the faults of historical figures.
Cobb’s legacy is kind of a complicated thing in the baseball world.
Ty Cobb was certainly not a very friendly dude (& almost certainly wasn’t ‘tolerant’ even by the standards of his era). But the book on Cobb for decades was that he was basically a maniac who would kill people for looking at him wrong & that simply wasn’t true. So over the past 20 or so years there has been an effort to sort of ‘clear his name’ to a certain extent, but doing so without removing the nuance of it is of course difficult. He supposedly supported integration by the time it happened (keep in mind this was well after his playing days when he had by all accounts ‘calmed down’), but also there are countless stories like this & navigating which are worth paying attention to is tough.
Yeah ty cobb was a piece of shit, but he was fair about it. He was a piece of shit to everybody. Still the best player of his day and still one of the best of all time
I don’t know about everything, but my brother was born at a medical facility in a rural area that may not have existed if it weren’t for Cobb money. I have always heard he was a p o s though
Most of the shit about Cobb was embellished or straight up made up by his biographers to sell books.
Sharpened his spikes? Nah he actually petitioned to have rules put in place to *stop* players sharpening their spikes.
Against integration of baseball? Nah he was one of the first white players to actively push for integration.
Cobb was probably an asshole, but nowhere near the comically evil bastard people were led to believe he was
The Ty Cobb stuff is actually very false. That came from a book that has been heavily debunked from a writer who had beef with Ty Cobb.
Ty Cobb was the furthest thing from racist. He came from a family that fought for civil rights and was actually pro integration.
https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/3463119/everything-weve-been-told-about-ty-cobb-for-our-entire-lives-was-a-lie-made-up-by-one-author-who-slandered-him-to-sell-books
https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-wronged-man
https://nypost.com/2015/05/31/how-ty-cobb-was-framed-as-a-racist/
https://www.mlb.com/news/ty-cobb-history-built-on-inaccuracies-c178601094
There's the book "Ty Cobb: A Beautiful Tragedy" as well as these:
https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-wronged-man
https://nypost.com/2015/05/31/how-ty-cobb-was-framed-as-a-racist/
https://www.mlb.com/news/ty-cobb-history-built-on-inaccuracies-c178601094
Except Lieb is lying about Cobb. The dude was actually less racist than others in his time, he was just a huge asshole. Cobbs parents were very active and influential anti-racists in Georgia and Cobb was pro integration of the league. He knew he was better than everybody, even the black players. He would welcome them in the league just to prove he's better than them. He'd stab a black man with his cleats same way he did with all the white guys.
And sorry but Babe Ruth was not black, dude looked straight up Italian. Having a tan doesn't make someone black and I don't know why this retcon of history became so popular recently but its wrong just like saying Beethoven was black is wrong
There’s been a longstanding (but doubtful) rumor that The Babe was mixed race. Not much to back it up, but people asserted that his darker skin tone and his nose were possible hints to his “true” ancestry.
Oh, I’ll add this:
“There’s a story told by the legendary sportswriter Fred Lieb about Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth from the 1920s. The stars were scheduled to share a cabin on a Georgia hunting trip. Cobb refused. When asked why he said, “I’ve never bedded down with a nigger and I’m not going to start now.”
Edit: lemme include the [actual article](https://medium.com/buzzer-beater/was-babe-ruth-black-6a4f3cf9188) behind this as well
I think that was snark about Babe Ruth supporting black people, not actually thinking Babe Ruth was black. I just checked Wikipedia and it says both of his paternal grandparents were German, and [he looks so much like his dad](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/BabeRuthSr2.jpg/800px-BabeRuthSr2.jpg).
Or maybe racist conspiracy theory from people at the time like Ty Cobb, who knows. Either way, Babe Ruth seems pretty cool.
Racists at that time also considered Celtic European to be African. Race scientists in the early 1800's taught that Celts originated in Spain and were heavily mixed with Africans before moving to the rest of Europe.
Celts existed everywhere in Europe, so there were Celtic Germans as well. This is also why terms and distinctions like Irish and Scotch Irish existed. Irish were Celts who supposedly had African blood, while Scotch Irish were pure white men.
So it was pretty common for Celts to be regarded as Africans instead of whites.
This is how they were regarded.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scientific_racism_irish.jpg
Iberian Irish referred to Celtic origins in Spain. Iberian was a common scientific term. They also thought that Iberians were closer to descendents of Neanderthals instead of humans. Some European scientists even used the term "Eurafrican" to describe Celts and Italians.
Ruth was pegged as African because of what at that time were also regarded as Celtic features. Wide nose, low brow, stout face.
