Ali Hypocrite

Yeah, I wouldn't dismiss that out of hand. I'm sure that interpretation of Ali inspired some people. And when he said "No" to Vietnam that took some balls.
But really, I don't see it so clearly as that.
Clay/Ali was always the golden boy really, and while he might have angered some people with some of his religious stuff, and his draft-dodging, he spent A LOT of time vying for the attention and adulation of his WHITE audience.
There was probably never a black fighter before him who so cared so much about what whitey thought of him.

Sonny Liston broke a cop's leg and left him in a trash can in an alley, before he was even nationally famous. How's that for anti-establishment defiance ?

 

I do think, most people believe his supposed 'stand' against the war in Vietnam
was contrived.

It was 'selective' rebellion.
It was the popular choice with the young generation, which Muhammad Ali was
part of.
Of course, he turned it into a black/white issue, when damn near 8X more whites
were being picked off in the jungles.

 

Not everyone took Clay seriously at all. His act was considered baloney by many seasoned people in the boxing establishment.
He was a divergence into the world of phoney pro wrestling, and boxing probably hasn't even been the same since.

Clay was unmistakably proud of being black, sure, he was also unmistakably proud of his good looks, he was vain, and had an inflated opinion of his fighter ability long before he'd proven himself.
You're right, he made a lot of noise. That makes him stand out.
I'm sure a lot of blacks thought he was full of hot air and wanted him to shut his mouth too. I'm not talking about "Uncle Toms", I'm talking about regular black folks who saw Ali's bragging and self-importance as laughable.
To assume they all followed Clay/Ali and were made proud by him is to fall for the myth and propaganda written by Ali himself.
Ali used the "Uncle Tom" slur himself to undermine his black opponents, but I don't think everyone was fooled by his act.

 

MR. UN,,,,,,,,,,,,,again well-stated,,,,,

* The Lousville Sporting Group
* Bill Faversham
* Howard Cosell
* ABC-TV Executives

Anything in common with that group.

 

Respectfully, this is bull.

When he said "No!" to Vietnam, Ali had the courage of his convictions and took a stand that was detrimental in every way.

Why?

Because IN HIS CONSCIENCE, AND HIS CONSCIENCE ONLY, it was the right thing to do. There is nothing contrived about this.

Public opinion was for the war. Of course, young people did not embrace the effort, but they were drafted. And Ali did not dodge the draft. He did not flee to Canada or get a deferment. As a public person, he objected front-and-center and faced the consequences.

And you are certainly not black to understand the vantage point of someone like Ali in the '60s. What is the point in promoting a war of choice against another underprivileged people when your own people --when you yourself, despite your meritory accomplishments, and for no reason other than your skin color-- are treated as something second-class?

The decision is debatable (Joe Louis saw things differently) but Ali acted in the idealism of youth, and the world eventually caught up with him.

Rightfully so.

 

Yes, and this is where I don't fall for the hype that Ali was this knight of 'black independence', or even particularly 'anti-establishment'.
I think he played the court jester for a white audience his whole career, frankly.
Sure, he put a slant on it, but he was still an attention-seeking 'golden boy'.
Deep down, he probably knew that himself, and was out to portray himself as 'blacker' than the other guys.
He was the clean, good looking wholesome 'colored boy' to entertain whitey. That's how he started out his career, that's how he ended it.

 

Prime,,,,,,,,,,,,is that Miss Carrie Prejean,,,,,,,,mucho excellente'

Please, I was right their in 1962/1963/1964 on the ground.
97% of the Americans didn't even know where Vietman was.

Cassius Clay, before he won the title, made not one peep about his stand against the war.
While others were trying to bring that issue out front.

 

'eleven wealthy white-men'

 

Of course! Clay broke the mold, harkening 30 years prior to one Max Baer. But modern media was coming of age, so Clay's act was actually a first on this world stage, and certainly a divergence from the quiet personas of Louis, Charles, Walcott, Marciano, Patterson and Liston. By far!

But so what? The lesson of Cassius Clay is he acted on his right to be himself. He took after his bombastic father and acted out as naturally as a duck takes to water. Sure, the wrestler persona magnified this, for better or worse, but with one crucial difference: pro wrestling is fixed results; boxing is real. And Clay backed up his talk with results in the ring, many times to the very round.

On its face, neon-light vanity is certainly insufferable. But Clay had the charm to make it plausible --at least to some and at least for a while. A matter of opinion, I'd say. But, again, it all went hand-in-hand with accomplishments: his first poem, "How Cassius Took Rome", was published after he won the gold medal, with several AAU and Golden Gloves titles under his belt to boot.

Nobody's perfect. I simply can't stand Ali's abominable habit of casually drawing the "Uncle Tom" phrase on men like Terrell and Frazier. It was stupid. According to him, if you were against him, you were automatically an Uncle Tom. Pure crap.

