Great read! The whole situation was mishandled. However, when it comes to Manpower and Make-A-Wish, I don’t blame them too much for waiting until the video went viral because it wasn’t an immediately known issue to them. They didn’t have all of the facts and it didn’t happen under their view. Their response was never going to be immediate, as I’m sure in the corporate world they were scrambling to confer with their legal team on preventing future litigation as a result of firing her. But I am curious to know what you think an appropriate response should have been.
I’m not blaming Manpower or Make-A-Wish for what happened in the stands. I’m holding them accountable for how they responded to it. There’s a difference. The woman’s actions were her own. She said what she said. But when you’re part of an organization that stands for opportunity or compassion, and someone representing you crosses a line that publicly, you have to decide what your response says about who you really are. This isn’t about assigning guilt. It’s about responsibility. When you lead, you inherit that. You don’t get to pick and choose the easy parts of leadership. You take the hits when people under your umbrella act against the values you claim to live by. If I’m calling out Manpower and Make-A-Wish, it’s because they had a chance to lead in that moment and they didn’t. They did what most organizations do. They reacted, released a statement, and moved on. I expect more from groups that build their reputation on fairness and compassion. That’s not blame. That’s expectation. When I say leadership starts at the top, I mean that literally. You set the tone BEFORE something like this ever happens. And when it does, you prove whether those values are real or just words.
Last point I want to make. A lot of people don’t seem to understand why what she said was wrong. It’s because “call ICE” isn’t just an insult. It’s a threat tied to fear, race, and power. For people who’ve lived that fear, those words aren’t abstract, they’re real. They remind them that someone else can use the system against them just because of who they are or what they look like. That’s the power imbalance I’m talking about. When leaders or board members don’t understand that, it shows a failure of awareness and culture. And when organizations don’t teach it, that failure sits on leadership too.
I found myself nodding agreement with every line you wrote.
I've been in education most of my life, and every school I've been at works in exactly this way. The people running them act like leadership is minimizing tension, doing damage control, rather than confronting problems and trying to move forward and overcome them.
How ‘bout somebody get the two exchangers of anger together and they apologize to each other? You know, personal contrition, burying of the hatchet. We’re still capable of that aren’t we?
I get what you’re saying, and I respect the idea of people apologizing and moving on. But this wasn’t two fans yelling at each other. One person crossed a line that went beyond baseball. When you bring ICE into it, you’re not just arguing, you’re using a threat that carries real fear and history for a lot of people. That’s why I wrote about it. Because this isn’t a “both people were heated” kind of situation. It’s about what happens when someone feels entitled to pull out that kind of language and when the organizations around it choose to stay neutral. I’m all for forgiveness and people learning from mistakes. But forgiveness doesn’t mean pretending the power imbalance or the meaning behind those words doesn’t exist. Accountability and grace can coexist, but only if we’re honest about what actually happened first.
If this were simply two fans shit talking each other, I’d be with you. We’ve all seen that 100 times, and have seen good & bad endings to the story. Heck, a few of us have been that fan. This wasn’t the case here.
Not sure the Buddha distinguishes levels, or types, of anger. Best to extinguish anger after it arises and move-on to wholesome action, where wisdom may arise.
…I do also understand that self-interested, declared institutional neutrality often isn’t neutral at all.
Thank you for articulating well what I've been trying to say since this came to light. This was a golden opportunity for The Brewers to rise up and send a message a large swath of our fellow Badgers needed to hear. Instead, the team played it safe. #ThisIsMyCrew is more than empty fodder for selling T-shirts.
Milwaukee is a friendly, generally left leaning city (we lived there from 2012-2023 on the upper east side), but you don't have to go too far west to hit right-leaning areas in Waukesha County. Miller Park (Am Fam) is kind of in the middle, geographically of each spectrum so you get plenty of fans coming in from the west. Waukesha itself is pretty bright red. There are a lot of midwestern cities where you don't have to go too far out of the metropolis area to hit right-leaning areas. I don't take her actions as a reflection of the citizens of Milwaukee as I do the areas that surround it.
I lived in Madison for 22 years. During that time, in Madison and elsewhere in the state, I heard slurs and disparaging remarks about every conceivable group of people, not to mention labor law violations, and the Act 10 and voter ID legislation of the Walker administration. There’s still a long way to go.
