Some things you might not know about Ali.

Who cares if they distinguished? At that time the mere thought of challenging the white system was unheard of. The NOI and Ali were bashing into boundaries that nobody thought possible at the time. You think whites people were truly offended by the NOI from an oppression point of view? Lol.

By saying white people are the devil, the seed of the idea that black people were not inherently worse than whites was planted. That was the big idea. Things we take for granted today we're not so in the 60's.

And you think he majority supported civil rights? Do you remember entire cities blocking black children from entering the schools? Those were not cops or officials, those were ordinary people. It was a totally different time.

It's weird how many people here take issue with Ali and the NOI, as if they grabbed people from their homes to hang them from a tree because they were white. The most radical thing they did was portray themselves as superior to whites in public forums.

I don't know if I'm being "generous", but you're sounding disingenuous.

 

I concentrate on exposing his lies,he has a closed bigoted mind you cannot alter such a persons point of view. And since he gets no credibility here it isn't really important.

 

You are spinning a revisionist, significantly incorrect version of the history of civil rights in America in a misguided attempt to spare one of your heroes from criticism. There was a lengthy tradition of civil rights protest within the black community, before and apart from the NOI cult, by people who managed to stand up for themselves and their communities without resorting to silly tales of cave scientists and bitter ideologies of racial superiority. The warped NOI creed wasn't the seed of anything.

PS - I stand by what I said about the 1960s. Maybe you saw Mississippi Burning and footage of King's marches and think that was the universal American norm, but it wasn't. There was plenty of racism then (still is), and especially plenty of people who opposed busing, but you're talking about mid-60s America in an exaggerated way to justify something that should not be justified.

EDIT: This excerpt provides a more realistic portrayal of the (still deeply messed up) racial climate at the time: https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/pub...-reflections-on-the-civil-rights-act-of-1964/

1960s Climate for the Passage of the Civil Rights Act
[...] A sign of the times, in 1963, a Gallup poll found that 78% of white people would leave their neighborhood if many black families moved in. When it comes to MLK’s march on Washington, 60% had an unfavorable view of the march, stating that they felt it would cause violence and would not accomplish anything.

In the months leading up to the bill being signed on July 2, there was support for the act, but still a third opposed the bill. One month after its passage, when the implementation phase began, support was just more than 50%, with nearly 1 in five voicing uncertainty about the bill

 

http://www.boxing.com/the_united_states_vs._muhammad_ali.html

http://www.boxing.com/muhammad_alis_fight_for_the_right_to_fight.html

 

No I'm doing none of that. It takes a fool to think the NOI's movement was a literal interpretation of some vision quest. Ali's public support of the NOI always revolved around equality, fairness, justice, and dignity for black people. Not fantastical tales of aliens and devils.

There were many bad aspects to the NOI. But the NOI was the only group that represented Ali's values. Despite it's imperfection, it suited him better than the other more "respectful" approaches.


And honestly, its such ****ing bull**** to hear someone give the NOI, or Ali any **** for having the beliefs that they had. You think you are some moral justice to say MLK's way was the right one? As if you suffered alongside them and get to choose? **** off.

I personally believe MLK's movement was the right one, but I'd be goddamned if I didn't respect the choice of thousands of frustrated black americans that joined the NOI to express their oppression in a more direct way. Black americans never asked for a racial war where they would have to fight for equality.

You're a fool. And like Joe Louis would say, you work very hard at it.

 

I'm a fool because I'm willing to criticize the idiotic and counterproductive racial rhetoric of the Nation of Islam?? GTFOH. You probably think that your embrace of this regressive form of black protest is enlightened and liberal minded but it's really just unprincipled. The NOI was a cult concocted by a charismatic storyteller peddling silly racial fantasies to the poor, uneducated disposessed. There were many other worthwhile strands of the black freedom struggle present during Ali's era, led by intelligent and courageous black Americans who put their lives on the line standing up to their oppressors. Ali had many options (not just "MLK's way") and for whatever reason chose perhaps the worst. So glad he, like Malcolm X before him, was able to mature with age & experience and outgrow them.

 

I largely agree with mrkoolkevin's posts here.
reznick makes a lot of correct points too. The NOI did, and does, have some positive aspects and contributed to blacks standing up and being proud.