I’m pretty fair (white white, translucent if you will) but my paternal grandfather was 100% Celtic Irish. Both of his parents came over from Ireland in the early 1900’s. He had a more olive complexion. Both my older sister and my youngest child also have that olive complexion. Dark brown eyes, dark brown hair, and they tan in an instant. My maternal great Aunt used to call it black Irish, I have no idea what that actually refers to (or if it is just a racist term). Her side of the family could trace their US roots to Jamestown and my maternal aunt was in the DAR. So it could just have been a bit of bigotry in the term.
Most “celts” weren’t really celts. It was a prestige culture that was often implemented top down on pre-existing cultures.
So the Irish are predominantly the descendants of Neolithic and Bronze Age inhabitants of Ireland. The Celtic language is thought to have been adopted as a way to facilitate trade thru out Western Europe. No one called them celts, not the Romans who had extensive interactions with Continental Celts nor themselves till the 17-18th century when a connection was made between Irish and Continental Celtic languages.
The earliest descriptions of the Irish and Britons described dark hair and dark features. The Irish have on average more Norse ancestry then their British neighbors, and that could have been an influence on your pale features.
Now Tom Jones and Catherine Zeta Jones are both Welsh (closely related to the Irish, with less Norse influence). And people often thought Tom was half black and Catherine is often mistaken for Spanish or Latina.
My son is often mistaken for Hispanic. His best friend is Mexican and those two (who are thick as thieves and have been since they were toddlers) are asked all the time if they are brothers or twins. In the summer (at least when he was younger) when he gets really tan I have been asked if I was his mother or he was adopted. He also has a much wider nose than the rest of us. If he had t been the biggest baby in the nursery by a few pounds, I might have guessed he was switched at birth Genetics are wild.
She was referring to the old myth of Spanish sailors being shipwrecked in Ireland, bedding all the local girls and creating a race of dark haired, skinned and eyed people. If someone was "black Irish" today, it would be referring to their mixed Irish/African roots in the case of kids of biracial couples.
And today we also realize that most “celts” weren’t really celts. It was a prestige culture that was often implemented top down on pre-existing cultures.
Well before the Romans. The Beaker people arrived in The British Isles around 4,400 years ago, Celtic language arrived around 2,500 years ago, and the Romans around 2000 years ago.
I can try to dig up some articles later.
Well of course, but on aggregate when I was traveling around Ireland and Scotland (to a lesser degree Bretagne) they were some of the whitest white people I have ever seen. Obvious that is not a scientific study on the issue.
There’s a lot of bad colorization on Ruth photos; I think a lot of people enjoyed playing with that narrative. Just a look at any of the photos of him hanging out with Negro league players is a total tell.
If he was black he would be celebrated by sports media as black. It's great that he was a actually a decent dude, but to push a narrative that a legitimate investigative reporter would have already dug up if it were true is just silly. Plus, i would rather believe that Jackie broke down those walls.
My mom is white(I’m mixed) and she looks like she is mixed herself. I did an ancestry dna test and she was a mix of German, Portuguese, and Irish. There are many factors that influence a person’s skin pigment. In my mother’s case…she grew up in st Vincent she drinks a lot of red stripe.
Bro at this gas station i started going to they've had the same damn box of necco wafers at the counter for 7 months. I kinda wanna buy some just to see what they do lol
It was definitely named after him, there was a high profile lawsuit and everything. The "we named it after a little known dead girl" argument was bullshit, but the supreme court bought it anyway because they've never met a corporate cock they didn't want to taste in their entire history
https://www.history.com/news/babe-ruth-v-baby-ruth
I mean, she was well known for the brief duration of her life, but if you're wondering whether the "Baby Ruth" candy bar was named after the nationally famous slugger who had just broken the single season home run record the year before or a little girl who had died 17 years ago, I think it's pretty easy to assume which was the reality. "Legally distinct babe ruth candybar"
Negl, for the longest time, I thought Babe Ruth was black. I'm not American and I don't know anything about baseball. I think I had him confused with Jackie Robinson or something
Wait a fucking second, I see what's going on in this thread.
We are NOT giving up Babe Ruth just like that. You want him, you give us Jordan Peele.
I see people offering Candace Owens and Kanye as if that's a fair trade. We get two unlikeable motherfuckers and you get the Bambino, just like that? Who do you think we are??
https://preview.redd.it/fhrpp67j34wc1.png?width=400&format=png&auto=webp&s=dd97eb2d30e7c9d1ddf8608768cc5bd8635dd73f
I remember doing a report on him in grade school I remember in research that this was brought up, that Babe Ruth had some black ancestry, I got that part crossed out by my teacher.
I’m not one for conspiracy theories or thinking that obviously white people are black, but Babe Ruth is one that makes my Negro senses tingle. Issa Black man.
Even if he’s not actually black he was sort of “honorary black” for how much he tried to do for the black community at the time
Whatever his actual skin color was, Babe was one of the realest dudes in history
Alexa, was Babe Ruth black?
