Does the Morality of Champions Matter?

Yeah, but he's best known today for his work in hunting down vampires.

 

Michael Dokes was convicted of a very nasty attack on a woman.
He smashed her face, literally, and did other bad stuff to her.
15 year jail sentence.

Ridd!ck Bowe, another woman beater.

 

I think I'll need a citation for that.

 

Actually, THAT'S NOT Abraham Lincoln. It gets attributed to him. But James Mitchell, the United States' first Immigration Commissioner, said it. It was belief Mitchell held that was included in a document he sent to Lincoln.

But people who keep copying and pasting that quote like to ignore THAT FACT.

:hi:

 

It doesn't affect how I rate them as fighters. Look at the consensus #1 p4p fighter, Sugar Ray Robinson, whose family could tell you about how awful and abusive he could be and his son said that Ray's abuse of Edna Mae caused her 5 miscarriages.

I once read a quote from Mike Tyson about Roberto Duran and how he looked up to him and did not want to spend time with him as a person. He wanted to see him in the ring, but not see his faults as a human.

I kind of feel that way too. I'd like to think Mike Tyson did not **** Desiree Washington, but even if he didn't **** her, he's done terrible things regardless, possibly ****d other people. Diego Corrales beat up his pregnant wife, by many accounts completely treated Dan Goosen (or was it Joe?) like ****, was completely reckless in the way he acted in his death and could have killed innocent people in addition to himself. Luckily no innocent bystanders were harmed. Joe Louis and Alexis Arguello were known as two of the most classy and gracious champions ever, but they had their demons too and admitted to assaulting women before.

All of these are among my favorite fighters ever, so I guess I am usually able to separate the athlete from the person.

Usually, not always. I enjoyed watching Yori Boy Campas beat Tony Ayala and wished it had gone longer so he had pummeled him some more.

 

Honestly I appreciate this. I ran across a similar thing with Albert Schweitzer, a quote of clearly racist origins that was attributed incorrectly to make him seem racist. So please ignore my previous comment.

 

“I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

No sarcasm but is this one real.

 

Lincoln said that during a political debate while he was trying to get elected in a country that practiced slavery.

He had to both get elected and then ease people into the idea of equality. Changing the culture of an entire country takes time. Hell, it's still not there ... 150 years later.



The main charge of racism against Lincoln focuses on his statements during the debates with Stephen A. Douglas in 1858. Lincoln rejected Douglas’s accusation that he favored racial equality—a volatile issue in Illinois that threatened Lincoln’s political career if the charge stuck.

Goaded by Douglas’s repeated playing of the race card, Lincoln declared in one of the debates that “I am not, nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.” It would be easy, comments Oakes, “to string such quotations together and show up Lincoln as a run-of-the-mill white supremacist.”

But in private, Lincoln was much less racist than most whites of his time. He was “disgusted by the race-baiting of the Douglas Democrats” and he “made the humanity of blacks central to his antislavery argument.” In a speech at Chicago in 1858, Lincoln pleaded: “Let us discard all this quibbling about…this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position,” and instead “once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.”

Lincoln’s statements expressing opposition to social and political equality, Oakes maintains, were in fact part of his antislavery strategy. Extreme racism was at the core of the proslavery argument: if the slaves were freed they would aspire to equality with whites, therefore slavery was the only bulwark of white supremacy and racial purity. Lincoln “wanted questions about race moved off the table,” writes Oakes, and “the strategy he chose was to agree with the Democrats” in opposition to social equality. Lincoln understood that most Americans—including most Northerners—believed in white supremacy, “and in a democratic society such deeply held prejudices cannot be easily disregarded.” Thus the most effective way to convert whites to an antislavery position, Lincoln believed, was to separate the issue of bondage from that of race.

Lincoln was painfully aware that his forthcoming emancipation proclamation would provoke a racist backlash. By signaling the possibility of colonizing some freed slaves elsewhere, Lincoln hoped to defuse part of that backlash. Some Republicans understood the strategy. “I believe practically [colonization] is a—humbug,” said one, “but it will take with the people.”

After issuing the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, Lincoln never again mentioned colonization. He also stopped using racism as a strategic diversion. By March 1863 he strongly endorsed the recruitment of black soldiers to fight for the Union, and in response to prodding by Douglass and other abolitionists he supported passage of legislation to equalize the pay of black and white soldiers. In the last year of the war, the President also endorsed giving the right to vote to two overlapping groups: literate African-Americans and all black veterans of the Union army.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arc...id-he-really-think-about-race/#fnr7-657652201

 

Sorry Bill, I haven't read it, but I remember Ali ranting and raving in the 60's and early 70's. I did say I wasn't sure whether it was reprinted or original.

 

Here's the thing, most people think of racism as something black and white a binary code. But it's relativistic, and I think people calling Lincoln racist are being ridiculous. My dad still says oriental but he's damn close to 70; asking him to relearn something like that, something he's been saying since before we had color TV is just unrealistic. Lincoln, as you mentioned was not a racist, nor anything close to racist. What he was was pragmatic.

 

I see you left my people out.

 

Like Little Red, I agree that racism isn't just black and white, even in America. We have a sizeable Mexican-American population that also gets dumped on and the last time I checked the FBI hate crime statistics Jews were still at the top of the list. Of course, if we want to talk about all types of prejudice, attacks against Muslims skyrocketed since 9/11 and have been increasing about 200% annually, especially in Europe. *******uals are often discriminated against, and thanks to the New Atheist movement there seems to be a lot more anti-Christian bigotry than there was ten or fifteen years ago.

 

Neither Mexican-American nor Jews are races.

 

Mexican-Americans would frequently fall under the heading Latino, Mestizo, or even Native American. Jews, besides being a religious class are also frequently their own ethnic group or subdivided between Sephardim and Ashkenazim.