He 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 masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.”
I grew up in Louisville in the 60's and can attest to the poor state of race relations there.
My white grandparents had a house in the middle of the black part of town. And when I say "black" I mean except for my grandparents and my family, we never saw another white person anywhere close to their house, when we visited. We'd make the trip from the suburbs to their house every Sunday to take them food and hang out on the porch, in good weather, or the living room in bad weather. They were in their 80's and had lived in that house for 50+ years, and they saw no reason to leave. They and their neighbors were dirt poor.
As a kid, the difference between were I lived and this place I visited once a week was striking. It shaped how I felt about poor people and race relations, in general. The weird thing is that when I went there, that neighborhood felt more comfortable and friendly to me than mine in the burbs.
I remember when Ali refused to be drafted. There was a lot of anger in our home town. It help me form my feelings toward war and service. I don't think that internal dialog would have happened had he not done what he did.
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.
I want to add one thing. People change their views. For example, the majority of the US population went from against to pro marriage equality. Washington never would have altered his views on slavery, because society did not evolve during his lifetime. However, much changed in Ali's lifetime. He might no longer believe the things he said in his 20s. I hope no one judges me by all of the stupid things I said in my 20s.
he actually quoted the Bible and said "Jews and gentiles are devils", according to the context of the interview in which he said it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJu8sVWQ-wk
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).
I think if give the conversation where these came from another listen, you'll agree that your summary of his statements doesn't really capture the truth of the man.
I'm not sure about when he said what, but Muhammad Ali first joined the so-called Nation of Islam, then was introduced to Islam by Malcolm X (also a former NOI member).
Not quite, but you're right; he was far from perfect. He cheated on his wife numerous times as well, and many of his views changed as he grew older.
I think we can look up to what he did right and still acknowledge that he was flawed like the rest of us. I hope no one judges me solely by the things I did when I was in my twenties.
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?
I don't know about Frazier, but on Malcolm X, Ali said:
Ali: Turning my back on Malcolm was one of the mistakes that I regret most in my life. I wish I’d been able to tell Malcolm I was sorry, that he was right about so many things. But he was killed before I got the chance. He was a visionary ahead of us all.
…I might never have become a Muslim if it hadn’t been for Malcolm. If I could go back and do it over again, I would never have turned my back on him.
He had been treated poorly by whites his entire life. I'm sure you can appreciate how that would affect a person. He was also very young and became more tempered as he grew older.
I'm sure you can appreciate that you know absolutely nothing about how Muhammed Ali was treated by whites his entire life.
Simply assuming that he was treated badly and therefore justified in his blanket discrimination towards others is academically lazy and ethically unacceptable.
I'm not assuming anything; has life has been documented time and time again. We information from him personally, those who knew him, and we know exactly what Louisville Kentucky was like during his lifetime. Are you saying that unless I was there personally I know "absolutely nothing" about his life? Get real and get over yourself.
Ali was my favorite sports figure as a child and remains so. I have consumed everything I can find about the guy. I'm willing to bet I know more than you on the matter, but if I don't, why don't you share some of your insights with us as well as the rest of the world?
>academically lazy and ethically unacceptable
Yeesh. I'm not sure what 'academic and ethical' standards you believe people on a forum should be held to, but again; get over yourself. I'm sure you think you're being extremely clever and deep with your comments here, but in reality you're adding absolutely nothing to the conversation with your overly pedantic comments which show nothing but your ignorance of history.
I also find it pretty hilarious that you seem to have created a throwaway account purely to comment in this thread.
>you know absolutely nothing about how Muhammed Ali was treated by whites his entire life
This rebuttal only has merit if you're being pedantically literal.
Surely, you're aware of the prevailing racial conditions in the U.S. and Louisville in particular during Ali's upbringing and beyond. He was, by definition, treated badly by an entire system that was not set up by black people, yet overtly oppressed black people.
Surely, you're aware of how the conditions of the time would have impacted Ali himself, his family, and those in his community. Surely, you can see how members of such a community might feel some anger and resentment.
What's lazy here is your pedantic use of demagoguery to make enlightened-sounding, but vapid statements that berate others for some supposed discrimination that exists only in a willfully myopic bubble of your own creation.