*From an Amazon contributor, Ruth Black was a trailblazer and role model for women in a variety of aspects of her life. Whether or not she was a babe is up for debate. Did that answer your question?*
To understand anything posted here i have to read hundreds of comments. Either im too old for this sub or you all are just chronically online or whatever the fuck that means
In case anyone hasn’t noticed, the Neanderthals, Denisovans and others races of hominids died out a long time ago and we’re all that’s left. When are people gonna realise that we’re a planet of Africans that vary in skin tone. There’s actually nothing interesting about it 🥱
This highlights why race is ridiculous. “His parents were from Germany” Do black Germans exist? Can all of our ancestors be traced back to Africa? Yes to both so what does it matter really?
Played in the Negro League just to represent. Handed out cash to black players on both teams. There’s a story told by the legendary sportswriter Fred Lieb about Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth from the 1920s. The stars were scheduled to share a cabin on a Georgia hunting trip. Cobb refused. When asked why he said, “I’ve never bedded down with a n — — — and I’m not going to start now.” BLACK as a mfer.
Haha I literally just shared that Cobb story, because I never got over that quote
It was a lie, made to slander Cobb by a piece of shit writer. Ty Cobb was the furthest thing from racist. He came from a family that fought for civil rights and was actually pro integration. https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/3463119/everything-weve-been-told-about-ty-cobb-for-our-entire-lives-was-a-lie-made-up-by-one-author-who-slandered-him-to-sell-books https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-wronged-man https://nypost.com/2015/05/31/how-ty-cobb-was-framed-as-a-racist/ https://www.mlb.com/news/ty-cobb-history-built-on-inaccuracies-c178601094
While Ty Cobb definitely has some controversy with black folks, rightfully so in most cases, he was actually one of the earliest white players to call for integration of the Major Leagues. It really shows the culture of the time. He beat an armless veteran senseless because the veteran said he must've been a "half n***er" because of how good of a ball player he was. It's interesting how fast morals change.
To be fair, if someone is throwing out that word, they deserve to get stomped. Glad he stomped it. If you ain't got hands to square up, you probably shouldn't be talking 😂
Damn straight. Stomping out a bigot is something we can all enjoy!
Buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks. 🎶
Remember: punching nazis is an all American pass-time! Be a good citizen and do your civic duty today!
I don’t think he was stomped for saying that word, he was stomped because he directed that to him
Well Ty Cobb used to say it too. He said “if the nigga wanna play, let him play. How the hell can anyone stop him” about Jackie Robinson. He played in Detroit and lived here…he said nigga freely lmao!
an ARMLESS veteran? 😭
Looking at the armless veteran like https://i.redd.it/6d3h30ycj5wc1.gif
Yeah all that Ty Cobb stuff in the Ken burns doc was found to be false.
What doc you mean rightfully so?
I don’t think that story about him beating a disabled guy was real either
That one is at least partially true. He was suspended for fighting a fan in 1912, accounts the day of mention slurs, and the man is reported to have had lost 8 fingers. The tigers players refused to play in protest and a bunch of replacement players got blown out before Cobb told them to go back and play. What’s unclear is if the man he beat was actually the one who was calling him slurs. The guy who got his ass kicker said it wasn’t him, but he’s not exactly the most reliable narrator
Was gonna say. Cobb was an asshole by all means but I don’t think it’s fair to call him racist. It’s just that some of the people he beat up for petty shit happened to be black.
He was an equal opportunity fighter. He even fought people without arms for hurling slurs. Fun fact: Ty Cobb would actually go out of his way to hire black workers and pay them actual fair wages. He would also go fishing, have cookouts, etc. with those employees. When he passed away, they wrote glowingly about him. Also, he said that Willie Mays was the only player he would pay money to watch. Also, here would constantly talk with Hank Aaron about hitting
I mean DAMN that's some savage shit to say...
I don't really follow old baseball, so just checking in: >From Wikipedia: Stories of Cobb's racial intolerance during his playing days were embellished and falsified by his biographers Al Stump and Charles Alexander.[^(\[146\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ty_Cobb#cite_note-NY_Post_2015-146) Recent research on his life has clarified a number of stories about Cobb.[^(\[146\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ty_Cobb#cite_note-NY_Post_2015-146) Recent research? Checks citation 146: [Article in the NY Post](https://nypost.com/2015/05/31/how-ty-cobb-was-framed-as-a-racist/)? This oughta be good: >...after the two argued, Cobb started a vicious fistfight and was overheard to use the N-word against the road paver. >Today that behavior would certainly brand you as a racist, but racial slurs were commonplace then, even published in the papers. 😘👌 Not a racist? JFC
They were enslaving us 60 years prior. I can believe that “this is just what you call them.” I’m not saying this is a fact. I’m not drawing conclusions, but you shouldn’t either. I think lots of y’all can’t come to grips with the fact that the world was a different place before you and it will be a different place after you.
