Was Jack Dempsey racist?

For your information I have studied the South Dakota reservations, particularly pine ridge and I understand full well the nightmares those people suffer, BUT as I stated that is a completely different situation than what blacks had to go through in regards to sports in general and boxing in particular. Jim Thorpe was playing pro sports in America long LONG before blacks ever got to participate, and as stated, men with even a drop of Indian blood were more than happy to use it as a promotional tool. When they called Clay Turner "a real honest to goodness Indian" it was being used as a means of praise, and a way to drum up sales. How many black fighters with light skin would have gladly passed themselves off as white during that time period?? You are talking apples and oranges here.

 

I had read that Marciano himself was not considered, being italian, as a "white man" by the audiance. It was true?

 

well italians where somewhat looked down upon by many in the wasp society of the 1950's...and many of terms used for them, dark, greasy...are used today by racists for hispanics.

 

I stayed at Pine Ridge once when my car broke down. That was a major mistake!

Actually blacks were let in US sports fairly early. Fritz Pollard not only played in the NFL in 1920 (it's inception) but coached. Black athletes represented the US in the Olympics at least as early as 1900 (the 2nd Olympiad). And Jack Johnson did defend his heavyweight title on US soild. However, I will grant you this is really apples and oranges, largely due, I believe to the relative non-integration of Natives into US society. Even the bottom rung of the ladder is a form of assimilation, but Natives were put on f'ing reservations (or preservations as Reagan called them), essentially cast out of the country while being within the country. Therefore, the Indian can be regarded as unthreatening by his inclusion in a sporting even or a bit of a novelty. Meanwhile, with the agitators for the abolition of Jim Crow and for instituting Civil Rights you had a real threat of the status quo. Both got ****ed over, but given the choice, I think I would take the hard road Blacks got rather than absolute ostracization that Natives received and continue to receive.

 

My moms side of the family is Italian and when my grandmother was a child the KKK used to drive around their neighborhood, when they did the Italians stayed in doors. It isnt just because Italians are dark complected but also because Italians are predominantly Catholic, which is another thing the KKK has a problem with.

 

Anyone from South of the Po River is a bit too swarthy for our racist brethren.

 

If I were a boxer in the teens and twenties Id rather be a Native American, thats my point. It has nothing to do with my politics but which one had an easier row to hoe during that time period. We can agree that the Native Americans got the **** end of the stick and then and now, but in the sport of boxing they were given far more opportunities than blacks. Like I said, had Dempsey had a drop of black blood (which is about as much indian blood as he had) he would have gone to great lengths to keep it secret. Every bio you read of Dempsey in the twenties brings up that he has some cherokee blood in him. It wasnt exactly something he was ashamed of, or had to worry that anyone was going to hold against him. Now replace that bit of Indian blood with African American blood and I guarantee you a lot of the same doors that were held wide open for Dempsey begin to close.

 

Don't be offended Stonehands i'm only clowning with you

 

I come from the NY area and I think think the KKK would not have lasted too long in those regions in Black,Italian, Irish Catholic, Jewish. etc. areas....New York ethnic groups don't get lynched and no one is burning a cross on their lawn...The KKK gets whacked in NY...New Yorkers are too tough and that goes for other north eastern area's like Phillie, Boston, R.I. but mostly the 5 boroughs of NY

 

Wanna hear something funny? The Italian side of my family is from Modena, which is in Northern Italy. Northern Italians dont like southern Italians, particularly Sicilians (not many Italians like Sicilians). To this day my grandmother still calls Sicilians n****rs. Go figure.

 

As strange as it may sound the KKK, at its height, actually had more members in the northern cities, than in the south. Where Im from Italians and Eastern Europeans settled to work the coal mines. As prohibition came on those people didnt take kindly to their alcohol being taken away, for reasons not the least of which was the fact that they use wine in their religious ceremonies). the resulting bootlegging gave rise to the renewed power of the KKK which sided with the temperence movement (at least in this area).

 

Bit off topic but i saw a documentary on Jack Johnson on espn classic last night. I forget how exactly, but Jess Willard gave a public display of respect for Johnson in the ring before the fight. I thought that was a very admirable thing to do considering the times

 

I see where you are coming from but face it, most real Natives don't give two shits about white man sports, at least the one's I've run into over the past 4 decades... and having lived in Alaska and Pacific Northwest most of this time, that's a lot of them. I've seen some good ballers and some great, I mean great, runners. They just didn't care about taking their talents to the next level in greater (re:white) society (though it's far more complicated than I could ever assume, I'm sure)...

The whole Cherokee angle with Dempsey was more a romantic Wild West fairy tale and an attempt to make him part "animal" in nature. I'm pretty sure that pure blooded or even 50%'ers in the teens and 20's were treated like **** in sports as they were in every other facet of society, and given their sparse participation in such activies, had no legion of comrades to fall back on. Even Jim Thorpe was seen as a bit of an Uncle Tom in some recounts I have read. Of course, now he is embraced.

Remember, even Italians often had to take Irish surnames to get a square deal in the ring. We are talking about one ****ed up era by today's relatively genteel standards.

 

Over-talking again. Such a ****ing ponce. Kind of guy who won't say a sentence unless it has a set number of syllables, aye? Talking about insults? You implied that I am an idiot, unprovoked. Just because I don't use a lot of words to say comparatively little does not make me an idiot.

You get back to the pseudo-intellectual spiel mate, I'm sure it makes you feel terribly important.

 

I think 99% of professional fighters just did what their managers told them at that time. Manager was boss, boxers were just uneducated pugs and their job was to train and fight.
Kearns robbed Dempsey. Dempsey got wise too late, and never got wise enough.
I think it's a stretch to expect him to be concerned with demanding a fight with Wills.
When he split with Kearns, Rickard was the only promoter who could deliver, and he was set on Tunney rather than Wills.
Ironically, Dempsey would have definitely had an easier fight with an over-the-hill Wills in 1926, probably would win quite easily and wouldn't have had any criticism.
The Tunney fight also shows that Tex Rickard at least was not overly concerned with protecting Dempsey, although Kearns may well have been.
It's an age old game to milk the title.

Harry Wills may have been very good but his reputation was slow-burning. And when he eventually got recognition his performances were inconsistent, sometimes unimpressive. He was probably overlooked too much and underrated in his own time, and I think people are wrong to assume that was down to the handlers of Jack Dempsey.
Wills was pretty much in the shadow of his black counterpart Sam Langford while Willard was champion, even though Wills was winning fights against old Sam.
Wills was just one of those fighters who got recognition late.