{"id":10413,"date":"2018-11-27T13:06:27","date_gmt":"2018-11-27T21:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=10413"},"modified":"2018-11-27T13:08:12","modified_gmt":"2018-11-27T21:08:12","slug":"san-francisco-giants-owners-hyde-smith-donation-sparks-calls-for-team-boycott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2018\/11\/27\/san-francisco-giants-owners-hyde-smith-donation-sparks-calls-for-team-boycott\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Giants owner\u2019s Hyde-Smith donation sparks calls for team boycott"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\" story-intro format-s\">\n<figure class=\"art \">\n<div class=\"fig-graphic\"><picture><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Andrew Suarez of the San Francisco Giants\" src=\"https:\/\/static.politico.com\/dims4\/default\/005cab6\/2147483647\/resize\/1160x%3E\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2F66%2Fe6%2F486822cd41efbea26462edd32eca%2F181126-sf-giants-gty-773.jpg\" alt=\"Andrew Suarez of the San Francisco Giants\" \/><\/picture><\/div><figcaption>\u201cIn no way does the Giants organization condone any racist and hateful language by anyone,&#8221; San Francisco Giants President &amp; CEO Laurence M. Baer said in a statement. | Robert Reiners\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"summary \">\n<header class=\"\">\n<p class=\"category\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/elections\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ELECTIONS<\/a><\/p>\n<\/header>\n<footer class=\"meta\">\n<p class=\"byline\">By\u00a0<a class=\"url fn\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/staff\/carla-marinucci\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"author\">CARLA MARINUCC<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"timestamp\"><time datetime=\"2018-11-26 18:01:40\">11\/26\/2018 06:01 PM EST (Politico.com)<\/time><\/p>\n<p>SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 The San Francisco Giants have fouled out with lifelong fans and African-American leaders who are calling for a boycott of the baseball team following revelations that co-owner Charles B. Johnson and his wife made the maximum $5,400 donation to the campaign of Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.).<\/p>\n<p>Johnson, an investment firm billionaire and the largest single stakeholder in the Giants team, wrote the check less than two weeks after Hyde-Smith\u2019s much-reported remarks about being willing to attend a \u201cpublic hanging\u2019\u2019 \u2014 a comment she later apologized for and dismissed as a \u201cbad joke.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But outrage over Johnson\u2019s political donations sparked again following revelations that Johnson had also previously given $1,000 to a super PAC calling itself \u201cBlack Americans for the President\u2019s Agenda\u2019,\u2019 which produced a widely-condemned ad for the midterm election purporting to reflect a conversation between African-Americans suggesting Democrats would support lynching.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[Johnson] has shown that his heart is on the side of oppression, terror, lynching and racist practices&#8230;and we should not cooperate with supporting the Giants with this kind of a person being a major investor,\u2019\u2019 said Rev. Amos Brown, president of the San Francisco branch of the NAACP, who was among African American leaders Monday calling for a boycott of the team.<\/p>\n<p>Brown said Hyde-Smith\u2019s statements about being willing to sit at a \u201cpublic lynching,\u2019\u2019 in addition to her enthusiastic support of Confederate history and her past attendance at a Christian segregationist school are actions which \u201ctake me back to the horror and hell of my native Mississippi.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Johnson, the retired chair of Franklin-Templeton Investments, said in a statement that he had \u201cabsolutely no knowledge\u201d his donation to the \u201cBlack Americans\u201d super PAC would be used in such a manner. But he has made no apologies about the donation to the embattled Mississippi senator, even in the wake of continuing headlines about Hyde-Smith\u2019s background and past statements.<\/p>\n<p>While a growing roster of corporate donors \u2014 including Major League Baseball, Walmart, Pfizer, AT&amp;T, Aetna, and Union Pacific \u2014 have tried to distance themselves from the GOP candidate by requesting refunds of their political donations, Johnson has not asked for a refund from Hyde-Smith.<\/p>\n<p>Hyde-Smith faces a Tuesday runoff against Democratic former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy.<\/p>\n<p>A\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SFGiants\/status\/1067127055119089664\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">statement released Monday<\/a>\u00a0by the San Francisco Giants President &amp; CEO Laurence M. Baer underscored the increasingly difficult position Johnson put the Major League team in \u2014 the Giants are based in one of the nation\u2019s most liberal bastions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn no way does the Giants organization condone any racist and hateful language by anyone,\u2019\u2019 behavior which Baer called \u201cabhorrent\u2019\u2019 in his statement. But the team\u2019s CEO also noted that the Giants have more than 30 different owners and \u201cjust like our fans, they come from different backgrounds and have their own political views.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Prominent civil rights attorney John Burris, speaking in San Francisco at a press conference Monday with Brown, said such apologies don\u2019t suffice for the African American community. In a week in which the team has begun selling opening day ticket packages for the 2019 season, Burris said that \u201cas a lifelong Giants fan,\u201d he will now withdraw all support and buying power from his home team, and called for a wide-ranging team boycott.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI understand that people make political contributions to whomever they want&#8230;but to make contributions to a woman who has a history as an avowed segregationist in a state with a longstanding history\u201d of violence and lynching demands response from political leaders and the business community alike,\u201c he said.<\/p>\n<p>Dan Daniels, a Western regional NAACP director who leads the organization in California and Hawaii \u2014 says his group is also wholeheartedly behind the team boycott to denounced Hyde-Smith.<\/p>\n<p>For many African Americans, he said, \u201cit\u2019s here we go again&#8230;and we must stand up to that,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n<p>Assemblyman David Chiu, a Democrat who represents San Francisco, said he had not yet spoken with the team but predicted the controversy was spurring \u201csignificant angst\u201d for a Giants organization that has long promoted tolerance and diversity. Chiu said Johnson should withdraw the contribution and if not, the team should explore options to buy his stake.<\/p>\n<p>The calls for a boycott have gotten increasing traction on social media from figures including former Nixon attorney John Dean, who tweeted, \u201cWhoa! I know many SF Giants fans who are going to have real trouble with a co-owner, Charles Johnson, who donates max dollars to Mississippi U.S. Senate candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Trump loving racist running against Mike Epsy. SF is true blue!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sacramento Bee columnist Marcos Breton,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sacbee.com\/news\/local\/news-columns-blogs\/marcos-breton\/article222123325.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">in a call to arms,<\/a>\u00a0told readers that the SF Giants \u201caren\u2019t getting any more of my money\u201d for tickets, broadcasts or merchandise.<\/p>\n<p>And Christine Pelosi, a California Democratic Party official and the daughter of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi \u2014 both rabid Giants fans \u2014 noted on Twitter that \u201cit\u2019s gut-wrenching to see the team I love and serve as a volunteer NOT get that this #MSSen debacle is bigger than politics or baseball,\u2019\u2019 she tweeted this week. \u201cIt\u2019s about humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i>Jeremy B. White contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/footer>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIn no way does the Giants organization condone any racist and hateful language by anyone,&#8221; San Francisco Giants President &amp; CEO Laurence M. Baer said in a statement. | Robert Reiners\/Getty Images ELECTIONS By\u00a0CARLA MARINUCC 11\/26\/2018 06:01 PM EST (Politico.com) SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 The San Francisco Giants have fouled out&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2018\/11\/27\/san-francisco-giants-owners-hyde-smith-donation-sparks-calls-for-team-boycott\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10413"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10413"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10416,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10413\/revisions\/10416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}