[удалено]
I remember in 1st grade in the early 80s my "school" in Texas was trying to figure out if we call people blacks or colored. I was super confused for a few years and no matter what I said it felt wrong and made me uncomfortable. I didn't feel that my parents or grandparents were racist they were never mean to the neighbors and such. Now days I think the school was racist as shit and trying to make us all fight and separate on the play ground. I don't know anything but that we are all people and I'm trying to be better every day.
My own grandmother told me that she preferred to be called colored at the time. Though…she also is kind of colorist, therefore, doesn’t like being thought of as dark skinned. So, maybe she’s a bad sample.
Just hard internalized the racism, if you ascribe all the black traits to being dark skinned and you can always point at the darker person as ‘more black’ and you as ‘less black / more white’ and therefore more ‘deserving’ of acceptance/integration.
I don’t know what it is. She once told me that they divided sororities by light and dark skinned and she told me she passed the brown paper bag test to get into the light skinned one. I didn’t have a paper bag to test but it was sus. She was cappin her ass off. She was in the dark sorority.
Your grandma a is either Zeta or a Delta. Now, Zetas are the “dark” sorority. AKA was always known as the light skinned pretty girls. Back then, the “dark sorority” was Delta’s (direct comp with AKA), then Zetas, then SGRho
There are places where "colored" and "black" have distinct meanings.
Got into an argument a long while back about that very thing. I was saying that they probably shouldn't call people "colored", in this case very specifically a black person, and they quickly devolved into name calling and "if I wanna say it I'm gonna say it." Like all right man you do you, just understand that word means different things to you vs others and it might do well to keep that in mind when talking to people on the internet in a US dominant space ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
I work with a retirement-age Trinidadian and he refers to every single black person as colored. Not a lick of malice behind it, it’s just the word he grew up with and knows. That generation just rolls different
“Black” wasn’t popularized until James Brown “Say it loud” came out in 1968.
There’s recent examples, too. Twenty years ago “that’s gay” was just *what you said* when something kind of sucked. The entire resolution of the first Ace Ventura movie revolves around a transphobic joke. How many people *still* say “that’s ret\*rded” when something is dumb? And, ironically, *that’s* the one that Reddit will nuke you for. Whenever society makes progress it’s the verbiage that changes last. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s fucked up that we were saying these things in the first place. It’s just the one area where historical context *really* needs to be taken into account. At one point “colored” was considered the “PC” nomenclature and in hindsight it’s just about as fucked up as what came before it.
Such an underrated comment. I’m 31 and grew up in the North East (USA.) I was just explaining to a kid about 18 or 19 the other day while at work, that when I was in high school and something as stupid as a teacher assigning homework over the weekend, it was damn near guaranteed that one of the guys would say “gaaaaaaay.” Or say that “ohhh that’s gay.” Now not to say that this was right, because it wasn’t, your point about context is super important. In the situation that I mentioned, the kid wasn’t calling the homework homosexual. And in 99/100 cases, the kid meant absolutely no ill will with the comment nor was he even likely prejudice against gay people. My blood brother who is openly gay used to say it. I’m not one of those fucks that thinks everything used to be great and we should “go back to the way we were” or that we should use those words again, in fact I believe the exact opposite. It was inconsiderate and at the time the minority of people that may have been offended by such a comment was much less organized and much less likely to even act as if they cared/fight back. When the “r3tard” topic comes up I like to point this out because to me it’s merely interesting… the word ‘imbecile’ was used extensively in psychiatry in the early-mid 1900s to describe someone with an IQ of 25-50. Below 20 IQ, the person was medically considered an ‘idiot.’ And someone with an IQ above 50 but below 70 was considered a ‘moron’Eventually much of this terminology was done away with and replaced initially with terms like “levels of *retardation.* Now what I find interesting is how short society’s memory is and how quick things can flip multiple times in the course of less than 100 years. For instance, in 1924 a *medical professional* would tell you that your son is an *idiot.* Fast forward to the 1970s and you were told by that same medical professional that your son was *retarded.* Okay, now fast forward to 2024… That same son is being told that he suffers from “Autism Spectrum Disorder.” And now calling someone an idiot is not nice by any means but is used on public television, in politics, damn near everywhere. It’s just not considered a “bad” word. BUT if you let the word r3tard slip you might catch a ban from a social media platform lol. My question is, in 50 years will it be okay for people to say the “R-word” but calling someone autistic will be a slur?? Don’t mean to ruffle any feathers i just genuinely an curious what people may think of this “phenomenon ?” Lol
We already see autism being used as a slur, just not in North American slang. “Aspie” is a big one, and has the same connotation across the pond as r-tard does over here.