At some point though it ought to be obvious that a lot of what the NOI (Elijah Muhammad) ideology was about was racial superstition that serves no good to its followers, fairy tales mirroring the kind of stuff white supremacists were peddling and were fashionable in the 1920s. Biological racism was at the fore.
Let's be clear, a significant part of the message was that race-mixing was against God's will.
Elijah Muhammad sooner invited the American Nazi Party to share a platform with him than any leader (black or white) who was actively involved in the civil rights movement.
Meeting with the KKK too.

June 1961: While civil rights activists (black and white) were being killed and beaten, bombed etc. for attempting to ride on buses as equal citizens etc, the NOI leadership was considering American Nazi Party members are the most suitable allies.

 

Well, look at what happened. As society matured, the NOI dissipated. When is the last time you've seen an anti-white rally by the NOI? That tells you exactly what the movement at it's heart was really about.

Was the founder of the movement a looney? I don't know, never met him. People have said really good things about him, and some said not so great things about him. People didn't join him because they were praising his visions. They joined him because they saw the NOI as a vehicle to independence.

Even if you weren't a part of the movement, it's mere existence made you think different. It's ideas were profound, and it must've sounded awesome to an adventurous twenty something rebel who saw the world as a screwed up place.

I swear it's something with boxing fans that have this weird obsession with over exaggerated dark sides to boxers lives. Lynchings and systemic nation wide racial oppression are ho hum, but sending pocket change to a prostitute, or a verbal insult at white people is as if someone nuked a city.

 

I don't form my stances on things to fit into buckets like being "liberally minded". It's not the right way to evaluate stuff.

I understand what the NOI was, just like you do. You and I both know that it had weird rhetoric, hateful speech, and shady actions.

What separates us Kevin, is that I understand WHY it was that way. I can see the cause to the effect, and I can balance the two very well.

You can't see quite that far. And therefor you can't grasp the subject in any meaningful way beyond face value.

Not only do you not have vision, you also go out of your way to be a patronizing jerk. To demean the entire following of the NOI to "poor, uneducated dispossessed people" mindless to make their own decisions makes you sound like you have little to no grasp on the human experience and the way people think and make decisions.

 

even though Rez and Kev are insulting each other they are having a interesting convo imo :thumbsup

 

Spot on.

 

Everybody knows this nonsense without any relevance

 

Sticking to the relevant subject and the period in question, the original NOI dissipated dramatically the "prophet" Elijah Muhammad died.
Muhammad Ali changed his views soon after, following the lead from Warith Deen Muhammad.

I didn't know the NOI ever held "anti-white rallies" and I don't care if they did, or if they do.

I'm not sure HOW that tells me what the movement at its heart was really about.

As far as I can tell, the movement that Elijah Muhammad headed espoused many values that were from the 1920s and 1930s, and were out of step with many of the changes that were occurring in the 1960s and '70s.

For example, in what way should I find the rants against interracial marriages as being somehow understandable/acceptable in 1975 ?
This was old-fashioned bigoted thinking already by then.
And backed up by talk of "God's plan", it is patently absurd, irrational racist bullsh!t.

OK, so you can't make a judgement on whether Elijah Muhammad was a looney but you can make a blanket statement on the motives of thousands of largely nameless people who followed.
That makes little sense.

I don't disagree with this.

I've never suggested lynchings and nation wide racial oppression are ho hum, so you must be directing that at someone else.

 

It doesn't take any vision at all to understand why the most uneducated, marginalized members of a racist society would embrace a movement like the NOI (stop flattering yourself). What is your basis for accusing me of not understanding? Of course I understand why such people would be seduced by the fiery rhetoric and superstition of Fard and later Elijah Muhummad. They offered them pride and a deeper sense of purpose. But so what? The bottom line is that this stuff was bunk and many, many black people recognized that. It is no coincidence that the converts to the NOI disproportionately consisted of the fringe, uneducated members of the ghetto poor. If you knew its origins and history, and more about the civil rights movement & 20th century race relations in general, you would understand this. The fact that you are so taken aback by me pointing this out is revealing.

 

I cosign all of this.