This was a full page headline on BBC News earlier today as well.
Muhammad Ali has died
141–150 of 191 posts
Re: Muhammad Ali has died
#142"During my more than 50 years in the public eye, I have met hundreds of renowned celebrities, artists, athletes, and world leaders. But only a handful embodied the self-sacrificing and heroic qualities that defined my friend and mentor, Muhammad Ali. A master of self-promotion, he declared early in his boxing career, I am the greatest! This kind of boasting enraged many people, just as he’d hoped, ensuring a large audience that just wanted to see this upstart boy taught a lesson.
But it was Muhammad who taught the lesson because, as he once said, It’s not bragging if you can back it up. And back it up, he did. Again and again. And not just in the ring. Part of Muhammad’s greatness was his ability to be different things to different people. To sports fans he was an unparalleled champion of the world, faster and smarter than any heavyweight before. To athletes, he was a model of physical perfection and shrewd business acumen. To the anti-establishment youth of the 1960s, he was a defiant voice against the Vietnam War and the draft. To the Muslim community, he was a pious pioneer testing America’s purported religious tolerance. To the African-American community, he was a black man who faced overwhelming bigotry the way he faced every opponent in the ring: fearlessly. At a time when blacks who spoke up about injustice were labeled uppity and often arrested under one pretext or another, Muhammad willingly sacrificed the best years of his career to stand tall and fight for what he believed was right. In doing so, he made all Americans, black and white, stand taller. I may be 7’2" but I never felt taller than when standing in his shadow.
Today we bow our heads at the loss of a man who did so much for America. Tomorrow we will raise our heads again remembering that his bravery, his outspokenness, and his sacrifice for the sake of his community and country lives on in the best part of each of us."
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Re: Muhammad Ali has died
#143This was a full page headline on BBC News earlier today as well.
He was very popular in the UK, as a result of his fight with Harry Cooper and his appearances on Michael Parkinson's chat show over the years.
Re: Muhammad Ali has died
#144He is a man who have a heart that bigger than his fists. “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave maste…
Do leftists love him or hate him? On the one hand there is that quote you just posted, but on the other there is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Y693cSF7E
You can define leftist to mean basically whatever you want, so you can probably answer your own question.
Re: Muhammad Ali has died
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well he also said that Jews are devils, the mixing of the races is an abomination and that homosexuality is a white man’s disease.
Do you have aa citation?
Muhammad Ali on Race Mixing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_QoxMhHTIg
Re: Muhammad Ali has died
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's widely known: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJu8sVWQ-wk
The full quote refers to all whites. I agree it is inappropriate by today's standards, but a black man saying whites are the devil in 1969? I mean...
Ali's friend, Malcolm X, hardly an "Uncle Tom" - as Ali disgracefully called another friend he betrayed, Joe Frazier - had turned away from the anti-white racism of the NOI by the early 60s (and been killed by the NOI as a result), so what's so special about 1969 that excuses a supposedly intelligent man continuing to mindlessly parrot their inane racist beliefs?
Re: Muhammad Ali has died
#147He is a man who have a heart that bigger than his fists. “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave maste…
Well he also said that Jews are devils, the mixing of the races is an abomination and that homosexuality is a white man’s disease.
Upvoted.
This is an important thing to acknowledge about “heroes” and “role models.” People are complicated. Their relationship with the society that shaped them is complicated, their relationship with society fifty, one hundred, or centuries later is even more complicated.
I do not excuse Muhammad Ali’s views on certain subjects because he was amazing in other respects. I don’t give an overall score. I admire and respect certain things he said and did, I politely disagree with other things he said and did, and I reject outright certain things he said and did.
I still feel he is “The Greatest,” but I do not pretend he was perfect, and if you conjured him up today in full possession of his speech and mental faculties, I would not hesitate to argue with him about issues like homosexuality.
I’d do the same thing with MLK. I’d harangue George Washington about owning slaves. I empathize with how they might have formed their views. I understand how the forces of their times and experienced helped shape their perspective. But empathizing with them does not mean agreeing with them.
It’s essential to see the whole person and avoid falling into a simple black/white/good/bad/progressive/conservative trap. And it’s essential to disentangle empathy from agreement or endorsement.
Re: Muhammad Ali has died
#148He is a man who have a heart that bigger than his fists. “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave maste…
Well he also said that Jews are devils, the mixing of the races is an abomination and that homosexuality is a white man’s disease.
He said that before he converted to Islam, while he was a part of Nation of Islam (which is not Islam at all). Nation of Islam also teaches you that all White people are Devils (not just Jews), and that Fard Mohammed is God, and a bunch of other stuff that has nothing to do with Islam (since worshipping anything/anyone other than Allah is shirk, a sin that sends you to hell if you don't repent from it before you die).
Re: Muhammad Ali has died
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that video is from his training in Africa for the George Foreman fight. it might be in this movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_We_Were_Kings It's a great documentary.
Yes, it is. A great film, recommended. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfUHYUpmTFs It shows Ali and Foreman in preparation for their fight in Zaire/Congo (the famous 'rumble in the jungle' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rumble_in_the_Jungle ). You can see the clever Ali blend in with the local population, winning their hearts and their cheers. Ali won the combeback fight against the younger, much stronger…
[deleted]
Re: Muhammad Ali has died
#150He is a man who have a heart that bigger than his fists. “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave maste…
Do leftists love him or hate him? On the one hand there is that quote you just posted, but on the other there is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Y693cSF7E
Please don't create many obscure throwaway accounts on HN.
This forum is a community. Anonymity is fine, but users should have some consistent identity that other users can relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community at all, and that would be an entirely different forum.