COMMENTS: 22
Excerpt: A Left-Hook to Racism
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No sport has chewed athletes up and spit them out -- especially black athletes -- quite like boxing. For the very few who "make it," it is never the sport of choice. Boxing has always been for the poor, for people born at the absolute margins of society. The first boxers in the United States were slaves. Southern plantation owners amused themselves by putting together the strongest slaves and having them fight it out while wearing iron collars.
After the abolition of slavery, boxing was unique among sports because it was desegregated as early as the turn of the last century. This was not because the people who ran boxing were in any way progressive. They make the people who run boxing today resemble gentlemen of great character. Those early promoters simply wanted to make a buck off the rampant racism in American society by pitting black vs. white for public spectacle. Unwittingly, these early fight financiers opened up a space in which the white supremacist ideas of the day could be challenged. This was the era of deeply racist pseudo-science. The attitude of the social Darwinist quacks was that blacks were not only mentally inferior but also physically inferior to whites. Blacks were cast as too lazy and too undisciplined to ever be taken seriously as athletes.
When Jack Johnson became the first black heavyweight-boxing champion in 1908, his victory created a serious crisis for these ideas. The media whipped up in a frenzy about the need for a "Great White Hope" to restore order to the world. Former champion Jim Jeffries came out of retirement to restore that order, saying, "I am going into this fight for the sole purpose of proving that a white man is better than a Negro."
At the fight, which took place in 1910, the ringside band played, "All Coons Look Alike to Me," and promoters led the nearly all-white crowd in the chant "Kill the nigger." But Johnson was faster, stronger, and smarter than Jeffries, knocking him out with ease. After Johnson's victory, there were race riots around the country -- in Illinois, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Texas, and Washington, D.C. Most of the riots consisted of white lynch mobs attempting to enter black neighborhoods and blacks fighting back.
This reaction to a boxing match was the most widespread simultaneous racial uprising in the U.S. until the riots that followed the 1968 assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Right-wing religious groups immediately organized a movement to ban boxing, and Congress actually passed a law that prohibited the showing of boxing films. Black leaders, such as Booker T. Washington, pushed Johnson to condemn the African-American uprising. But Johnson remained defiant. He not only spoke out on all issues of the day, he also broke racist social taboos by marrying white women, and as a result faced harassment and persecution for most of his life. Johnson was forced into exile in 1913 on the trumped-up charge of transporting a white woman across state lines for prostitution.
The "Johnson backlash" meant that it would be 20 years before the rise of another black heavyweight champ -- "the Brown Bomber," Joe Louis. Louis was quiet where Johnson had been outspoken. An all-white management team handled Louis very carefully, and had a set of rules he had to follow, including, "never be photographed with a white woman, never go to a club by yourself, and never speak unless spoken to." But the Brown Bomber's timid public face became fierce in the ring. Louis scored 69 victories in 72 professional fights -- 55 of them knockouts.
Despite the docile image demanded by his handlers, Joe Louis -- and his dominance in the ring -- represented dignity and resistance to Blacks and to the radicalizing working class of the 1930s. This played out most famously during Louis's two fights against German boxer Max Schmeling in 1936 and 1938. German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler promoted Schmeling as the epitome of "Aryan greatness," and in their first bout, Schmeling knocked out Louis. Hitler and Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels had a field day, and the southern press in the United States laughed it up. One columnist for the New Orleans Picayune wrote, "I guess this proves who really is the master race."
The Louis-Schmeling rematch in 1938 was even more politically loaded -- a physical referendum on Hitler, the Jim Crow South, and antiracism. The U.S. Communist Party organized radio listenings of the fight from Harlem to Birmingham that became mass meetings -- complete with armed guards at the door. Hitler closed down movie houses so all of Germany would be compelled to listen to the fight. The cinema doors probably should have been kept open; Louis devastated Schmeling in one round, with lightning combinations that stunned the big German. In a notorious move, Hitler cut all of Germany 's radio power when it was clear that the knockout was coming.
