Huffington Post: Chicago Cubs' Muslim Fans Want Action After Team Patriarch's Islamophobic Emails
“American Muslim fans of the Chicago Cubs want strong action after revelations this week that the patriarch of the family that owns the team for years emailed racist jokes and Islamophobic conspiracy theories.
The email exchanges between Joe Ricketts, the billionaire TD Ameritrade founder and Republican megadonor who purchased the Chicago Cubs in 2009, and various family and friends reportedly contained language that portrayed Islam as a “cult” and painted Muslims as the “enemy.”
Both Ricketts and his son Tom Ricketts, the team’s chairman, have apologized for the emails, first published by Splinter on Monday.
But more has to be done to repair the now-damaged relationship between the Chicago Cubs and Muslim fans, Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told HuffPost.
“It is important that a beloved Chicago institution such as this does what is necessary to regain the trust of affected communities, and fans in general, and recommit to our collective principles of anti-hate and ‘everybody in,‘” Rehab said, referring to the Cubs’ 2018 slogan.
Rehab said CAIR-Chicago plans to meet with Tom Ricketts on Friday to explain how Muslim fans feel “rejected and isolated” by their team. He said he would like to see the Cubs take a strong stance against the “repugnant anti-Muslim beliefs” in Joe Ricketts’ emails.
“We will also discuss possible ways forward to fix what’s been broken and regain confidence, trust, and belonging,” Rehab said. “