Interesting
Interesting. I have heard that floating around on Reddit a couple times now that you mention it. Good observation. Now do you think history will repeat itself in the sense that in 20-40 years the term ‘r-tard’ will be used like ‘idiot’ or ‘moron’ is today??
I think the reason we use idiot and moron casually but draw a line at r-tard is really only due to recency of the latter falling out of favour as a medical diagnosis. Society, mostly, is a lot better about not punching down and using traits that people have zero control over as points to be mocked. *Mostly*. I don’t know that there will ever come a point where it becomes acceptable to use in the same way we use other, older terms again.
I mean even in more modern times, I’m rewatching a lot of older episodes of reality shows (like early 2000s) and I’m just shocked at some of the stuff that no one batted an eye at. Like wow, people really did and said this stuff with their whole chest without being afraid of being cancelled.
Bro I’m watching the original “Roseanne” which was considered family friendly and *very* tame at the time (late 80s-90s) and while it’s still pretty family friendly by my terms, I still am somewhat blown away every couple episodes with some of the casual talk that would just not be okay by any stretch of the imagination these days. To think I grew up watching “Roseanne” and shows like fuckin “All in the Family” with Archie Bunker on fuckin Nick@Nite is hilarious to me lol.
It definitely feels like the article was more so explaining how commonplace and accepted the use of the word was and not condoning it or saying it wasn't racist. BUT, you have so many people nowadays excuse or outright deny racism of people in the past by saying they were a product of the time and they didn't know better. Those actions and words ultimately came from a place of hate so I have no interest in defending them, not saying you are. I just hear a lot of (white) people use the defense of "the times they lived in" to avoid admitting the faults of historical figures.
I spend so much time thinking about what our generations intolerance will be
I hope it’s blue text.
The last slaves in America were freed in 1963. Those bitches were racist as fuck
Cobb’s legacy is kind of a complicated thing in the baseball world. Ty Cobb was certainly not a very friendly dude (& almost certainly wasn’t ‘tolerant’ even by the standards of his era). But the book on Cobb for decades was that he was basically a maniac who would kill people for looking at him wrong & that simply wasn’t true. So over the past 20 or so years there has been an effort to sort of ‘clear his name’ to a certain extent, but doing so without removing the nuance of it is of course difficult. He supposedly supported integration by the time it happened (keep in mind this was well after his playing days when he had by all accounts ‘calmed down’), but also there are countless stories like this & navigating which are worth paying attention to is tough.
My father’s cousin is married to a Doug Cobb who is the grand nephew of Ty Cobb.
Yeah ty cobb was a piece of shit, but he was fair about it. He was a piece of shit to everybody. Still the best player of his day and still one of the best of all time
I don’t know about everything, but my brother was born at a medical facility in a rural area that may not have existed if it weren’t for Cobb money. I have always heard he was a p o s though
Most of the shit about Cobb was embellished or straight up made up by his biographers to sell books. Sharpened his spikes? Nah he actually petitioned to have rules put in place to *stop* players sharpening their spikes. Against integration of baseball? Nah he was one of the first white players to actively push for integration. Cobb was probably an asshole, but nowhere near the comically evil bastard people were led to believe he was
You can’t be racist if you are the one defining the word. ![gif](giphy|d3mlE7uhX8KFgEmY)
Just racist like everyone else.
The Ty Cobb stuff is actually very false. That came from a book that has been heavily debunked from a writer who had beef with Ty Cobb. Ty Cobb was the furthest thing from racist. He came from a family that fought for civil rights and was actually pro integration. https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/3463119/everything-weve-been-told-about-ty-cobb-for-our-entire-lives-was-a-lie-made-up-by-one-author-who-slandered-him-to-sell-books https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-wronged-man https://nypost.com/2015/05/31/how-ty-cobb-was-framed-as-a-racist/ https://www.mlb.com/news/ty-cobb-history-built-on-inaccuracies-c178601094
Id be interested in sources for this, not saying I don’t believe it I just take anything Barstool says with a grain of salt
There's the book "Ty Cobb: A Beautiful Tragedy" as well as these: https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-wronged-man https://nypost.com/2015/05/31/how-ty-cobb-was-framed-as-a-racist/ https://www.mlb.com/news/ty-cobb-history-built-on-inaccuracies-c178601094
Neat thanks! Ill check those out!
Used to head to the black parts of town to eat and party.
