We were all greeted with the news of Muhammad Ali's death when we woke up this morning, and the rest of the weekend we'll be hearing fulsome tributes from those who want to bask in his reflected glory.
Ali was, unquestionably, larger than life. At one point he had the most recognized face in the world, more so than any world leader at the time.
Ali was also, unquestionably, a noble warrior. His longevity as a boxer was incredible. It's amazing to think that he became an Olympic champion during the Eisenhower Presidency, then won his final title when Jimmy Carter was President.
Ali faced the hardest punchers of several generations of boxers, and never gave up. But in the end, his victories were Pyrrhic, as he spent the last 30 years of his life essentially punch drunk. He beat Foreman with his much vaunted "Rope a dope" strategy, but eventually he was the one it turned into a dope. We can blame his Parkinson's on Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, Ernie Shavers, and George Foreman.
It seemed all the more a shame because when Ali was young he was quick-witted and playful and humorous and charming.
Ali, born in 1942, spent his early youth in the era of segregation, and his politics, an outgrowth of that, were an entirely different matter from what the BLM crowd is pushing now.
Back then, civil rights were about desegregating lunch counters and swimming pools, and gaining admission to college if they were qualified. Today, it's all about pretending that black people are in more danger from whites than whites are from blacks. Or about pretending that if blacks don't do as well on the SAT's it must be because of "racism," that amorphous evil that magically accounts for all racial differences.
So it's easier to be sympathetic to Ali than to the current crop of protesters.
Still, it's as silly to pay attention to the political opinions of athletes as it is to pay heed to those of movie stars. And a lot of the things that Ali stood for didn't bear close scrutiny. He was, as I pointed out here, sort of a segregationist.
He claimed to be a pacifist, a seemingly hypocritical stance for someone who beat people up for a living.
And he famously said, "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me nigger." (True enough, but that was mainly because the Vietnamese were unfamiliar with blacks. It's been well documented since then that the Vietnamese treated the offspring of black GI's and Vietnamese women even more harshly than they did the half white Amerasians.)
But don't expect any close scrutiny this weekend. Expect a lot of maudlin tributes. And expect the usual suspects to try to grab some of his glory for themselves. Jesse Jackson will undoubtedly show up at his funeral next week, try to act as master of ceremonies, and in general hog the limelight as much as he can (especially if Obama doesn't show up). Al Sharpton will undoubtedly attend as well, looking appropriately somber.
Obama may or may not attend the funeral, but will undoubtedly release a carefully crafted statement -- written by his speechwriters -- about what a great hero Ali was and subtly expressing solidarity with Ali's political stances while simultaneously sanitizing those stances.
White liberals everywhere will spout about how much they loved Ali, and how wonderful he was, using the occasion to boost their non-racist credentials.
And newscasters, most of whom will be too young to remember, will reminisce about how incredible it was when Ali beat Foreman.
My advice: turn off the TV.
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23 comments:
From your blog I was already aware that Ali was a segregationist, so I found this quote from his WSJ obituary interesting: "And while Elijah Muhammad preached separatism, Ali didn’t always adhere to that belief." Is that just factually inaccurate?
Taylor --
That's one of those things that can be argued either way. Elijah Muhammad was a strict segregationist, meaning, no mixing at all. Ali, if you listen to the video which is linked on the post I linked in this post (under "here"), said in general terms that people prefer their own. Does that mean he was a strict segregationist? No, not really, though you could say he was laying the groundwork for the principle in that interview. That's why I used the weasel words "sort of" in this post.
Ali had sort of a funny relationship with whites. His main trainer, Angelo Dundee, was white, he had friendly (if contentious) relationships with people like Howard Cosell, and when he got the initial symptoms of Parkinson's around 1980 or so, he announced that he was going to go to "the best white doctors" to figure out what had to be done. But his loyalties were alway clearly to other blacks, he pretty clearly felt more comfortable around blacks, and all four of his wives were black. But that didn't mean he was instinctively overtly hostile to whites the way some of his religious mentors were.
