Should hall of famers who drew the color line not be rated as highly?

Not really.. The thread starter asked about lowering the ratings of champions who didn't fight " black men." While I don't particularly like awarding some of these champions who practiced color line drawing, I also understand that there's more to it than personal preference. As for not facing the best challengers? Well I think most champions with the exception of a select few have missed a few..

 

Very hard with such time already passed to put yourself in their position, growing up with C1900 attitudes. Different times completely. I wouldn't hold it personally against a fighter and see it as cowardly for sure.

You have to keep colour-line/prejudiced matchmaking in mind when assessing their resume, as with any form of 'cherry-picking'.

 

I do downgrade lightweight champions if the avoided Hispanic fighters.

 

Being a black man knowing the history of our country. I would say unequivocally "NO!" Unfortunately during that era achieved racism was the order of the day. To express any other interest as a white media mogul would've been personally and professionally disasterous.

Even if the fighter was racist he was only a product of a very disturbing and insidious social environment which treated blacks as less than farm animals and could kill them at will with no repercussions.. So to draw any color lines in this era I think would be moot and totally unrepresentative of what this country is. Not was but is (i.e.,e.g the prison industrial complex, Eugenics, police brutality,etc...)

 

As you probably also know then, there were always plenty of people who defied racism and took a stand against it...

Same excuses people try to make for Thomas Jefferson being such a terrible racial hypocrite, when his own friends criticized him for being a brutal slaveowner.

 

x 2.

 

We have to remember that boxing is really representative of society's greater social & political microcosms.. For example, Louis vs Schemeling as Hitlers cold war tool. Ali in the 60s with religion vs Military service or even how they're trying to use Money as a wife beating example... That's the game...

 

Different question entirely.

If a champion fails to fight a deserving contender, then that is absolutely an issue, but it doesn't matter why they failed to fight them.

 

All those who competed before Alexander Zolkin should be taken down a notch, also.

 

I get that ideology and it has merit.. But is it fair to skill sets ?

 

That's a good point. Dempsey's ducking and dodging of Wills in the 20s was no worse than Holmes' ducking and dodging of various guys in the 80s. It boils down to the same thing, avoiding a potentially dangerous challenger in favour of softer opposition. And for that no one should get a pass, black or white.

 

It's quite obvious the Slavic peoples had a lot to give the upper divisions all along.

Maybe we will discover in 50 years that those of the Indian sub-continent were made to be the best welters ever. And then we can revised our rankings again.

 

Do we exclude them/discriminate against them today? I don't get it.

 

Zolkin was a watershed fighter. Previously, the Iron Curtain kept the supposed best fighters from proving their merit against the Eastern Europeans. Thus, the pre-Zolkin lot can not possibly be seen as the best.

 

They should be rated as though any top contenders against whom they drew the line were available for them and yet blatantly ducked. Should factor in, definitely.