"People saying this is racist are misunderstanding that the problem with racism is not just some words, it's the power balance dynamic that backs them.
A black man saying white people are the devil, has no power to actually do much damage, even in 2016. A white man saying that black man is the devil, has during our history been able to: imprison the person on trumped up charges, have their family bought and sold, beaten often to death, hung them, tar and feather, run them out of town, and refuse them housing.
To pretend that there is an equality between two statements from people of different skin colors in current and past american society is to be willfully blind to the difference between them."
Ali was of little education, easily manipulated, and certainly was not an ideological leader to any degree.
Those words are sourced from the concepts of Elijah Muhammed, Louis Farrakhan, Malcolm X and others.
Its fine to repeat Ali's words here...but lets not misconstrue them as original ideas or Ali as anything other than a follower and a mouthpiece fueled by his own anger issues.
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.
You already listed the upsides. I'm taking the opposite stance, of course I'll list downsides.
In any case, HN doesn't feel like it has an individual-driven community, at least compared to Reddit. I'm hard pressed to name any users on this site. That might be more a reflection on me - I come here to read about interesting topics, and I have more interest in the message than the speaker.
Incidentally, how many HN users can you name? (I'm genuinely curious)
I didn't list all the upsides, just the executive summary :) But for sure there are multiple legitimate views about how best to set up an internet forum. Nevertheless HN is set up the way I described and we're not going to change it.
Re names: No idea, but more than it would be worth taking the time to try listing. I'm the wrong person to ask, though, since it's my job to monitor HN.
Crazy idea, but maybe there are individual people that have a spectrum of political and social beliefs that don’t neatly fit into “left” and “right.” Maybe the world isn’t so starkly bipartisan as you suggest. And maybe such people have a variety of complex feelings about people that don’t neatly fit into “love” and “hate.”
Maybe, just maybe, binary thinking is the exact opposite of being a Hacker. Maybe it’s a crutch, an excuse for not seeing the world as it really is, or a rhetorical device for steering discussions away from truth and towards an end someone is trying to socially engineer.
To me, this is why he will always be “The Greatest.” Not his feet or his fists or his showmanship, but his humanity:
Zawadzki picked Ali up at Pearson International and they were on their way
downtown when Ali asked Zawadzki, the son of Polish immigrants, about his
family. The Etobicoke native mentioned to the former three-time world
heavyweight champion of the world that his mom Wanda had spent years in a slave
labour camp during the Second World War.
“Suddenly, he said he wanted to meet her,” said Zawadzki. “So even though we
were already halfway downtown, we turned around. When we walked into our condo,
Muhammad walked up to my mom, gave her a big hug, and the two of them sat
together, and talked and hugged for a good 45 minutes. She told him all about
her experiences in the camp.”
“When you walked away from Muhammad Ali, you were a better human.”—Ed Zawadzki
"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."
After reading the NYT's obit for him, all I can think of is, wow, what a full life and long journey. Being born after his competitive career, all I mostly hear about is how he was "The Greatest", but not so much about his losses and his comebacks.
Damn...whenever I watch boxing movies like Rocky, I always think the action and power look so fake compared to what you normally see when watching broadcast boxing fights. But I guess if you grew up watching videos of Ali, you'd have a higher expectation of razzle-dazzle.
I wonder if is now ingrained in boxing training to move like that -- no one notices a big difference like they did with Ali because everyone is trained to move like that. Looking back through the videos I have to think that none of the heavyweight boxers move like that today. I wonder if there will be a renaissance in boxing where you have a whole generation of boxers moving like Ali. Does anyone follow boxing? Can anyone comment on how Ali influenced the state of boxing generations later?
Sadly, boxing as a sport has much declined since Ali's day, and especially in recent years. In particular, the heavyweight division has been found most acutely lacking for some time.
However, you are correct that heavyweights don't and have not typically "moved like that". Even those who were relatively fast and defensively gifted (e.g. a young Tyson) didn't move as poetically.
