For Americans - how much is the view on Ali political?

Senor Pepe,
Very well put, if I may say so...

With this post and Rock0052's earlier superb offering, we are getting to the nub of the matter here, In fact, I believe we have arrived at the truth of the matter.

Uncomfortably truthful for some, I believe...

 

It's not black & white (While it may have been more so during those tense times). Ali is a flawed, complex character. Not a saint, but more hero than villain. If you can't see that you'll never get it because you're too busy looking at numbers rather than affect. Even if this affect comes from an illusion or deceptively crafted image. There are some real undeniable bits and pieces to that image that make a foundation for why Ali became so revered and why he's so important to African-Americans especially (And the young people of that generation).

Sure, he did and said some bad. He doesn't believe in the radical segregationist views of the NOI. He hasn't now for thirty years. This isn't revisionist, people are capable of changing. I don't know his political views post boxing. He said he supported Reagon because he would keep God in school. I'm not sure if that makes him a downright conservative. I didn't know he supported Reagon or Bush. Still, I imagine it's not that black & white. I don't know how political conscious Ali was and more importantly nobody really knows his viewpoints right down the line. Supporting Reagon and Republicans because of a religious link isn't a political stance for conservatism. Either way, conservatives in the 80's are even different then they are now.

The sentiment that Ali would have be more courageous if he had actual left the country like a legit draft dodger is laughable. This is probably why people throw remarks across the Ali against the anti Ali camp. It doesn't further suit your agenda or credibility when you think he's the most overrated boxer in the world and that Jack Dempsey would have beat him or that Buddy Baer was better than George Foreman...

 

You can log a first hand account that says it wasn't. It wasn't to me or to anyone I knew. It may have been to the WWII and Korea generation, but I don't think it mattered to anyone below 30.

Ali's mouth irritated everyone- accross the board.

 

The anti-Ali crowd on here all seem to be the same crowd of old timers who champion the KKK era and its fighters, that is how race gets brought into it. (Saying that, i wouldnt label any poster here a racist)

But i do think you wrinkly ****ers are stuck in the past, in a time you are fond of, when blacks knew their place and weren't running their mouths on national television.

Its laughable that in an era which only the white race may hold the titles, you call it the golden era. Back when men were men.

burt you are the most over-reactive and condescending poster on this forum, a sincere version of Bill O'reilly.

 

Burt, Burt, Burt.

Your feelings are misplaced. Read my post, then try to comprehend it.

I didn't say all people who are not fans fo Ali are racists, just that some of them are.

I didn't call anyone a "sad" ass clowns -- clowns are supposed to be happy.

I did call those who espouse Ali conspiracy theories on this forum -- a group numbering not quite in the millions -- as ass clowsn. Read some of the garbage posted about Ali on this forum aimed to make it seem as if he was a complete fraud, all his fights were fixed, all of his meaningful victories are tainted, and tell me the people pushing this line aren't the ones with an agenda.

I don't see anywhere that I called you a racist. I said some people hold it against Ali because he was outspoken -- and your dislike of him BECAUSE OF HIS STANCE ON THE DRAFT is well documented in your own words.

I do get tired of the Burt and the Bienstalk AGEISM -- "I was here before you so all the fighters I saw were great and those who came later aren't diddly-squat."

Now tell me how you feel about:

1) Dempsey, your hero, sitting on his crown for 3 years so no heavyweight could challenge for the title. Is that noble?

2) Dempsey, your hero, refusing to fight the top black fighters of the day? Can you really make a case for such greatness for a man who didn't have the courage to defend his title at all for three years, and never against the most accomplished challengers of his time?

3) Tex Rickard, who did more to advance race-baiting in this country as a boxing promoter than Ali could ever have done?

Step up, Burt. Let's talk about real issues, and stick to what I posted not some murky interpretation that turns "Ali conspiracty theorist" whackos on this board somehow into me calling millions of people racists.

 

ali said white people were the devil..

 

But, unlike Dempsey, he had the courage to defend his title against people from another race.

People look at Ali's WORDS and accuse him of racism. Take a look, instead, at Dempsey's ACTIONS as a champion to keep deserving blacks from having the opportunity they earned to fight for the title.

