Surely the Miami Marlins' front office must've known they were hiring an outspoken, often irreverent manager in Ozzie Guillen. They knew he had a successful track record as a player, coach and manager, and had won the favor of many players he managed. But after Ozzie's ill-advised "I love Fidel Castro ... I respect Fidel Castro" quip on Time Magazine, their season wavered like a top losing its spin, flirted with the Chicago Cubs' own MLB bottom-feeding season, then gone, history, hasta-la-bye-bye. Ozzie fired, but left fat in the wallet.
The front office wanted a prominent, capable Latino manager to help advance their commercial, sports and cultural plans in a predominantly Cuban-American community in Miami. A short year later, they decided they didn't want that manager after all.
Maybe they should've engaged Eva Longoria as the true diamond in the dugout, instead.
How free is freedom, really?
There is no questioning Ozzie's freedom to speak his mind. But we know that freedom comes with a responsibility to be respectful and therefore an accountability to others. Surely he must've known that the community he had recently joined would go ballastic, if he said anything even remotely praiseworthy of the Cuban leader.
What was he thinking, man?
I am one of those who've been around the block, literally, having crossed continents and back and having slid into the second half of life. So I know that, even though I rack my brains now and then trying to figure people out, there is a place in the world for everyone, including Ozzie Guillen.
What is that place, and what is his purpose?
Ozzie plays the Fool
ESPN senior writer LZ Granderson offered an insightful take on this, and I'd like to build on it.
You see, in Shakespeare, the Fool has a prominent role in the royal court. He is a figure, if fortunate enough, who is installed for the King's amusement. Think about the Joker in a deck of cards, and you have a sense for how wild yet useful the Fool is.
The Fool, most importantly, has license to speak true to the King, that is, without getting punished. In turn, the King may seek, and value, such truthfulness, because he sees only a court full of yes-Your-Highness, curtsy-every-second subjects. The Fool comes across as silly and dumb, but may actually be smart as a whip and have a finger on the courtly pulse.
LZ is correct in that Ozzie's slurs are a prompt to have a dialogue on very sensitive, clearly incendiary issues. But more than that, I think, people like Ozzie serve a critical societal and psychological purpose.
A society hung up on political correctness (PC) may keep an air of civility, by and large. Each word is carefully crafted, before uttered, or else it lands the utterer in hot water. Each manner is dressed up, so as not to be offensive to the eyes. But the reason PC is often itself the butt of politically incorrect sarcasm is that it creates a society that is plastic and unreal, even repressed, ultimately dissatisfying and untenable.
Punish Ozzie for the wrong he said, because he deserves it.
Praise Ozzie for that same wrong he said, because we, as a society, need to be shaken from our staid civility now and then, to face these issues and engage in difficult conversations.
Finally, no doubt, Ozzie isn't the only one who has those very sentiments about Fidel Castro. In a way, then, he is the vehicle by which those silent (maybe not all so silent) sentiments are vicariously delivered.
So, the next time the Chicago Shakespeare Repertory stages "King Lear," they know whom to cast to play the role of you-know-what!
Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!
Ron Villejo, PhD
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