Accused of being a racist by Southern Poverty Law Center, baseball owner tells activist group to pound sand

E. Miles Prentice is hardly a world famous sports figure. He owns two baseball teams, and chances are you’ve never heard of either one.

They are the Connecticut Tigers, a Short Season Class A affiliate of my Detroit Tigers; and the Midland Rockhounds, a Class AA affiliate of the Oakland Athletics. Prentice is unlikely to be hoisting the World Series trophy any time soon, although I’d say it’s way cool to own a baseball team of any kind – let alone two.

But Prentice has become a target of the radical left. He has been branded a racist by the awful Southern Poverty Law Center, and he’s become the target of a demand for a meeting by the Council for American-Islamic Relations – a group with sympathies for terrorist groups like Hamas.

Why do they have Prentice in their crosshairs? Because he belongs to an organization called the Center for Security Policy, which takes the fight against terrorism seriously. SPLC has labeled CSP a “hate group,” which is absurd, but not irrelevant given how quickly the mainstream media follows SPLC’s lead on such matters.

So when CAIR found out that Prentice was a member of CSP, it became outraged and demanded he meet with them. That demand was . . . :

“My colleagues and I at the Center for Security Policy are more than willing to debate the content of our research and advocacy on behalf of freedom and the practice of peace through strength with Americans of differing views, but who are also committed to freedom and our Constitution,” he said in a statement. “We see no utility, however, to meeting with, or otherwise legitimating, those who seek to silence us or are associated with terrorist organizations like Hamas.”

Tark Aouadi, the executive director of CAIR, Connecticut called Prentice’s statement racist. He and several other members of the Muslim community requested the meeting with Prentice Wednesday after discussing their concerns at a meeting of the Norwich Baseball Stadium Authority.

Aouadi, in typical fashion, claims he considers Prentice “entitled to his opinion” but wants to make sure “hate” plays no role in baseball. That’s nice of him. There is baseball in Israel. Maybe he should speak to Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, but I digrees.

Prentice doesn’t need to explain himself to anyone for being concerned about America’s national security, nor is there anything wrong with him identifying radical Islamists as one of the clear threats to said security. And neither CAIR nor any other leftist group has the right to demand that someone meet with them to hear their “concerns” just because they disagree with them.

This has become an insidious tactic of the left, which treats everyone not aligned with them as a threat to all that’s good and decent, and portrays itself as some sort of victim with a right for redress of their grievances merely because someone exists who doesn’t think the way they think. The very presence of a conservative becomes a de facto crisis, and all demands must be met when made by the victim set.

Had Prentice met with CAIR, he would have validated the notion that CAIR had a legitimate grievance merely because Prentice exists and disagrees with them. That is not a legitimate grievance and it doesn’t justify a demand on a man’s time who surely has better uses for it.

This quote from Aouadi is classic for the chutzpah is represents:

“It is unfortunate, but expected, that instead of sitting down to talk about legitimate local concerns of safety, inclusion, and otherwise participate in the free exchange of ideas, that the Tiger’s team owner has opted to smear the messenger.”

Um . . . Prentice is participating in the free exchange of ideas by being a member of CSP, just as Aouadi is participating in the free exchange of ideas by belonging to CAIR. And no one is being excluded from anything. If Aouadi and other members of CAIR want to buy tickets and come to the games, they are more than welcome as long as they abide by the law. If anyone is unsafe, it won’t be because E. Miles Prentice cared about U.S. national security.

But we’re all a little more free when activist groups like CAIR can’t bully people like E. Miles Prentice into caving to their demands. Nice job, Mr. Prentice, and go Tigers!

The post Accused of being a racist by Southern Poverty Law Center, baseball owner tells activist group to pound sand appeared first on Herman Cain.

This content was originally published here.