“Hi there, everyone! It’s time to play the exciting ethics game that’s sweeping America: “Wait, Was That Ethical or Unethical?”! As you know, contestants are asked to decide whether an ambiguous statement or action was racist or not!

“Are you ready, contestants? Then let’s play, “Wait, Was That Racist or Wasn’t It?”! Introduce our subject for Round I, Johnny!“

“Sure thing, Jack! Meet Dixie Walker! Dixie was a star baseball player who died in 1982. He won a batting championship and a runs-batted-in title, and he played in two World Series and four All-Star Games. He is most remembered, however, not for his impressive exploits on the baseball field but as the player who led the campaign to keep Jackie Robinson from joining the Brooklyn Dodgers and integrating the game.

“By the end of the 1946 season Walker was considered the most popular player in Brooklyn history. But on April 10, 1947, the Dodgers announced that they had purchased the contract of Jackie Robinson and that “he will report immediately.” The rumor was that Walker, a Southerner to the core, resented having to play with a black man and had demanded to be traded. But the two played together for the rest of the season. Walker, owned a hardware store in Birmingham, Alabama, and was certain feared his playing on a team with with a black player would hurt his business….and, in fact, it well might have.

“Robinson endured racial epithets from players and fans all season, the worst insults from from Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman, one of Dixie Walker’s best friends. Robinson and Walker helped lead the Dodgers to the 1947 pennant, with Robinson going out of his way to avoid putting Walker in a situation that might be perceived in Alabama as an endorsement of integration. For his part, Walker publicly credited Jackie with making the team the winner it was, but the two only civil to each other rather than close.

“During the 1947 season spring training, Walker was one of the Dodgers players who had asked the Dodgers not to add Robinson to the team, and when Jackie made the squad, Dixie wrote a letter to Dodgers GM Branch Rickey asking to be traded. The rumors were true. After the season, Walker renewed his request, and Rickey accommodated him.

“Walker believed that blacks were not capable of playing at the major-league level, but he admitted that Robinson convinced him that the generalization was wrong. “A person learns, and you begin to change with the times,” Dixie would later say.

“Now here’s the set up, Jack! Shortly before his death, Walker was asked by a reporter about his race-driven demand to be traded from the Dodgers even after playing with Robinson in a year in which the Dodgers won the World Series. Dixie’s answer: “That was 35 years ago and that’s all I’ll say on the subject. There’s one more think I’ll add: Jackie Robinson was a great ballplayer.”

Thanks, Johnny! Well, contestants, what’s your answer? Was Dixie Walker’s terse answer a rejection of racism, or was it carefully constructed to concede the obvious (Robinson had been admitted to the Hall of Fame by then, and denying the greatness of Jackie’s baseball career would be ridiculous) without recanting his racist beliefs? Was Walker ducking the question by changing the subject, or did he intend his acknowledgment of Robinson’s ability to be an official rejection of his earlier racist convictions?

“Wait, Was That Racist or Wasn’t It?”