32. There will never be a “gay Jackie Robinson”

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/31/why_there_will_never_be_a_gay_jackie_robinson_partner/

Cyd Zeigler writes to the Salon on the comparison of gay rights and breakthroughs and the legendary Jackie Robinson. He opens the article by explaining how there's been great expectation on who'll be the "gay Jackie Robinson," being the first gay athlete to "change the face of professional spors and open the floodgates for other gay athletes." However, Zeigler goes on explaining how that won't be possible. He gives a bit of historical background and provides, at the same time, an analogy between challenges faced by black people then and LGBT now. The author mentions Rosa Parks, the Civil Rights Bill and desegregation of the University of Mississippi and explains how all of these occurred after Jackie Robinson, and even if there was an athlete whose sexuality made him a remarkable spokesperson for the LGBT movement, he'd do it after the movement was already in progress and half-way won already. Besides that, Zeigler closes the article by stating his personal opinion, claiming how there's too much pressure on gay athletes to be leaders of a movement which they're not necessarily longing to be a big part of.

Zeigler's purpose with the article was to show how the comparison between Jackie Robinson and a future gay athlete might be hasty and not very well-done. He achieves success as he uses many historical references of epochal events in black history and connects it to the challenges faced by the LGBT community. Besides that, he achieves the sympathy of the reader and make them "delete" any thoughts of the author being homophobic or prejudicious as he uses personal pronouns and refers to himself as an insider and a part of the LGBT community.