It started with the basics. The man I saw defeated that night had been arguably the greatest boxer of all time. But there is more to Muhammad Ali than just what happened in the ring. He rose up from the streets of Louisville to win an Olympic championship on the other side of the world, then came home with a gold medal around his neck that wasn't good enough to get him served at a whites-only restaurant in his hometown. There have been two brief moments in my life when I've had a glimpse of what it's like to be a minority in White America, once when people wouldn't stop staring when I was out with a Filipina, and another time at the store when I was accused of being Jewish like it was some sort of horrible crime. Both times pissed me off like you wouldn't believe. So while I'll never understand what it's like to put up with that kind of crap 24/7, I do understand why that gold medal was thrown into the Ohio River.Why Muhammad didn't take it anymore. He didn't have to. He was young and strong and didn't have to cower to the power in order to survive.
He didn't have to accept the religion of his taunters. He found his own.
He didn't have to become a cog in the machine of the American Empire, and did not accept being inducted into their armed forces. "I ain't got no quarrel with the Vietcong. No Vietcong ever called me Nigger." he said, capturing the entire decade of the 60's in fourteen words.
Not that it was easy. His stand ensured that he would have to endure all that the power could throw at him. What would have been his best years in the ring were taken away when he was stripped of his boxing license. He was hated, despised, loathed and held to be the most contemptuous figure on the planet by all the redneck masses brainwashed into thinking they had a stake in the power structure of the status quo. People like my father, who cheered every time Muhammad Ali took a blow.
Except Muhammad was strong and the blows couldn't break him. "What's my name!!" he taunted an opponent who insisted on calling him Cassius Clay. "What's my name!!" he shouted to the man he refused to knock out in order to continue the punishment for a full fifteen rounds.
His was name was Muhammad Ali, and when he was allowed to finally resume earning a living, he found George Foreman in his path. Foreman was younger, bigger, and had absolutely destroyed opponents the now over the hill Ali had barely beaten. Finally, the redneck establishment would get their wish. Muhammad Ali would at last be beaten into submission. Everyone knew he couldn't best Foreman in a physical match.
Including Ali, who outsmarted Foreman and had him lying on the canvas after eight rounds.
Best.
Fight.
Ever.
The 60's were a fading memory by then, and Ali's history was soon to be the subject of revision. When it became conventional wisdom that Vietnam had been a mistake and that the overt racism of that era was a blot on the history of this country, Ali went from reviled to popular to....by the time it was time to light the torch to start the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, revered.
And he forgave us. Muhammad Ali stood up for what was right and fought and held strong against all the force society could throw against him, and when that society finally realized, but never really admitted, that he had been right all along, he forgave us. A very Christian like move. There are many Christians who could learn a thing or two from Muhammad Ali.
That's why I keep a picture of him by the desk where I do my writing. When I feel spent and the weight of the world is ready to wear me out, sometimes I look at that picture and hope one day I can have half the character and strength and wisdom of Muhammad Ali.
Who went on later that year to regain his title from Leon Spinks. Much to the frustration of my father.
3 comments:
I never knew much about Muhammad Ali until my wife sat me down to watch When We Were Kings. I walked away from that with a profound respect for the man, as an athlete and as a human being. His integrity and courage, inside and outside of the ring, is an inspiration to us all.
I have respected Ali for quite some time now. Everything you've said is what I've felt since I was introduced to boxing in Jr. High.
He stood up for what was right, and history has told us such.
I have the Adidas poster of that picture hanging up in my room, with the heading "Impossible is nothing".
Every time I see it I feel a little better about this world. I make up occasional excuses to walk into my room to keep my spirits up.
Hard to say what I knew about Mohammed Ali--heck I didn't even have an opinion about Cassius Clay since I didn't cotton to boxers, thinking the contenders were participants in a primitive sort of brutal 'sport'.
Over the past several decades, my level of respect for some boxers has risen a little higher considering most are not paying for pain medicine on Medicaid.
If time is kind enough to boxers that they are not dead before the biography is out, one realizes these fellow human beings have redeeming qualities as most of us do especially after reading about motivation, training discipline, struggles, promoters, and after learning something of the personal lives of popular greats like Sugar Ray, George Foreman, Mike Tyson, and Joe Frazier.
I am not an authority on the 60s in the south for sure, but I do realize some collective guilt about the 'wink, wink, nod, nod' and not standing up to the less blatant and more insidious other types of racism, prejudice, and intolerances by undereducated 'professionals' who SHOULD know better: public servants, radio personalities, newswriters, politicians, government workers, physicians, etc. and occasionally fellow pharmacists.
I will NEVER forget a late '80s experience in residency when students of pharmacy and medicine attended lectures and presented cases together and hearing a medical graduate talk about a case of a patient with AIDS, and other presentations about children in families receiving State Medical Aid, limited cancer treatment availability, and widespread general acceptance of the death of Vincent Chin and Yoshi Hattori.
Post a Comment