Ali was known to talk to his opponents during fights, to psych them out. During his famous fight with Foreman, after a particularly hard punch from Foreman, he evidently pulled Foreman in close and said to him, "George, is that all you got?" (This, according to Foreman.) Ken Norton later said that during one of his fights with Ali, Ali accused him of going down on white women (not in those words). That would tend to indicate that not only was Ali a master at distracting his opponents, but that he likely didn't approve of sex with whites. Whether he ever slept with white women, I don't know. I'd think that at some point he would have, but he never publicly had a white girlfriend that I know of.
Keep in mind that everything you read in the press for the next few days, in the WSJ and elsewhere, is going to whitewash everything about Ali, and make him out to have been a saint. He was definitely a hero, in his own way, but just as surely no saint.
I never understood why Muhammad Ali was sent to prison for refusing to serve in Vietnam. According to Muhammad Ali: A Man of Many Voices by Barbara L. Tischler, twice in 1964 Ali flunked the Army's mental aptitude test, scoring an IQ of 78. He was classified 1-Y, not qualified for service. But in 1966, the Army reclassified Ali as fit for service and tried to draft him. That's when he adopted his conscientious objector stance as a practicing Muslim. (You might say declaring Islam a pacifist religion is sufficient proof of mental retardation all by itself.)
Had the Army lowered its mental standards to admit someone like Ali, or was their overwhelming political pressure to draft Ali because of his fame and unpopular political and religious positions?
OK, thanks for clearing that up for me. You've confirmed what I was already thinking from reading the quotes on your original post, he held pretty sane views on race, that people prefer their own. If a white said it, he'd be "racist", if a black public figure says it, he goes down as a civil rights crusader.
Mark --
Thanks for that, that's interesting. I don't know the answer. I heard that McBundy -- or someone -- lowered the intelligence requirement for acceptance into the Army, and that's how Ali was later declared fit to serve. My guess is that there was a lot of sentiment against Ali at the time because (a) people thought he might have purposely scored low on the original IQ test (he came across smarter than that in person). And (b) people felt that for the heavyweight champion of the world, who, and this was fairly widely known, had purposely punished both Floyd Patterson (for being a "Tom") and Ernie Terrell (for refusing to call him Muhammad Ali, and referring to him as Cassius Clay) in the ring by extending those bouts longer than he had to when he could easily have knocked them out earlier, to call himself a pacifist was hypocritical.
But, this is just speculation, I don't know what was going on in the minds of the draft board, or at the White House. Given that there was a draft at the time, maybe the White House felt that it would hurt morale if an exception were made for an obviously fit young man. But, as I said, I don't know.
Taylor --
Yes, exactly, the hypocrisy is quite clear. But I would emphasize that Ali himself was a light-hearted, easy-going, jovial, mischievous and humorous sort of guy, not a glowering, hostile, thundering white-hater. And when he converted to Islam, with him at least, it was more an expression of black solidarity than hatred of whites. (Of course, if a white expresses racial "solidarity," it's called being racist.) But you also have to remember that Ali grew up in segregated Louisville, so he gets more of a pass on that stuff. And also, it wasn't as if he was any sort of deep thinker, he mostly just did whatever his handlers told him to do, and parroted whatever they said, at least on the subjects of race and religion. Even the fight doggerel Ali would quote before a match, and which was partly responsible for his reputation for wit, wasn't composed by him. It was composed by Drew "Bundini" Brown, one of his entourage.
That's interesting. As you're saying, it's the hypocrisy is what's frustrating, nothing about him bothers me. His views seem very reasonable, especially given his circumstances. I would actually prefer a BLM movement that represented his views, rather than the hostile, blame-mongering sort.
Taylor --
Amen. The BLM movement is all about deception, completely different in spirit than Ali.
at least tv has diversity of opinion. in this blog, john craig, uses his intellect to create the illusion of introspection but all his conclusions are the same and on the wrong side of history. they are rarely criticized here naturally because like-minded people gravitate to this blog to reinforce their right-wing views. the opinions are most exposed for what they are when he lapses into ludicrous conspiracy theories supported by links to the opinions of other nuts.
