African American
Related: About this forum"Muhammad Ali: Never the White Man’s Negro."
CASSIUS CLAY, born in 1942, was the grandson of a slave; in the United States of his boyhood and young manhood, the role of the black athlete, particularly the black boxer, was a forced self-effacement.
White male anxieties were, evidently, greatly roiled by the spectacle of the strong black man, and had to be assuaged. The greater the black boxer (Joe Louis, Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles), the more urgent that he assume a public role of caution and restraint. Kindly white men who advised their black charges to be a credit to their race were not speaking ironically.
And yet, the young Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali refused to play this emasculating role. He would not be the white mans Negro he would not be anything of the white mans at all. Converting to the Nation of Islam at the age of 22, immediately after winning the heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston, he denounced his slave name (Cassius Marcellus Clay, which was also his fathers name) and the Christian religion; in refusing to serve in the Army he made his political reasons clear: I aint got no quarrel with them Vietcong.
And yet, the young Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali refused to play this emasculating role. He would not be the white mans Negro he would not be anything of the white mans at all. Converting to the Nation of Islam at the age of 22, immediately after winning the heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston, he denounced his slave name (Cassius Marcellus Clay, which was also his fathers name) and the Christian religion; in refusing to serve in the Army he made his political reasons clear: I aint got no quarrel with them Vietcong.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/06/opinion/muhammad-ali-never-the-white-mans-negro.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
Kind of Blue
(8,709 posts)I was going to post starting with the last paragraph
Ali had long ago transcended his own origins and his own specific identity. As hed once said: Boxing was nothing. It wasnt important at all. Boxing was just meant as a way to introduce me to the world.
Wow, if I could learn to live half that truth of just BEing I'd die happy.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,705 posts)The paradox is though he was unapologetically and unabashedly black he loved everybody regardless of race, religion or creed... Think about that. Why? Because he was so comfortable in his own skin.
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)Love his statement, and your analysis of it.
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)So confident. Yeah, I wish I could be him.
Kind of Blue
(8,709 posts)Sometimes hard to keep firm in our mental states but never hard to find and model with Ali as an example. Here's to a life well lived
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)Kind of Blue
(8,709 posts)beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)a brash smart confident black american at a time white america didn't see any color but white
ismnotwasm
(41,921 posts)brer cat
(24,402 posts)Number23
(24,544 posts)And when Ali turned his back on the Vietnam war, they should qualify that by saying WHITE crowds and WHITE people booed. It only made (most) black people love him more.
YoungDemCA
(5,714 posts)And for that, we can be eternally grateful.
RIP to a giant.