Was Jack Dempsey racist?

one can find very few things that he did was racist...but please list them...


also..isnt it interesting how boxing is one place you can be accussed of being racist for NOT trying to beat up a black guy...lol

 

The validity of the quote is not something that I can count on, but

Jack Dempsey said, "I pay no attention to negro challengers."

 

even if he did say that...not sure how "racist" it is.....the negro isnt really racist at all....its latin for black..and was the common term back then (united negro college fund and all). as for the not fighting...you did have major rioting with Johnson, and it is also likely that he would have made less money..... I supose if you feel he was actually afraid of those challengers then you could accuse him of fear...but not really racism just based on that.....



however...again...as you said..who knows if it is even a real quote.

 

here is this.....not sure if that statement is a quote or a paraphase

[url]http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00A17F93F5E157A93C4A9178CD85F4D8185F9[/url]

 

Right because we know how little money Johnson-Jeffries made :nut

That alone doesn't make Dempsey a 'racist', there are also clearly different levels of racism

 

different equation you got.....Johnson was already the champ..people hated him...but he was the champ....jeffries was a undefeated ex champ coming out of retirement....

for the most part white fighters had bigger followings...so i suspect that he could make more by fighting whites

 

Race wars have always sold, which is why, the number1 contender and colored champion in a unification blockbuster would outsell an unknown blown up lightweight from France

 

The statement "I shall pay no attention to negro challengers" was apparently made immediately after Dempsey beat Willard, and were probably the words of Jack Kearns rather than Dempsey. Willard has said the same thing, and it was considered good PR to state your desire to keep the title shots to only members of the white race.
Of course, that is discrimination.

However, soon after, Dempsey corrected the statement to the press, and on several occasions, saying he'd fight black or white, and was all about the money. He said Kearns had advised him on winning the title that mixed title matches were "injurious to the sport", but that he (Dempsey) wanted to fight the best, or whoever the public and promoters put forward, and was frankly in need of the money. He seems to have said this long before there was any backlash against him for failing to fight Wills, who most of the public had never even heard of. It was probably genuine.

It is what it is.
I think people need to see it in historical context though. Not all this waffling about whether their opinions and beliefs are "racist" or not, but the actual thinking of the time.
Boxing was still semi-legal across the states, but very popular. A black heavyweight champion was associated with race riots and bad publicity for the sport.
Sure, blacks were discriminated against, frankly because most whites (as well as blacks) were rather ignorant at that time.
But there was a genuinely reasonable belief that a big-time heavyweight title match between a white and a black could only serve to ignite unrest, bad feeling, riots and murder.
It went beyond boxing and the petty 'protection' of white man's 'supremacy', it actually had life-and-death ramifications in the real world.
Guys like Harry Wills got shafted, but maybe lots of blacks (and whites too) would've been actually killed if the fight had taken place.

 

You misunderstood what was said there. I said before I am accused of being said internet tough guy.

 

like the red ranger

This content is protected

 

His trainers are cool as ****.

 

he was smashing the pink ranger's stink until Tommy came along and muscled him out of the scene

 

He was no more racist than Bob Fitzsimmons. Dempsey, it has been proven, had fought exhibitions and boxing matches under the name Kid Blackie against black heavyweights. When he became champion, though, Dempsey (like Fitzsimmons) trained with black men and that was the extent of it.

 

:good

 

i think that inaction is acceptance of racism or ignorance of the race issue. to an onlooker it looks like racism to not bat an eye when Dempsey wouldnt sit next to a black man on a bus, becos it was the norm for him to sit somewhere else. today that would clearly be racist, or ign orance of what racism is.

But i agree that there were plenty of reasons to ignore racism at the time, and i dont blame the heavyweight champion of the world for not speaking out against lynching for fear of being murdered himself. I agree that definition of racism is different for different times. Definition of being lynched doesnt change though, does it?

i own the biography, but yes i agree that i dont know him personally. That wont stop me frm writing about those times, but sure i dont know for certain.

its the contrast with other generations which makes it most marked. v big difference. you dont get masses of people in there 50's being (unawarely) racist to black nurses...its always one or two generations above them (obv not all of them, but more prevalent in that age group - not being hateful but being unaware that they have racist feelings).
so no i dont think i am passing false judgelment, i am comparing separate cohorts. Sadly that generation is all dying off now - i dont mean that saracastically... when you get to speak to an old lady who went to the Great Exhibition of 1851, and vividly describes it ,nothing can be more fascinating. memories of what was, and will never be spoken firsthand of again. WOO.

So I do recognise your better points and thanks for making them (if even anyone is still reading this far lol) but i dont mean to sully your (and mine) legends for what they acheived, and i dont mean to be judgemental about people in different eras. but heroes are people, and people generally go with the social trend they are raised in, so i am guessing he was racist in some way enough to say he didnt want to fight blacks. if you werent racist in the contemporary meaning, you'd react to that by saying it was wrong 10 times of of 10 - you wouldnt just think 'uhh hey my manager is right , lets not fight blacks, thats sounds like something i could say in public' He accepted exclusion of blacks as a norm.

but about my advice being a correctional officers, cheers, but you can keep that.