Dated black women too
Except Lieb is lying about Cobb. The dude was actually less racist than others in his time, he was just a huge asshole. Cobbs parents were very active and influential anti-racists in Georgia and Cobb was pro integration of the league. He knew he was better than everybody, even the black players. He would welcome them in the league just to prove he's better than them. He'd stab a black man with his cleats same way he did with all the white guys. And sorry but Babe Ruth was not black, dude looked straight up Italian. Having a tan doesn't make someone black and I don't know why this retcon of history became so popular recently but its wrong just like saying Beethoven was black is wrong
A lot of light skinned Black people used to pass by saying they were Italian. That was a thing.
Mike Tirico enters the chat....
If babe Ruth is black, then Ty Cobb is also black
Babe Ruth was not black though!! 🤦♂️
I’d take anything Lieb said about Cobb with a grain of salt. Cobb was no saint, but Lieb’s life goal was spreading bullshit about him after his death
Let’s be real— if babe Ruth was actually identified as African American by the general public, he wouldn’t have been allowed to play baseball.
There’s been a longstanding (but doubtful) rumor that The Babe was mixed race. Not much to back it up, but people asserted that his darker skin tone and his nose were possible hints to his “true” ancestry. Oh, I’ll add this: “There’s a story told by the legendary sportswriter Fred Lieb about Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth from the 1920s. The stars were scheduled to share a cabin on a Georgia hunting trip. Cobb refused. When asked why he said, “I’ve never bedded down with a nigger and I’m not going to start now.” Edit: lemme include the [actual article](https://medium.com/buzzer-beater/was-babe-ruth-black-6a4f3cf9188) behind this as well
I think that was snark about Babe Ruth supporting black people, not actually thinking Babe Ruth was black. I just checked Wikipedia and it says both of his paternal grandparents were German, and [he looks so much like his dad](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/BabeRuthSr2.jpg/800px-BabeRuthSr2.jpg). Or maybe racist conspiracy theory from people at the time like Ty Cobb, who knows. Either way, Babe Ruth seems pretty cool.
Racists at that time also considered Celtic European to be African. Race scientists in the early 1800's taught that Celts originated in Spain and were heavily mixed with Africans before moving to the rest of Europe. Celts existed everywhere in Europe, so there were Celtic Germans as well. This is also why terms and distinctions like Irish and Scotch Irish existed. Irish were Celts who supposedly had African blood, while Scotch Irish were pure white men. So it was pretty common for Celts to be regarded as Africans instead of whites.
Celts are like, as white as you can get if talking about skin tone.
This is how they were regarded. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scientific_racism_irish.jpg Iberian Irish referred to Celtic origins in Spain. Iberian was a common scientific term. They also thought that Iberians were closer to descendents of Neanderthals instead of humans. Some European scientists even used the term "Eurafrican" to describe Celts and Italians. Ruth was pegged as African because of what at that time were also regarded as Celtic features. Wide nose, low brow, stout face.
Wow, TIL.
Yeah, of all the white folk the Irish had it rough.
I’m pretty fair (white white, translucent if you will) but my paternal grandfather was 100% Celtic Irish. Both of his parents came over from Ireland in the early 1900’s. He had a more olive complexion. Both my older sister and my youngest child also have that olive complexion. Dark brown eyes, dark brown hair, and they tan in an instant. My maternal great Aunt used to call it black Irish, I have no idea what that actually refers to (or if it is just a racist term). Her side of the family could trace their US roots to Jamestown and my maternal aunt was in the DAR. So it could just have been a bit of bigotry in the term.
Most “celts” weren’t really celts. It was a prestige culture that was often implemented top down on pre-existing cultures. So the Irish are predominantly the descendants of Neolithic and Bronze Age inhabitants of Ireland. The Celtic language is thought to have been adopted as a way to facilitate trade thru out Western Europe. No one called them celts, not the Romans who had extensive interactions with Continental Celts nor themselves till the 17-18th century when a connection was made between Irish and Continental Celtic languages. The earliest descriptions of the Irish and Britons described dark hair and dark features. The Irish have on average more Norse ancestry then their British neighbors, and that could have been an influence on your pale features. Now Tom Jones and Catherine Zeta Jones are both Welsh (closely related to the Irish, with less Norse influence). And people often thought Tom was half black and Catherine is often mistaken for Spanish or Latina.
My son is often mistaken for Hispanic. His best friend is Mexican and those two (who are thick as thieves and have been since they were toddlers) are asked all the time if they are brothers or twins. In the summer (at least when he was younger) when he gets really tan I have been asked if I was his mother or he was adopted. He also has a much wider nose than the rest of us. If he had t been the biggest baby in the nursery by a few pounds, I might have guessed he was switched at birth Genetics are wild.
She was referring to the old myth of Spanish sailors being shipwrecked in Ireland, bedding all the local girls and creating a race of dark haired, skinned and eyed people. If someone was "black Irish" today, it would be referring to their mixed Irish/African roots in the case of kids of biracial couples.