Anon --
TV has diversity of opinion? Fox is the only channel that dissents from the mainstream media liberal viewpoint, and they do so in a mainstream Republican sort of way. And the "wrong side of history?" You've obviously swallowed the Kool Aid since you use the cliches of the Left. And, like most liberals, rather than argue with any of my points, you just engage in ad hominem attacks: "ludicrous," "nuts." Well done, you've illustrated the arguing technique of the Left perfectly. The only thing you forgot to do was call me a "Nazi" and a "racist" and a "sexist" and a "homophobe."
Ali was a segregationist, at least sexually. There is a famous story that in his early career, he ran across Kim Novak. Novak (who at that point, roughly 1964, was an A list actress, and probably one of the most sexually desirable women on earth) was staying at a nearby motel, and she tossed her room key at him.
Ali tossed it back without hesitation. "I don't mess with no white women", he is said to have remarked.
The published figure for his IQ of 78 is probably not far off the mark: he was not a smart man at all, but he was quick, and further, many of his best lines were really supplied to him. In the 70s, I remember books of "his" poetry were abundant on the paperback book racks at discount stores like Woolworth's and EJ Korvettes. I am sure little of that was "his" either.
I respect the fact that he did not cross the color line when he could have easily, and that he was a very good, in some ways great, athlete. But he was not intelligent and he was often ignoble, a braggart. I never wished his fate upon him, but it is what it is, and I don't think we should go along with his being lionized.
Anon --
Wow, mazing story about Kim Novak, I'd never heard that. And it does put Ali in an admirable light, as a guy who practiced what he preached, despite (incredible) temptation. Though, I suppose, it's always possible he simply wasn't attracted to white women.
There's also no denying his courage in the ring, courage he paid a hefty price for later on. My guess is that his IQ was a little higher than the 78 he tested at for the Army (he WAS quick-witted, even if much of his "poetry" was not his own). But yeah, his intelligence was overrated. And taking his political analysis seriously was, ultimately, as foolish as paying heed to some movie star's political opinions.
Getting back to why Muhammad Ali's low I.Q. didn't keep him out of the service, I learned on Salon.com that to meet ever more demanding induction quotas to fill the ranks needed for the Vietnam War the military launched an affirmative action program disparagingly nicknamed the "Moron Corps" that allowed more blacks to be all they can be.
From Salon.com, "McNamara's 'Moron Corps'" by Myra MacPherson:
[D]efense Secretary [Robert McNamara] devised Project 100,000. Under his direction, an alternative army was systematically recruited from the ranks of those who had previously been rejected for failing to meet the armed services’ physical and mental requirements. Recruiters swept through urban ghettos and Southern rural back roads, even taking at least one youth with an I.Q. of 62. In all, 354,000 men were rolled up by Project 100,000.
Touted as a Great Society program that would provide remedial education and an escape from poverty, the recruitment program offered a one-way ticket to Vietnam, where “the Moron Corps,” as they were pathetically nicknamed by other soldiers, entered combat in disproportionate numbers. Although Johnson was a vociferous civil rights advocate, the program took a heavy toll on young blacks. A 1970 Defense Department study disclosed that 41 percent of Project 100,000 recruits were black, compared with 12 percent in the armed forces as a whole.
The "I don't mess with no white women" could reflect the deep imprint of the Jim Crow South that was pressed into Muhammad Ali's mental outlook. He was born in 1942 and grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, where I don't suppose interracial dating was a hugely popular activity.
Mark --
Ah, yes, it was McNamara, I mistakenly said "Mcbundy" above. Interesting, thank you, I'd never heard of that term the "Moron Corps" before. (And I'm a moron for getting his name wrong, it was actually "McGeorge 'Mac' Bundy.") I had always heard that blacks were disproportionately killed in the Viet Nam war, but if they were 12 percent of the armed forces as a whole, that sounds as if their death rate was probably more proportionate. I may be confused, though, I also remember hearing that the poor were more likely to be killed in Viet Nam, and given that it was possible back in those days to get a college deferment, that was undoubtedly true.