The Brown Bomber held the heavyweight title for 12 years, the longest reign in history. He beat all comers, the overwhelming majority of them white, successfully defending his title a record 25 times. He was, according to poet Maya Angelou, "The one invincible Negro, the one who stood up to the white man and beat him down with his fists. He in a sense carried so many of our hopes, and maybe even our dreams of vengeance." Thirty years after the fight against Schmeling, Martin Luther King Jr. reinforced its significance by reminding readers of Why We Can't Wait that
More than 25 years ago, one of the Southern states adopted a new method of capital punishment. Poison gas supplanted the gallows. In its earliest stages, a microphone was placed inside the sealed death chamber so that scientific observers might hear the words of the dying prisoner to judge how the victim reacted in this novel situation. The first victim was a young Negro. As the pellet dropped into the container, and the gas curled upward, through the microphone came the words, "Save me, Joe Louis. Save me, Joe Louis. Save me, Joe Louis."
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Posted by: zooeyhall on Oct 7, 2005 6:35 AM
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As a footnote, Max Schmeling was anti-Nazi and was a friend of Louis until Louis' death, including helping to pay for his funeral and being a pall bearer. More on Schmeling can by found at www.wikipedia.org.
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» RE: Jack Johnson story movie
Posted by: just thinkin
» RE: Jack Johnson story movie
Posted by: liberalibrarian
» RE: Jack Johnson story movie
Posted by: Richie the C
» RE: Jack Johnson story movie
Posted by: Richie the C
Comments are closed-
Posted by: david.model@senecac.on.ca on Oct 7, 2005 7:22 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In an attempt to appeal to his Christian Right and Neoconservative constituency Bush has give homophobia the presidential stamp of approval by calling for a constitutional amendment to ensure that only heterosexual couples can be legally married. According to Bush "The union of a man and a women is the most enduring human institution."
As in the debate on other importan issues, the President not only reveals his own homophobia but also his ignorance. The so-called "enduring human institution" is not only different in other cultures but has changed in our own culture.
In the 1950s, men and women married at an average age of about 23 whereas today, the average age is closer to 30. Many couples now decide not to marry at all but choose to live in a common-in-law relationship which in Canada, at least, is fully recognized and accepted by the courts and society. In the 1950s couples were expected to have children but today, many couples have opted for a childless marriage. Divorce was very rare in the 1950s and when it occured, there was a stigma attached to the woman. Today, over half of all marriages break up and single women do not suffer a stigma at all.
Where is the abiding, unchanging, rock-solid intstituion of marriage to which President Bush refers. His call for a constitutional amendment only adds fuel to the fire of discrimination of gays and lesbians. As with Blacks who were considered inferior, homosexuality is considered unnatural and abnormal. There are over 400 species of animals which have been known to have homosexual relations such as penguins, flamingos and African apes. The other important point to bear in mind is that the instituion of marriage is a social construct and not some universal unalterable institution handed down from some supreme being.
All this is beyond the reach of the President's intellect and so another group of people suffer at the hands of an ideological president whose context for any issue excludes history, sociology, philosophy, anthropology and biology. The Afghanis and Iraqis are a memorial to the limits of this president.
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» RE: Marriage is the Latest Forum for Racism in America
Posted by: deha
» Dan Savage on Marriage Equality
Posted by: AdamSelene11726
» anti-gay feeling is the last acceptable prejudice in America
Posted by: zooeyhall
» excuse me
Posted by: kittykat
Comments are closed-
Posted by: okie11 on Oct 7, 2005 8:09 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
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» RE: jack johnson
Posted by: KILA
Comments are closed-
Posted by: owleyes on Oct 7, 2005 9:28 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There is a strange myth that racism is over. Conservatives sometimes say they think the civil rights movement (but not the Civil Rights Act) was necessary, and they are also thankful to the suffragettes. In the next breath, they will tell you they think that today's Black empowerment and feminist movements (such as they are) are simply divisive strategies designed by the evil masterminds at the DNC to exploit people's natural differences for political gain. But if that were true, we who were white kids in the 80s would have been told the truth about slavery, Joe Louis, Martin Luther King, the Detroit Riots, the Black Panthers and Rodney King when we were young. Instead, if by some mistake we actually read a book and found out the truth about some of these things, we were told that they were unfortunate stains on the character of an otherwise unimpeachable nation, but all that ugliness is safely in the past now so it no longer matters because this is America and everyone is equal. This is the line I was fed, because I am white. What I wonder is, what did they tell black kids?
