Former American Express CEO Ken Chenault, who led a group of dozens of Black corporate executives urging more corporations to speak out against Georgia’s new voting law, on Sunday decried the Major League Baseball’s move to relocate its All-Star Game and 2021 draft out of Atlanta in response to the legislation’s restrictive provisions.
you can’t have it both ways…the only thing men like KEMP etal understand is direct action and how it affects the ‘money’ involved…i’m sure this guy CHENAULT, has never had his right to vote challenged,but if it can be done to others, it can and will be done to you.
The relocation of the All Star game was done by MLB for its own reasons. The league has had a bad history with tolerating racism and has been behind the times on issues of racial inclusion, police violence and minority rights. For example, they coddled Curt Schilling as an adjunct voice of the league during his many years as an ESPN commentator. Schilling injected a lot of hostile political takes from the Limbaugh/far right fever swamps on social media and talk radio and it damaged the league’s rep. Aubry Huff is another racist dumbs**t who routinely spouts right wing garbage on twitter. Josh Hader, star relief pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers, has had his own history of racist tweets. Of course, who among MLB fans can forget the ignorant John Rocker, who played for the ATL Braves and received a standing ovation from the mostly white crowd after he went through controversies regarding various racist statements.
MLB believed they needed to show some good faith on this issue after years of neglecting it. MLB believed, correctly imho, that if they held the all star game in ATL, the news would only be about the voting rights law and MLB’s position on voting rights and not about the game. It’s not their fault that the GA GOP decided to take a hostile approach to minority voting rights after losing the last 3 elections. They put this issue into MLB’s lap and people demanded to know where MLB stands. They have now told us where they stand and I, for one, respect them for it.
He basically said the exact same thing Stacey Abrams said.
And it’s the players who drove the decision. The owners aren’t exactly the most progressive bunch of civil rights activists.
Taking a stand isn’t consequence free. You have to put action behind your words even if it hurts those you are trying to help.
Looks like there’s only seven states that major-league baseball would be able to play its All-Star Game.
Which ends up being a circular argument. True, it’s the workers and the folks on the bottom who will feel the pain, but without tough responses which hit their bottom line of taxes and funding and campaign contributions, the legislators will laugh it all off.
Words, words, words, what does that do to change one thing in corporate America? The last thing we need is to follow the Susan Collins model.
It’s all about the benjamins.
Okay, he seems cool with complaining about the bill, but doesn’t really support doing anything about it, do I have that right?
Please tell me that is fake.
Chenault stressed that the group of Black corporate executives demanded that corporations publicly oppose legislation that works to restrict voting access.
Publicly oppose and then what? Without some action to go with it corporations are going to face boycotts by the public that disagrees with them whether Chenault supports them or not. So if corporations are not willing to take some action and spend some money opposing the legislation comes down to one executive’s vote…assuming that executive can vote in that state AND isn’t prevented from voting.
Nice to get a personalized shout-out from him.
Makes you feel seen.
Exactly true. If you’re going to take a stand, prepare for the future. The future may not take the shape that you want but you have to accept it. What’s happening in GA is not going to change without some drastic consequence. Sorry, that’s just the way it has to be. This isn’t an issue of coming together over cocktails and hors d’oervs.
He signed up for change. Okay. It’s coming and his name is now attached to that change. Live with it.
At minimum, every major corporation and organization should strongly speak out and in no uncertain terms about the Georgia bill that has clear racist intent.
But boycotts are a bit like sanctions, it’s very hard to target them so that they affect only the individuals responsible, without hurting any innocent bystanders. I don’t claim to know whether this is good or not, on balance, but we must keep the pressure and the focus on this bill and others like it. Perhaps the best solution is to use this as a catapult to pass a national bill through the Senate. Maybe we should just boycott Manchin (i.e. West Virginia) or his daughter’s company? I say that only half facetiously.
I think maybe another point is that all of this is positive–corporations and MBL feeling the fire, GA black leaders opposing the pullout, Kemp & the GA GOP screaming like stuck pigs in response.
This is now a national and international story, it’s going to cost Kemp his career, it’s going to scare other corporations into making some gestures of solidarity, and it’s going to warn every other GOP governor or SOS that similarly costly and painful publicity is coming their way in their own states’ voter-disenfranchisement schemes.
I think they’re playing good cop/bad cop - the responsible leaders driven by the outraged masses.
I think the best outcome here would be for an All-Star Game, without the stars. I would like for individual managers, coaches and players to have boycotted the game, as Dave Roberts was threatening to do. Let them force MLB to play the game with league-average players. That would have embarrassed GA more than pulling the game entirely, and would have generated a lot more media coverage of the non-allstar game. Let them pull Curt Schilling and his ketchup-stained sock out of retirement for it.