Great read! The whole situation was mishandled. However, when it comes to Manpower and Make-A-Wish, I don’t blame them too much for waiting until the video went viral because it wasn’t an immediately known issue to them. They didn’t have all of the facts and it didn’t happen under their view. Their response was never going to be immediate, as I’m sure in the corporate world they were scrambling to confer with their legal team on preventing future litigation as a result of firing her. But I am curious to know what you think an appropriate response should have been.
I’m not blaming Manpower or Make-A-Wish for what happened in the stands. I’m holding them accountable for how they responded to it. There’s a difference. The woman’s actions were her own. She said what she said. But when you’re part of an organization that stands for opportunity or compassion, and someone representing you crosses a line that publicly, you have to decide what your response says about who you really are. This isn’t about assigning guilt. It’s about responsibility. When you lead, you inherit that. You don’t get to pick and choose the easy parts of leadership. You take the hits when people under your umbrella act against the values you claim to live by. If I’m calling out Manpower and Make-A-Wish, it’s because they had a chance to lead in that moment and they didn’t. They did what most organizations do. They reacted, released a statement, and moved on. I expect more from groups that build their reputation on fairness and compassion. That’s not blame. That’s expectation. When I say leadership starts at the top, I mean that literally. You set the tone BEFORE something like this ever happens. And when it does, you prove whether those values are real or just words.
Last point I want to make. A lot of people don’t seem to understand why what she said was wrong. It’s because “call ICE” isn’t just an insult. It’s a threat tied to fear, race, and power. For people who’ve lived that fear, those words aren’t abstract, they’re real. They remind them that someone else can use the system against them just because of who they are or what they look like. That’s the power imbalance I’m talking about. When leaders or board members don’t understand that, it shows a failure of awareness and culture. And when organizations don’t teach it, that failure sits on leadership too.
Hillary was right when she called them deplorable
"Leadership isn’t about managing problems. It’s about facing them."
I found myself nodding agreement with every line you wrote.
I've been in education most of my life, and every school I've been at works in exactly this way. The people running them act like leadership is minimizing tension, doing damage control, rather than confronting problems and trying to move forward and overcome them.
How ‘bout somebody get the two exchangers of anger together and they apologize to each other? You know, personal contrition, burying of the hatchet. We’re still capable of that aren’t we?
I get what you’re saying, and I respect the idea of people apologizing and moving on. But this wasn’t two fans yelling at each other. One person crossed a line that went beyond baseball. When you bring ICE into it, you’re not just arguing, you’re using a threat that carries real fear and history for a lot of people. That’s why I wrote about it. Because this isn’t a “both people were heated” kind of situation. It’s about what happens when someone feels entitled to pull out that kind of language and when the organizations around it choose to stay neutral. I’m all for forgiveness and people learning from mistakes. But forgiveness doesn’t mean pretending the power imbalance or the meaning behind those words doesn’t exist. Accountability and grace can coexist, but only if we’re honest about what actually happened first.
If this were simply two fans shit talking each other, I’d be with you. We’ve all seen that 100 times, and have seen good & bad endings to the story. Heck, a few of us have been that fan. This wasn’t the case here.
Not sure the Buddha distinguishes levels, or types, of anger. Best to extinguish anger after it arises and move-on to wholesome action, where wisdom may arise.
…I do also understand that self-interested, declared institutional neutrality often isn’t neutral at all.
It's when the chips are down and the stress is on that you find out who people really are.
Thank you for articulating well what I've been trying to say since this came to light. This was a golden opportunity for The Brewers to rise up and send a message a large swath of our fellow Badgers needed to hear. Instead, the team played it safe. #ThisIsMyCrew is more than empty fodder for selling T-shirts.
Milwaukee is a friendly, generally left leaning city (we lived there from 2012-2023 on the upper east side), but you don't have to go too far west to hit right-leaning areas in Waukesha County. Miller Park (Am Fam) is kind of in the middle, geographically of each spectrum so you get plenty of fans coming in from the west. Waukesha itself is pretty bright red. There are a lot of midwestern cities where you don't have to go too far out of the metropolis area to hit right-leaning areas. I don't take her actions as a reflection of the citizens of Milwaukee as I do the areas that surround it.
I lived in Madison for 22 years. During that time, in Madison and elsewhere in the state, I heard slurs and disparaging remarks about every conceivable group of people, not to mention labor law violations, and the Act 10 and voter ID legislation of the Walker administration. There’s still a long way to go.