Posted on 06/06/2016 10:11:31 AM PDT by No One Special
CASSIUS CLAY, born in 1942, was the grandson of a slave; in the United States of his boyhood and young manhood, the role of the black athlete, particularly the black boxer, was a forced self-effacement.
White male anxieties were, evidently, greatly roiled by the spectacle of the strong black man, and had to be assuaged. The greater the black boxer (Joe Louis, Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles), the more urgent that he assume a public role of caution and restraint. Kindly white men who advised their black charges to be a “credit to their race” were not speaking ironically.
And yet, the young Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali refused to play this emasculating role. He would not be the “white man’s Negro” — he would not be anything of the white man’s at all. Converting to the Nation of Islam at the age of 22, immediately after winning the heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston, he denounced his “slave name” (Cassius Marcellus Clay, which was also his father’s name) and the Christian religion; in refusing to serve in the Army he made his political reasons clear: “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong.”
An enormous backlash followed: where the young boxer had been cheered, now he was booed. Denunciations rained upon his head. Respected publications, including The New York Times, continued to print the “slave name” Cassius Clay for years. Sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for his refusal to comply with the draft, Ali stood his ground; he did not serve time, but was fined $10,000 and his boxing license was revoked so that he could not continue his professional career, in the very prime of that career. In a gesture of sheer pettiness the State Department took away his passport so that he couldn’t fight outside the country. After he...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
That's a separate issue.
The Whine that never stops....
Always found it interesting that Ali, the civil rights “icon,” repeatedly referred to Joe Frazier as a gorilla. Part of it was a psychological ploy against Smokin’ Joe, but much of the insult was based in Ali’s dislike of Frazier, and his willingness to use racial slurs against him. There was supposedly some sort of reconciliation just before Joe Frazier died, but many boxing writers indicate that Frazier carried the resentment to his grave.
The irony, of course, is that Joe Frazier lobbied hard to have Ali’s boxing license restored after he won his conscientious objector case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Frazier knew that a fight with Ali would give him a huge payday, but there was no requirement for him support Ali’s efforts to return to the ring.
Of course, Ali knew the press would never call him on using racial taunts against black opponents. In that sense, he was a pioneer; Ali knew how to manipulate the media to his advantage, realizing he could get by with slurs and insults that others could never utter publicly.
Ali’s legacy has also been white-washed of his views on such subjects as homosexuality. As a traditional Muslim (he left the Nation of Islam 15 years ago), he was vehemently opposed to gays, both in the closet and out. His hagiographers have also stripped any mention of Ali’s support for Ronald Reagan in 1984, because Ronaldus Magnus favored a return of religion in our schools.
Biography belongs to those who write it, and the life of Muhammad Ali has been subject to some very careful editing.
And George Foreman gave us that cool grill.
Can’t read any of these puff pieces. Ali was a draft dodger who was not jailed because of the color of his skin and by definition as a Muslim he hated white Christians and bought into everything the bastards want to do to us; rape cut heads off burn to death you name it; mourn Ali? NO THANKS.
Or race relations, having lived in a white bubble approximately all her life.
Islam is the worship of murder.
I always figured he had an IQ somewhere in the 85 range.
Then he renamed himself after a slave owner.
If there was a “Gorilla” in Manila it was not Joe Frazier.
Nope, just the Arab's one.
Clay changed his name to Muhammad, after the prophet who was a pedophile, murderer, and all around nut.
“I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong.”
I remember vile people who said the same about the Nazis and Japanese.
But Don Kings....
He called himself “the Greatest”. Muslims use that term exclusively for the Great and Benevolent Allah.
He didn’t HAVE to be a “White Man’s negro”, but he didn’t need to be a divisive, race baiting, Black racist EITHER, that inspired equally hateful Blacks ,in and out of sports,to behave the same - destructive to society, because of their 80-and-below-IQ,pathologically ignorant and destructive behavior, believe all the BS myths and propaganda, that “Blacks creating EVERYTHING but The White Devil stole it all” .
And if you still don’t get what you want, Blame Whitey, whine and scream racism,and White and Jewish Leftists will rush to be the first to give you whatever you want, no matter how destructive it is to the country.
Just one of nothing but poisonous, destructive,negative legacies and influence that devil has truly left.
The Left’s Newspeak / Doublespeak definition of “Never A White Man’s Negro”
So like many Black's, he became a Black man's negro - ask Don King. And as usual, The Black leader made promises and took him for just about everything. Ali did not die a incredibly wealthy man. Don King made a fortune off him.
Had he served he never would have left the States. Would have been given some cushy post assignment handing out gym equipment for 2 years, the same as they did with Willie Mays.
You are correct.
http://www.csmonitor.com/1991/1119/19182.html
NO one has provided more persuasive evidence that it was President John F. Kennedy who got the United States into the Vietnam war than James Reston in his recently published memoir, “Deadline.”
Describing his interview with Mr. Kennedy following the young president’s summit with Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna, Mr. Reston has this to say: “I remember that Saturday morning very well. He (Kennedy) arrived at the US embassy (in Vienna) over an hour late, shaken and angry at having been delayed by an unexpected extra meeting with the Soviet leader.
He was wearing a hat - unusual for him - and he pushed it down over his forehead, sat down on a couch beside me, and sighed. I said it must have been a rough session. Much rougher than he had expected, he said.”
Kennedy then told Reston that Mr. Khrushchev had threatened him, warning that if the US did not agree to communist control over access to Berlin, the Soviet Union would proceed unilaterally to dominate the routes from Western Europe to Berlin. Kennedy said that he replied that the US would fight to maintain access to its garrison in Berlin if necessary.
Kennedy then went on to tell Reston that he felt sure that Khrushchev thought that anybody who had made such a mess of the Cuban invasion had no judgment. “Khrushchev,” writes Reston, “had treated Kennedy with contempt, even challenging his courage, and whatever else Kennedy may have lacked, he didn’t lack courage. He felt he had to act.”
Soon thereafter Kennedy sent more advisers to the battlefront in Vietnam. “This, I thought,” Reston continues, “was a critical mistake. Once Kennedy had over 15,000 ‘advisers’ engaged not only in giving advice but also in giving support on the battlefield. US power and prestige were thought by many officials in Washington and in Asian capitals to be committed.”
Ali: "Joe Frazier should give his face to the Wildlife Fund. He's so ugly, blind men go the other way. Ugly! Ugly! Ugly! He not only looks bad, you can smell him in another country! What will the people of Manila think? That black brothers are animals. Ignorant. Stupid. Ugly and smelly.
He's the other type Negro, he's not like me," Ali shouts to the now stunned white interviewer. "There are two types of slaves, Joe Frazier's worse than you to me … That's what I mean when I say Uncle Tom, I mean he's a brother, one day he might be like me, but for now he works for the enemy"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.