The Marvin Hart, Jack Johnson and James Jeffries Triangle

What source do you have to say Jeffries idolised Peter Jackson? Jeffries didn't make," a couple of inflammatory quotes "lets not be disingenuous here , he made dozens of statements saying categorically that he would never take a chance of losing his title to a black man, he referred to Johnson as a c*on and a n*gger,and called him a skunk.
He refused to shake his hand, refused to acknowledge the congratulatory telegram he received from Johnson when he signed for their fight, refused to congratulate him after their fight, blanked him in public, and never said anything complimentary about him his whole life. Jeffries was a thorough going racist as was his best friend Tom Sharkey ,enough with the sugar coating!

 

Nah.
People were really f--king racist back then. That's not to say people aren't racist now.
But we're talking about a different world entirely. The racist social hierarchy was considered good and proper.

I agree that the racist name-calling quotes don't really prove much of anything.
But let's not kid ourselves that people back then were thinking on any level palatable to a modern progressive thinking 100 years later.
White supremacy was the only show in town back then. Social inequality was considered natural, good and proper among the white population, unless you happened to be some free-thinking bohemian freak or a bomb-throwing anarchist.

 

I have serious doubts that the majority of whites in the US, who were in the mostly rural and bouncing between ruinous economic and natural events, considered social inequality "good and proper"... To view the past as an exclusively racial event is all the rage but preposterous on many levels.

 

Coming from Australia, i can categoriacally say that we are not a racist society. Not prfect, but difinitely not racist. (and there is a difference between hating say muslims which is the rage at the moment and being truly racist). I learned this on my first visit to detroit where i truly encountered racists for the first time. Ordinary everyday people that simply thought coloured people were beneath them. Watching this in practice is truly eye opening. In fact, having witnessed this behaviour first hand where nice old ladies would abuse young black girls and/or charge double for their motel rooms, or where good natured black people would be treated like second rate citizens and be looked down upon (and simply accept it and probably not even know it was occurring), i dont think i knew what racism was before i witnessed this first hand. I am told this behaviour is similar in some parts of southern USA. I doubt it is anywhere else in the USA. It isnt in Australia and i doubt it is in UK.

I am guessing that in Jeffries time, this is what it was like everywhere or at least most places in the usa. When compared with this behaviour, i think that the boxing ring and people involved would have been to the lesser end of the racist scale despite the colour line and some nasty comments written by journalists.

 

And some nasty comments said by the likes of Jeffries.