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» RE: thanks
Posted by: kittykat
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Posted by: AdamSelene11726 on Oct 7, 2005 10:43 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Two men take a beating until one of them is beaten.
But the strangest thing of all is the racial passion the sport stirred up -- and you'd have thought that by the 1970s White People would have gotten over the idea that one man's superiority at fisticuffs was some indicator of who should clean whose bathrooms in this world ...
(I mean I can see cherishing the delusion that an African-American Ivy Leage college student lacks the inellectual capacity to play Quarterback Pro ball after he graduates. )
Yet there it is:
Remember Jerry Clooney ? (Just try googling him! )
But in 1982 he was the Great White Hope. The sports books were having trouble getting action on him at 10 and 15 to 1 ... but the night of the fight, there was no trouble getting barroom sucker bets at even money.
The moral of the story: don't make Class assumptions based on Race.
Clooney was hopelessly outclassed as a fighter, but the suckers bet on Race.
And if that doesn't explain how Nixon's Southern Strategy gave Reagan the White House ... I don't know what does.
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» It was Gerry Cooney and
Posted by: WhatNow?
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Posted by: Bbonnn on Oct 7, 2005 11:19 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Like the book excerpted here, it's less about the sporting events themselves, and more about the athletes as public figures, and how they became representations of much larger battles of race and identity being fought in society. Listening to the writings of famous figures like Jack London, who pinned his hopes on Jeffries to save the "white race," jolted me into the reality of blackness and whiteness at the turn of the century, even in supposedly less racist areas like San Francisco and the Northeast.
http://www.pbs.org/unforgivableblackness/
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» It is a great documentary.
Posted by: WhatNow?
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Posted by: RHouston on Oct 7, 2005 2:40 PM
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Comments are closed-
Posted by: WhatNow? on Oct 8, 2005 7:10 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
When watching the Burns' documentary I kept getting the impression that Johnson was not much appreciated by his own(black) people either, especially any that had any social standing. If he had gotten greater support from the more "affluent" blacks he may have had a better career and not turned to the bottle as much.
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» RE: Another interesting tidbit
Posted by: philame
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Posted by: Bill C on Oct 11, 2005 2:58 AM
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Comments are closed-
Posted by: zooeyhall on Oct 7, 2005 6:35 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As a footnote, Max Schmeling was anti-Nazi and was a friend of Louis until Louis' death, including helping to pay for his funeral and being a pall bearer. More on Schmeling can by found at www.wikipedia.org.
[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]
» RE: Jack Johnson story movie
Posted by: just thinkin
» RE: Jack Johnson story movie
Posted by: liberalibrarian
» RE: Jack Johnson story movie
Posted by: Richie the C
» RE: Jack Johnson story movie
Posted by: Richie the C
Comments are closed-
Posted by: david.model@senecac.on.ca on Oct 7, 2005 7:22 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In an attempt to appeal to his Christian Right and Neoconservative constituency Bush has give homophobia the presidential stamp of approval by calling for a constitutional amendment to ensure that only heterosexual couples can be legally married. According to Bush "The union of a man and a women is the most enduring human institution."
As in the debate on other importan issues, the President not only reveals his own homophobia but also his ignorance. The so-called "enduring human institution" is not only different in other cultures but has changed in our own culture.
In the 1950s, men and women married at an average age of about 23 whereas today, the average age is closer to 30. Many couples now decide not to marry at all but choose to live in a common-in-law relationship which in Canada, at least, is fully recognized and accepted by the courts and society. In the 1950s couples were expected to have children but today, many couples have opted for a childless marriage. Divorce was very rare in the 1950s and when it occured, there was a stigma attached to the woman. Today, over half of all marriages break up and single women do not suffer a stigma at all.