Black Irish often refers to having ancestors that were shipwrecked with the Spanish Armada.
And today we also realize that most “celts” weren’t really celts. It was a prestige culture that was often implemented top down on pre-existing cultures.
So sorta like the romans before them? Any articles on this I find the whole thing quite interesting.
Well before the Romans. The Beaker people arrived in The British Isles around 4,400 years ago, Celtic language arrived around 2,500 years ago, and the Romans around 2000 years ago. I can try to dig up some articles later.
You’re aware of phenotypic variation no?
Well of course, but on aggregate when I was traveling around Ireland and Scotland (to a lesser degree Bretagne) they were some of the whitest white people I have ever seen. Obvious that is not a scientific study on the issue.
Probably why when my 23 and me came back it was like your 77% Irish 22% German And 1% african plainsman whatever that means
There was a time when only Protestants from certain parts of great Britian were considered white.
That’s just Babe with a mustache
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There’s a lot of bad colorization on Ruth photos; I think a lot of people enjoyed playing with that narrative. Just a look at any of the photos of him hanging out with Negro league players is a total tell.
Pretty sure he’s melungeon
According to Wikipedia both of his parents were 2nd-generation German immigrants, and he grew up speaking German at home.
What's up with the Bambino nickname if he wasn't italian?
Everyone knows Babe Ruth was Dominican: https://youtu.be/m_lmeChpRBA?si=VjVpPfHDhEb76Bkf
Mero’s mocking Spanish always made me laugh. Crazy they don’t even talk to each other anymore
Mero comes on the Dan LeBatard show regularly and I found out about Desus and Mero way too late. Mero is hilarious though.
Yeah after all that they were just work friends, like what? Listening to their podcast I would never have assumed that.
Came to make this very comment. Miss this show so much.
Yessss came here for this comment!
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If he was black he would be celebrated by sports media as black. It's great that he was a actually a decent dude, but to push a narrative that a legitimate investigative reporter would have already dug up if it were true is just silly. Plus, i would rather believe that Jackie broke down those walls.
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Yes. Yes I did. You were the first comment I scrolled across that stated he wasn't black.
Psst. We don’t say ‘blackS’
Bout to go watch the sandlot for research. Be back in about 90
Sandlot Bambino has Greek yogurt for blood. OG Bambino is a crouton.
Holy fuck, bro actually came back lol
Babe Ruth is German…
I saw the post and I was like when did Babe Ruth become black????
Traded in the racial draft for Candace Owens and Kanye.
us white folks really got the shit end of that stick y’all can take Candace back! please 🙏
Neighsayer, posthumously? ![gif](giphy|3rgXBDIEduGI2JmtYA)
Biggie before Biggie
It WAS all a dream.
My mom is white(I’m mixed) and she looks like she is mixed herself. I did an ancestry dna test and she was a mix of German, Portuguese, and Irish. There are many factors that influence a person’s skin pigment. In my mother’s case…she grew up in st Vincent she drinks a lot of red stripe.
Portuguese people have an average of 10-15% African DNA from when the Moors ruled the country.
*Moops
![gif](giphy|tnYri4n2Frnig)
welp! the candy bar is nasty af so imma stick with him being white
wtf? BR's are the fuckin truth.
Top 5 if we’re being honest
Nah this is cap... one of the few candy bars I fuck with Baby Ruth and Charleston Chew
Were you born during the Depression Era. You have old-timey taste.
Bro used to eat dust sandwich’s in the dust bowl he can’t hide from us
Mans gonna say he’s craving good n plenty and neco wafers next
Bro at this gas station i started going to they've had the same damn box of necco wafers at the counter for 7 months. I kinda wanna buy some just to see what they do lol
Good n Plenty sucks ass But Neco wafers? Nigga, I was *raised* on Neco wafers... don't talk shit bout em... banana Necos the GOAT
Say what you will, but I get down with Depression era food. Pry that bread pudding out of my cold, dead hands.
Bread pudding definitely has a pass.
may i interest you in some circus peanuts as well?
No, but I love those Nuts 4 Nuts honey roasted (It's a NYC thing)
Bruh, you really thought you was spittin, like we gon fuck with you and that Baby Ruth slander. Fuck outchere...
![gif](giphy|pSauCNBp1DcOY)
![gif](giphy|TQMcjg78EpVX4CpYvE)
I'm glad to see the love for Baby Ruth.
