Its author, Henry Bushnell, tried hard to demonstrate his own sensitivity by scathingly criticizing Mayweather's response to a question from a female reporter:
Mayweather: The who?
The #MeToo movement. Women speaking out about sexual assault.
Mayweather: When you say “me too” … When somebody is like, “I got a Rolls Royce, I be like ‘me too.'” When somebody say they got a private jet, I say, “Me too. I got two. Me too.”
This is a very different —
Mayweather: Well, I didn’t know! My Me Too movement from the beginning was whenever somebody said what they have I’m like, “me too.” Somebody say they got a billion dollars, I say, “I made a billion dollars, me too.”
One thing you have to say for Mayweather: he is without guile. Bushnell, by contrast, just says whatever he thinks makes him look best -- like most whites.
From Wiki:
A noble savage is a literary stock character who embodies the concept of the indigene, outsider, wild human, an "other" who has not been "corrupted" by civilization, and therefore symbolizes humanity's innate goodness.
From Wiki:
A noble savage is a literary stock character who embodies the concept of the indigene, outsider, wild human, an "other" who has not been "corrupted" by civilization, and therefore symbolizes humanity's innate goodness.
Mayweather's crass materialism probably disqualifies him from representing the ideal espoused by John Dryden and others. But he does remain uncorrupted by that aspect of civilization which requires people to pay lip service to the pieties of the day.
Or, maybe, even to be aware of them.
Floyd "Money" Mayweather's personality consists largely of uninhibited braggadocio, greed, and an enjoyment of the good things in life.
But is that not how a "noble savage" would behave if you plunked him down in the middle of today's society: uninhibitedly, and with a lack of guile?
(Being a hunter-gatherer would not have precluded "greed": wanting the choicest cuts of meat, or more berries than anyone else, or the most attractive mate, or the best sleeping spot in the cave.)
And as long as we're judging Mayweather, what must also be weighed in the balance is that he's good-natured. There's nothing snarky or snippy about him. (Unlike, say, Bushnell -- or me.)
Floyd "Money" Mayweather's personality consists largely of uninhibited braggadocio, greed, and an enjoyment of the good things in life.
But is that not how a "noble savage" would behave if you plunked him down in the middle of today's society: uninhibitedly, and with a lack of guile?
(Being a hunter-gatherer would not have precluded "greed": wanting the choicest cuts of meat, or more berries than anyone else, or the most attractive mate, or the best sleeping spot in the cave.)
And as long as we're judging Mayweather, what must also be weighed in the balance is that he's good-natured. There's nothing snarky or snippy about him. (Unlike, say, Bushnell -- or me.)
One has to have a certain amount of controlled savagery to make a living with one's fists, as Mayweather did. And there's a certain nobility -- and bravery -- in the way Mayweather risked injury every time he entered the ring.
Personally, I find both those qualities far more appealing than false piety.
Personally, I find both those qualities far more appealing than false piety.
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Mayweather has always seemed to me like a guy with such low intelligence that he really doesn't know how to enjoy his wealth. He buys a lot of things, but he doesn't seem to have much imagination or inner life. It also seems to me that he is so innumerate that when he finally goes broke he won't understand how it happened.
LBD --
I think his enjoyment of his various toys comes mostly from just owning them. He just enjoys the feeling of ownership, the "this is all mine!" sensation. In that he's not all that different from some Wall Street guys I knew.
No question about his intelligence level though. I heard that Fifty Cent once offered to give $100,000 to a charity of Mayweather's choice if Mayweather could read an elementary school-level book ("See Spot Run" or something like that). Mayweather was unable to.
Agreed, he'll go broke eventually, and when it happens, he won't really know what happened.
All that said, I actually do have a soft spot for honesty, no matter what level of IQ it emanates from.
Mayweather is, as they say, a real n***a.
To be a little more serious, he displays here at least some of the positive qualities that are genuinely likeable about blacks: emotional openness, and an earthy sense of humor.
Bushnell sounds like a standard issue sports journo, a breed even lower than most journos, if that's possible. I especially despise sports writers, in part because they seem even more p.c. than normal journos, for a variety of reasons.
I'll bet money he has a totally punchable face.
Pangur --
Agreed about Mayweather's guilelessness and earthiness. I've actually liked Mayweather ever since he defended Trump. He was evidently on a talk show once and the (white) woman hosting asked him how he felt about Trump's racism. Mayweather replied that Trump had treated him well and that nobody ever talked about Trump being racist before he ran for President.
I looked up Bushnell when I wrote this post, out of curiosity. His face wasn't punchable so much as it was just young and maybe a little weak. He looked like a nice, earnest, naive young man. I suspect he'll eventually get deprogrammed.
[And btw, thank you for making that change.]
Bushnell writes of Mayweather:
"It is not possible to be more ignorant or insensitive."
Sure it's possible. In fact, Bushnell actually shows that he is more ignorant and insensitive than Mayweather because Bushnell assumes that everyone is aware of the #Me Too Movement and should also have an appropriate opinion about this movement. There are millions of Americans who are too busy working, trying to make ends meet and take care of their families to indulge themselves in this type of social commentary. They just don't have the time. Besides, Mayweather is a boxer. I don't care what he thinks about the #Me Too Movement. Someone who believes Mayweather has some type of special insight into this movement and that anyone would care about his insight is ignorant. Besides, asking him that question was just a "gotcha" by the writer of the original article due to his issues with past domestic violence. That was underhanded and dishonest. As was the question on Mayweather's opinion on bitcoin and cryptocurrency. By asking the question on bitcoin and cryptocurrency, the original author was just trying to exploit Mayweather's ignorance for the amusement of others. That's a bit insensitive. In the end, I learned absolutely nothing from Bushnell's article. Bushnell had nothing to offer. On the other hand, Mayweather, in the original article, did explain the difference between a strip club and a Gentleman's club which is something I did not previously know. In the end, it was Mayweather, who Bushnell says is ignorant, that I actually learned something from.
Hannah
Hannah --
Well analyzed, and well put.
Is there anything more ignorant and insensitive than to put on the pc blinders and only accept one point of view, no matter the facts of a situation? And you're so right about the way they asked Mayweather gotcha questions. What would an uneducated boxer possible know about cryptocurrencies? Both Bushnell and that female reporter who interviewed Mayweather were trying to take advantage of and subtly poke fun at his ignorance.
I wouldn't argue that, as the headline in Bushnell's article suggested, Mayweather is "ignorant." But "vile?" Since when has being uninformed on a subject been "vile?" The Left is constantly telling us that it's racist to think there is any difference in intelligence between the races. But what were they doing here but trying to point out how a black man was ignorant? And not just any black man, but one whose career had consisted of getting into the ring to sustain brain damage (granted, may weather was particularly good at avoiding punches, but still, he absorbed some over the course of his 50 pro bouts).
Plus, all of this was predicated on a particularly silly premise to start with: that celebrities have worthwhile political opinions, just because they're famous for, say, a pretty face, or an ability to punch and not get punched in return. It reminds me of how people actually pay attention to what movie stars say about politics.
I hadn't known that about the difference between a strip club and a 'gentleman's club" either, and also found it interesting.
Wholly agree about the sneaky mean spirited nature of the questioner. In this context I love the way Conor McGregor handled a similar interaction with a TMZ paparazzo who caught him at the airport and tried to get his response to some random issue. He started to try to answer the question and then stopped and said, "I beat people up for a living. Why are you asking me this shite"?
LBD --
Ha, that's a great answer.
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