As to your second comment, yes, that occurred to me, too. Ali undoubtedly grew up hearing many stories of black men who were lynched for messing with white women.
you forgot to include a scholarly piece on ali being gay based on the color of his wife's skin.
obama is gay. his guards are gay. hillary is gay. bill, not so much?
should we expect any confessions from you soon?
Anon --
Nah, no confessions from me. I guess I'm staying fully in the closet.
And, have I ever suggested that Ali was gay? This is another favorite liberal arguing technique: putting words into someone's mouth. Please, restrict yourself to arguing with stuff I've said, not stuff you say that I might say.
Also, I never said Obama's "guards" (Secret Service detail) are gay. I said two of his three "body men," Nick Colvin and Reggie Love, are probably gay.
I'm guessing that you are the same commenter who made that moronic comment a while back about me suggesting that Ali was gay because of the color of his boxing opponents' skin. Your comments today are equally intelligent.
I read on my Facebook feed that Muhammad Ali's father had his son meet with Billy Graham many years ago because Muhammad Ali's father was concerned about his son's conversion to Islam. This story (a photo was included, showing Muhammed Ali sitting on a porch with Billy and Ruth Graham) is an interesting one. May this man rest in peace.
-birdie
Birdie --
Interesting, I'd never heard that. I think Ali's conversion had more to do with racial solidarity than it had to do with the actual tenets of Islam, so Graham was fighting a lost cause there.
Somebody was saying he did more than any other figure to educate the world about prejudice and racism, so I wrote:
"And on tv he said whites should marry whites and blacks should marry blacks and he even argued once that white people were inherently more violent and devilish (or something like that), as per his nation of Islam beliefs. At the height of his career he was a kind of black nationalist/segregationist.
He did renounce those beliefs later on when he had the realization that souls don't have any colour and in later life he embraced sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. So his journey was from NoI to orthodox Islam to Sufism. Furthermore, even when he held those NoI views intellectually, he was a good hearted person in practice in his interactions with white people. Lastly, one can understand that growing up with segregation and racism- real racism- led him to embrace an ideology that was a reaction, a way of being defiant, fighting back and an attempt at black empowerment.
If you understand Ali well, I think you will like and admire him, despite his faults (including his rampant infidelity in the 70's) and limitations (he was quick witted and sharp minded and bright and articulate in his own way but he wasn't highly intelligent or educated). He was a great man of a different age and a flawed but wonderful human being. At 15 and 16, he meant a lot to me. Its just funny to see people present a sanitised one dimensional version of him as they all get in on the act of singing his praises"
I guess that serves as my statement about Ali so there you go.
Steven --
I agree completely with everything you said. (Except I don't blame him for his rampant infidelity, he was the most famous man in the world and had all sorts of women throwing themselves at him, and it would have taken a better man than me to resist all that.)
He was unquestionably great in his own way, a force of nature, but he's tactically been canonized in the last 20 years, and especially, this past weekend, and that seems inappropriate.
Piers Morgan tweeted that he said far worse things about white people that Trump has said about Muslims.
I also don't hold his promiscuity against him but he did turn up to meet president of the Philippines with his girlfriend (and next wife) Veronica instead of his current wife, who saw it on tv. I also read that he had women set up in different hotel rooms and went from one to the other. So rampant wasn't an understatement.
I'd probably say he was anti-miscegenation rather than a segregationist in everyday life. I'm trying to remember whether he ever advocated a separate black homeland...
Steven --
True enough about the Trump comparison. I actually watched a couple of videos yesterday in which Ali basically parroted Elijah Muhammad's line about how all white people were the devil. Yes, Ali softened his stance later on, but he is on record.
Yes, anti-miscegenation is a better description of what Ali himself advocated back in the 60's than segregation, but Elijah Muhammad did want total separation of the races -- otherwise known as segregation.
You just made me curious about Veronica Porsche, so I looked her up. I hadn't realized that she was only 18 when she started seeing Ali, and 21 when she married him (in 1977). I had always assumed she was just a gold-digger, but her Wiki biography said that she took up acting to overcome her shyness, which doesn't make her sound very gold-diggery. Also hadn't realized that she was the mother of Laila.
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