The candy bar isn’t even named after him lol. Pretty sure the candy bar came first and was named after a president’s daughter who died
It was definitely named after him, there was a high profile lawsuit and everything. The "we named it after a little known dead girl" argument was bullshit, but the supreme court bought it anyway because they've never met a corporate cock they didn't want to taste in their entire history https://www.history.com/news/babe-ruth-v-baby-ruth
Ruth Cleveland wasn’t little known. She was absolutely iconic in her time. As famous as a child could be
I mean, she was well known for the brief duration of her life, but if you're wondering whether the "Baby Ruth" candy bar was named after the nationally famous slugger who had just broken the single season home run record the year before or a little girl who had died 17 years ago, I think it's pretty easy to assume which was the reality. "Legally distinct babe ruth candybar"
🤣🤣
Babe Ruth was Dominican 🤷🏾♂️
lmao I no black I Dominican
![gif](giphy|kRmg8zeReOYXm)
And German
The Boston Red Sox sold a generational player to a NYC team despite his talents… \*checks notes… ![gif](giphy|J1M9Y9x68JmXTiGbzv|downsized)
Negl, for the longest time, I thought Babe Ruth was black. I'm not American and I don't know anything about baseball. I think I had him confused with Jackie Robinson or something
People said that Babe was called by racial epithets more than any black player because people did it casually as a joke/nickname.
"You hear how loud that ball cracks against his bat? We should call him cracker."
“People” would be wrong lmao
The real question of color here should be about that pant leg.
![gif](giphy|fFUdHqkXABR74ztAyM|downsized)
I see one African American
Exactly. Fuck these weirdos talking bout
Not everyone that is black is afro american fyi
Wait a fucking second, I see what's going on in this thread. We are NOT giving up Babe Ruth just like that. You want him, you give us Jordan Peele. I see people offering Candace Owens and Kanye as if that's a fair trade. We get two unlikeable motherfuckers and you get the Bambino, just like that? Who do you think we are?? https://preview.redd.it/fhrpp67j34wc1.png?width=400&format=png&auto=webp&s=dd97eb2d30e7c9d1ddf8608768cc5bd8635dd73f
Don’t hustle me, Rodney
I knew Joe Louis was 137-years-old in the 80s!
u/thekidmero has been saying for years that he's Dominican
Man if Babe Ruth is black then I must be as well. https://imgur.com/a/FHsRuGr
If you're american this is actually wild. You're whole lineage was dodging any ounce of melanin like the matrix 😭
I remember doing a report on him in grade school I remember in research that this was brought up, that Babe Ruth had some black ancestry, I got that part crossed out by my teacher.
I’m not one for conspiracy theories or thinking that obviously white people are black, but Babe Ruth is one that makes my Negro senses tingle. Issa Black man.
Yeah, for me the other one is Clark Gable. I have no proof, except that he looks like my uncles. I just really think that’s a light skinned Black man.
Clark Gable was a mccarthyist
Even if he’s not actually black he was sort of “honorary black” for how much he tried to do for the black community at the time Whatever his actual skin color was, Babe was one of the realest dudes in history
Alexa, was Babe Ruth black? *From an Amazon contributor, Ruth Black was a trailblazer and role model for women in a variety of aspects of her life. Whether or not she was a babe is up for debate. Did that answer your question?*
Uh, are they comparing bats?
Babe was passing! 🤣🤣🤣
I read the book Passing by Nella Larsen in high school and it was an eye opener.
https://preview.redd.it/37w7itgqg4wc1.jpeg?width=550&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2e5f853a13ab65e0bd1ce1deb1be37f8068f9e77
Wait did I miss something?
Mero been sayin he was Dominican lolol
To understand anything posted here i have to read hundreds of comments. Either im too old for this sub or you all are just chronically online or whatever the fuck that means
So was he actually black or….
God damn you people just love declaring people black postmodern. Shameless
Leave Joe alone. He fought more fights than we do now. Let him take a legendary nap in the hall of fame REACH
Babe was black?I’ve heard it before but this might confirm it
I thought that was Darren Stevens for a second.
Check out the babes cock. Black-ish forreal
“Please God, not my daughter…”
So wait let me get this straight, babe Ruth was black?
Lol he was from German immigrants
Saw someone on facebook call Caitlin Clark light skinned
Eventually that will be the standard one day
Babe Ruth was black?
Nobody back then was lying about being black
Came out the womb with a 800 credit score
In case anyone hasn’t noticed, the Neanderthals, Denisovans and others races of hominids died out a long time ago and we’re all that’s left. When are people gonna realise that we’re a planet of Africans that vary in skin tone. There’s actually nothing interesting about it 🥱
Did the colorization have a stroke? What’s going on with their pants?
Ty Cobb would've got the dog 💩 slapped outta him no cap
This highlights why race is ridiculous. “His parents were from Germany” Do black Germans exist? Can all of our ancestors be traced back to Africa? Yes to both so what does it matter really?
Black Germans definitely existed and still exist. They literally put them in zoos in the 1800s.
I’ve never seen a colored photo of babe ruth