 

P, I might be old ,But i can still whip your ass. What Have i got to lose ?
i lived in an era when I and others were able to walk the street at night or visit any park... Without risking our lives...It is you P who is a phony, and too bad we cannot meet and thrash it out...You are aways bringing up my name for no reason whatsoever, and you are a panderer and have zilch to contribute without insulting someone, and me in particular. I try to be cordial with you but you want a confrontation...Bill O'Reilly is not part of the subject you ingrate...You lefties for years are always on the attack even on THIS BOXING FORUM...I am an Independant who came from a "generation " that saved your miserable ass...Great posters have been banned from this forum whilst the likes of you remain to spew your venom...You sir hate the "white" race that gave you the internet you are spreading your bile on...And GOD BLESS WINSTON CHURCHILL, MY HERO...

 

I don't know much about Dempsey and his acts of racism. I don't know if he didn't fight black people because of their race or because of the time, but it's a big difference between not fighting black people (on purpose or not, I don't know) and calling white people "the evil" or "the enemy" on television.

 

I admit I don't know much about Dempsey and if he indeed refused to fight black people, and if he did I don't know why he did it, but there's a huge difference between not fighting black people and calling white men "the evil" or "the enemy" on television. If you can't see it, I feel extremely sorry for you.

 

I think several of the 'posters' think any criticism of Cassius Clay / Muhammad Ali
is an automatic charge of racism.

It is your right to think that way, but that doesn't mean you are correct.

I personally changed my views many times on the guy, from like to dislike. And I'm
sure many have felt the same way.

Pete The Prince did state something that caught my attention, and it describes
Cassius Clay / Muhammad Ali to a 'T', he was a 'character'.

Like him, love him or hate him, that sounds like our 'Man'.

 

I agree with most of what Pete said in his post.
I´m not american, so the thread is not to me, but I would like just to post something.

Dempsey words about racism:

This content is protected

I´m 100% sure that he said these words sincerely....he could have been another Jeffries or Sullivan and say things differently, but he didn´t !

Now, Ali ? Well......he spoke against mixing of races ! The mixture of races was a wrong thing to him, he hated this idea.
I don´t hate Ali, but he said some unbelievable stupid **** like this when he was young......so, tough to like his opinions.
He did right things, he was a good man whe he was older and revised his thoughts... was an important man in some aspects, but doesn´t change the fact that he was an idiot man enough to join groups like Nation of Islam thinking he would make things better because of this.....

Dempsey didn´t face Harry Wills, big deal, at least he didn´t spread his word against mixture of races like Ali did.....

Different times, different contexts, I know...But those are the facts today.....

 

Different times and different contexts is an important point. Honestly, if I was a young wide eyed black kid during the heights of the civil rights movement I don't see it as incomprehensible that a powerful and impressionable group like the NOI could've influenced me. Honestly, If I was born black in the 1960's I would probably dislike white people a little bit too. Things take a little bit of perspective.

 

There is a difference between racism -- which by definition is the belief that one ethnic group is superior to another -- and discrimination. Discrimination is action, which actually affects other peoples' lives and livlihoods, keeping them down because the discriminator has the power to do so.

Neither is to be lauded, but to actually use the power you have to discriminate against people, as Dempsey did, is far more evil than any words Ali or anyone else could have spoken. He wasn't the best heavyweight of his day, he and his people knew it, and they actively froze out deserving black challengers.

I'd like to see the context of the quotes you attribute to Ali. It's so easy to take two words, or three, and try to use them to obfuscate what someone was actually communicating.

I am aware of Ali condemning the white power structure in the U.S. during his time. Let's put it into context -- black churches bombed by KKK terrorists in the South, 'Freedom Riders' trying to help black people register to vote to actually exercise the rights given to them as citizens being murdered and juries laughing at the evidence to let murderers go free, restaurants and hotels refusing to serve people based upon the color of their skin -- if he was speaking of these injustices, and talking about the people who did these things OR the those who turned a blind eye and allowed such evil to happen, then I'd have to say those people are evil and the enemy ... not of black people, but of humanity.

Please help me out here, give me a quote in context of what Ali was saying, not just two or three words. Look at his words through the prism of his time and what he experienced and people in the ghettos of Chicago and New York and Louisville and rural tarpaper shacks in Mississippi were going through in the 1950s and '60s as he was coming up and then tell me which is worse -- his words or the actual discrimination that was taking place.

And then go read your United States Constitution, which says that slaves only count as 3/5ths of a person -- that, in effect, blacks were less than human. Or that it wasn't until the voting rights act of 1965 that any real progress was made in guaranteeing that black citizens could not be barred from voting. Or that blacks around the country weren't afforded the same educational opportunities or were barred from most decent jobs in Ali's youth.

So, yeah, seems to me that Ali had a reason to believe that the white power structure that allowed these things to happen wasn't a force for good in the world.