But, apart from this, please try to go back and imagine what it must have felt like, as a young Negro in a white-is-king world, to see and hear this black, young man on the universal stage crowing with all the confidence in the world that black is best, that your skin and hair are all right, that all is fine and the sky is truly the limit. Excluding the Nation's excesses in reverse discrimination, which Ali actually never truly followed (the Louisville Sponsoring Group; Dundee; Pacheco; Kilroy), the simple message that it is okay to be black, and to seek and find your place in the sun was very powerful because, again, as the world's champion, Ali had the biggest soap-box of them all to crow it from.

 

Carrie Prejean??? (Actually, I think she's hot, too, but...) Never! That is Dayana Mendoza, Ms. Venezuela and Ms. Universe 2008.

Clay didn't have to address the war until a couple of years after he won the title. In fact, he was deemed mentally unqualified (I-Y) for military service one month before the first Liston fight.

 

I just got done watching "The Last Round" which is about Chuvalo vs. Ali.


When Ali was in Toronto, the sportswriters and the fans didn't see a loud braggadocio Ali. He was calm when training, and gave normal interviews, rather than the "They know it!!" type. When asked about his mood in an interview, he is seen saying that the people in Toronto have been so good to him. The sportswriters didn't take shots at him, or try to provoke him with crazy questions. He said from the kids to the hotel managers to pretty much everyone, they have been great. And I don't feel like I'm being pinned against the wall here.


Interesting.



He did an entire day at a gym where he trained for a little bit, and then talked to some of the fans who were watching and signed autographs for hours. He got paid 2 thousand for the day. When he left, there were kids waiting at his hotel who couldnt wait to see him. When he got there he started talking to the kids, and before you know it, he started racing them 3 at a time. He would give the kid in 1st $100, 2nd $50, 3rd $20, and he would always be in 4th. He kept racing kids until all of the two thousand was gone.

 

Sometimes.
Maybe.

I don't dismiss it out of hand, but it's wrong to assume every young black male has the same opinion or feelings about a supposed "role model".
I don't think they all needed to be told "it's okay to be black" either.

Black "superiority" in the ring was pretty much established long before Ali came along. Ray Robinson, Joe Louis, Sonny Liston exuded confidence too.
Jack Johnson : enough said.

The Nation of Islam's message was already old hat by the mid-1960s. Apart from Malcolm X, they were pretty much lagging behind the times.
Their doctrine was more suited to the 1920s and 30s, a bit like their friends The American National Socialist Party :

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American Nazis at a Nation Of Islam meeting, 1961.
Invited, of course.

I think many blacks were way ahead of the NOI and Clay/Ali by the 1960s.

The reason Clay/Ali was popular with blacks is pretty much the same reason he was popular with whites : He was young, good-looking, articulated, and he was knocking mother****ers out.

 

The nation of islam is the reason why the mob lost control of boxing. As much as they are crock of BS, they did bring a lot of black kids off the street, and got them to stop using drugs and alcohol and cigarettes. A lot of these black muslims were thugs who were going to end up dead or in jail. And the nation inadvertently allowed people like Malcolm and Ali to find their true religion, which was being a real muslim. Thats what Ali practices today. Islam, not white and black separation.

And when your 22 years old, and you have the all the country against you, something like the nation seems very enticing. Ali might have been assassinated for all we know had he not had a group like the NOI around him. For a while, the governments were using the noi to clean the streets of the hood, not police. They permitted them to carry big guns out in the open. The noi outnumbered the mafia by more than 100 to 1 people. It was an easy decision, I'm sure, for Ali. Not to mention that they shared his sentiments about being oppressed by the white society.

 

I don't believe that at all. You'll have to provide proof and details ....

I think mobsters have always been in boxing, and always will be. When they had A LOT of control, boxing carried on okay anyway.

OK. The NOI has its good points and its bad points. That can be said about anything.

Ali did NOT have the whole country against him. Why would he ?
I don't think the NOI would have deterred an assassin. The Pope, the Kennedys, Ronald Reagan have all been shot. I'm sure they had protectors too.

I don't think the mafia were out to get Ali, ever.
If anything, they had an interest in him.

 

It certainly didn't hurt those that didn't need to hear it and I'm sure it helped many others immeasurably.

Enough cannot be said about the media's subliminal messages. A world where, as Ali always said, everything good from Ms. Universe to Santa Claus was white, had to be harsh for black self-esteem.

Just look at the surge of black pride upon the election of President Obama. As black voices said, now any parent can truly, finally, tell his child, "In this country, you can grow up to be anything you wanna be, even the President of the United States." Symbolism matters.

Gold-medal winner Cassius Clay was denied service at a Louisville restaurant solely because of his skin color! He opened his eyes to a segregated world. He got the message loud and clear: there were some strata he could simply never access, simply on account of his race. He understood, and sought contentment within his own kind.

In Ali's own words, "I don't believe in forced integration. I know where I belong. I'm not going to force myself into anybody's house. I'm not joining no forced integration movement, because it don't work. A man has got to know where he belongs. People brand us a hate group. They say we want to take over the country. They say we're Communists. That is not true. Followers of Allah are the sweetest people in the world. They don't carry knives. They don't tote weapons. They pray five times a day...All they want to do is live in peace."

As regards blacks, in many cases I'd add pride to that.