_(cropped).jpg)
Cade Cavalli, pitcher for the Washington Nationals
Cade Cavalli is an Italian American baseball player who pitches for the Washington Nationals. He recently received a seven-game suspension. He was punished for telling Willson Contreras, an Afro-Venezuelan, who plays catcher for the Boston Red Sox, to “sit down boy.” Contreras had just been struck out by Cavalli. A known hothead, he charged the mound and threw his helmet at Cavalli, seeking to injure him. He hit someone else instead.
Contreras brought up the “sit down boy” comment afterwards as a defense of his actions. The mainstream media then turned the incident into a story about “white” racism against “black” people. The MLB suspended both men equally. When one man’s punishment was reduced to five games, so was the other’s. The implication was that calling a non-African American from Venezuela “boy” is equal to violence.
Cade Cavalli, pitcher for the Washington Nationals
⸻
Venezuelans—Defined as "Non-White"
If you look at the coverage of Venezuela after the devastating earthquakes, there was no mention by mainstream media of the despotic, authoritarian socialist rule of Nicolás Madura, now in a New York prison awaiting trial for drug trafficking. There was no mention of the corruption and under-development of his reign that severely increased the deaths and misery in Venezuela. There was only a narrative about race.
Venezuelans were legally defined as non-white under Biden administration categorizations. Never mind there are many Italo-Venezuelans there. After all, Venezuela is named after Venice. The country is home to many people with Italian ancestry. The national diet there features pasta as a key staple.
However, because Latin America, except for Brazil, is decreed inherently non-white, Venezuela is treated as if its poor economy and devastating political situation were the fault of “white” people.
Willson Contreras of the Boston Red Sox
______
Charging Contreras
Willson Contreras, who is “black”, but not African American, was clearly manipulating things to avoid severe punishment. There were rumors at one point that he was going to receive a ten game suspension. However, he muddied the moral waters by making it racial. There is no way that Cade Cavalli, who is Italian, was even thinking about the racial context of the word “boy” when he shouted it at Contreras. He is not from the Anglo-white culture. The fact that he is from Oklahoma, which was used against him online, does not change that fact.
No one talks about how Contreras almost charged a “white” pitcher, Will Warren, the week prior, for a non-racial reason—he claimed that Warren was trying to hit him with a pitch. This was false, but it shows how hot-headed Contreras is.
Contreras does not know much about American culture, but he knew enough to turn himself, the violent aggressor, into the victim.
_____
Why Are We Punished More?
Italian Americans are extra-vulnerable to this kind of racial manipulation. We are perceived to be, and categorized—legally—as “white.” Yet, we are not Anglos. The greatest offenders of civil rights, the Anglos, have, nevertheless, formulated the rules of what words are considerable acceptable or not in speech. We do not come from this vantage point. We don’t expect for people to read racial offense into what we say.
Since Italians are an unrecognized minority, we can be racially insulted. We are expected to suffer for everything that the Anglo-white man ever did. Italians are often punished far more than anyone else for this kind of stuff.
It is clear that the solution is for Italians to reject “whiteness” and to demand to be reclassified outside of the “white” category.
We are victims of racism every day, from the negative depictions of us in mob movies and television shows (and plays and books), to the systemic discrimination of us in higher education. We are told that we are not victims, that we own the sins of Anglo-whites because our ancestors sought to escape racism by becoming “white.” I have been told this clearly at least once or twice. I once had an Argentine professor who called me an Anglo-white slur after we were just talking about or common Italian ancestry.
We have the opportunity and obligation to break free from “whiteness”. The Cade Cavalli incident makes this very clear and we should act upon it by insisting that we be reclassified outside the “white” category in the U.S. Census. We are not “white”, but unlike other ethnic minorities, we do not have minority rights because Anglo-whites are allowed to define our ethnicity as part of their illusory race.
Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of PRIMO. Dr. Christopher Binetti is a political scientist and Italian American civil rights activist.
The website for the Washington Nationals is: https://www.mlb.com/nationals
The website for the Boston Red Sox is: https://www.mlb.com/redsox
READ HERE THE NEW EDITION - SECOND 2026 PRIMO
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Please visit our DVDs Page to shop our latest collection of DVDs on all things Italian: Films from Italy's Golden Age, Documentaries on Italian American life, ancient Rome, and religion.
Please visit our Books' page to review our latest inventory of books on all things Italian: cookbooks, history, art and culture.
Other articles to read...