Where is the abiding, unchanging, rock-solid intstituion of marriage to which President Bush refers. His call for a constitutional amendment only adds fuel to the fire of discrimination of gays and lesbians. As with Blacks who were considered inferior, homosexuality is considered unnatural and abnormal. There are over 400 species of animals which have been known to have homosexual relations such as penguins, flamingos and African apes. The other important point to bear in mind is that the instituion of marriage is a social construct and not some universal unalterable institution handed down from some supreme being.
All this is beyond the reach of the President's intellect and so another group of people suffer at the hands of an ideological president whose context for any issue excludes history, sociology, philosophy, anthropology and biology. The Afghanis and Iraqis are a memorial to the limits of this president.
[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]
» RE: Marriage is the Latest Forum for Racism in America
Posted by: deha
» Dan Savage on Marriage Equality
Posted by: AdamSelene11726
» anti-gay feeling is the last acceptable prejudice in America
Posted by: zooeyhall
» excuse me
Posted by: kittykat
Comments are closed-
Posted by: okie11 on Oct 7, 2005 8:09 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]
» RE: jack johnson
Posted by: KILA
Comments are closed-
Posted by: owleyes on Oct 7, 2005 9:28 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There is a strange myth that racism is over. Conservatives sometimes say they think the civil rights movement (but not the Civil Rights Act) was necessary, and they are also thankful to the suffragettes. In the next breath, they will tell you they think that today's Black empowerment and feminist movements (such as they are) are simply divisive strategies designed by the evil masterminds at the DNC to exploit people's natural differences for political gain. But if that were true, we who were white kids in the 80s would have been told the truth about slavery, Joe Louis, Martin Luther King, the Detroit Riots, the Black Panthers and Rodney King when we were young. Instead, if by some mistake we actually read a book and found out the truth about some of these things, we were told that they were unfortunate stains on the character of an otherwise unimpeachable nation, but all that ugliness is safely in the past now so it no longer matters because this is America and everyone is equal. This is the line I was fed, because I am white. What I wonder is, what did they tell black kids?
[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]
» RE: thanks
Posted by: kittykat
Comments are closed-
Posted by: AdamSelene11726 on Oct 7, 2005 10:43 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Two men take a beating until one of them is beaten.
But the strangest thing of all is the racial passion the sport stirred up -- and you'd have thought that by the 1970s White People would have gotten over the idea that one man's superiority at fisticuffs was some indicator of who should clean whose bathrooms in this world ...
(I mean I can see cherishing the delusion that an African-American Ivy Leage college student lacks the inellectual capacity to play Quarterback Pro ball after he graduates. )
Yet there it is:
Remember Jerry Clooney ? (Just try googling him! )
But in 1982 he was the Great White Hope. The sports books were having trouble getting action on him at 10 and 15 to 1 ... but the night of the fight, there was no trouble getting barroom sucker bets at even money.
The moral of the story: don't make Class assumptions based on Race.
Clooney was hopelessly outclassed as a fighter, but the suckers bet on Race.
And if that doesn't explain how Nixon's Southern Strategy gave Reagan the White House ... I don't know what does.
[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]
» It was Gerry Cooney and
Posted by: WhatNow?
Comments are closed-
Posted by: Bbonnn on Oct 7, 2005 11:19 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Like the book excerpted here, it's less about the sporting events themselves, and more about the athletes as public figures, and how they became representations of much larger battles of race and identity being fought in society. Listening to the writings of famous figures like Jack London, who pinned his hopes on Jeffries to save the "white race," jolted me into the reality of blackness and whiteness at the turn of the century, even in supposedly less racist areas like San Francisco and the Northeast.
http://www.pbs.org/unforgivableblackness/
[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]
» It is a great documentary.
Posted by: WhatNow?
Comments are closed-
Posted by: RHouston on Oct 7, 2005 2:40 PM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]
Comments are closed-
Posted by: WhatNow? on Oct 8, 2005 7:10 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
When watching the Burns' documentary I kept getting the impression that Johnson was not much appreciated by his own(black) people either, especially any that had any social standing. If he had gotten greater support from the more "affluent" blacks he may have had a better career and not turned to the bottle as much.
[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]
» RE: Another interesting tidbit
Posted by: philame
Comments are closed-
Posted by: Bill C on Oct 11, 2005 2:58 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
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