He moved like a boxer of a much lower weight class and, beyond even that, he moved like Ali. Graceful. Fluid. Quick. Rhythmic. Instinctive. Check out some of his highlights on YouTube. There are entire sequences during which he defied opponents to hit him through head/upper body movement alone. Hands are low and movement is so fast and well-timed that it seems to predict his opponent's next move. It's as if he is training his opponent to punch wherever he moves his head, and his opponent is reacting to him vs. the other way around.
And, this is to say nothing of his footwork. He glided without effort and the mechansim by which he changed direction was almost imperceptible. It seemed that he was being guided on a wire versus using his legs. Back then, it was amazing to see a man his size (or any) move like that, and it would be just as much so today.
At 1:21 and 1:35, Ali does this shuffle thing with his feet.
How does one do that? I just tried it, and I can't imagine how I would move my feet that rapidly even with extensive training. I'm pretty lanky. Would it be easier to foot-shuffle if I had Ali's build? Or would it be even harder because of his mass.
And does this maneuver have a name? It seems like he does it when he's winding up for a jab combo. To make his punches unpredictable. Am I reading his movements correctly?
One thing people underestimate about boxing is how much training goes into the feet movement. Any boxer at that level can do things with their feet that is pretty baffling. Training your feet and calfs in boxing is extensive. That said one of the things that made Ali so astounding is that for a big guy he was super light on his feet.
That foot shuffle doesn't have a name, and he isn't doing it for a tactical advantage. He's showing off. Nearly anyone else on the planet who tried it would have a coach in there ear ripping them a new one. But you know, the greatest of all time gets to do things others can't.
Oh, I do think the shuffle had tactical advantages beyond showing off. It's demoralizing to the opponent, it serves as a distraction, and it's so unorthodox that it momentarily leaves opponents wondering what's coming next. He frequently threw (and landed) off of a shuffle, even if not to devastating effect.
But, I agree that it would drive most trainers nuts for any other boxer. And, yeah, Ali's gifts and confidence made it possible for him to get away with a lot of the kind of stuff that would drive trainers crazy (including Dundee early on). For, instance, consistently carrying his hands so low violated a Golden Rule of boxing and keeping the hands up is one of the first things kids are taught about the sport.
Later, he fashioned the rope a dope and other techniques to compensate for his then diminished speed.
Kind of reminds me of Bruce Lee. Improvise. Create. Take what your opponent gives you.
Yeah, he made the "Ali Shuffle" look easy! He was one of those people who seemed almost "engineered" for a specific sport. I'm no kinesiologist, but I'm guessing the secret to his speed--including that shuffle--was related to insanely tuned fast-twitch muscle fibers.
It's the same muscle fiber type that provides the explosive power and acceleration that give many basketball players their impressive vertical leaping abilities.
These muscles can also be further developed to some extent, and he was also a really hard worker. Amazingly, he later declared that he hated every second of his training, but knew it's what he had to do.
Boxing is in a bit of a vicious cycle and has been for some time. During Ali's prime boxing was more popular generally. It was a mainstream sport that lots of people watched. It was also going through a golden era with regard to talent especially at the heavy weight level. There was Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Liston all fighting at the same time which of course amplified the popularity.
Now boxing doesn't have any of the all time greats boxing and its less popular, meaning its unlikely to have greats start boxing again. Add in how much less acceptable head injuries are in sports, the decline of youth boxing in the USA and the rise of MMA and it is unlikely we will see boxing be anything more than it is now, an occasional big fight for a couple of top contenders and not a lot else that makes it into the general mainstream.
As for moving like that, part of it is that bigger guys more generally move better than they used to so the difference isn't as pronounced but its also Ali being special.
I wonder if the drop in popularity has to do with title bouts moving to pay per view. I've never been interested enough to pay to watch but if it was on network, I probably would have...
I would imagine it's something that worked at the time, because it successfully exploited the slow, static movement of his opponents, but today it's probably "priced in" as a possibility with known correct countering, so that people don't actually use it anymore. Like a rare chess opening that was once used successfully until people figured out how to deal with it later in the game.
Steroids were legal and veeery prevalent during these days. They increase athletes endurance and ability to take blows immensely. Boxers could get flash knocked down multiple times and still come back and win the fight. Fights like Ali vs Foreman and a lot of other fights considered best of the century are just impossible without steroids.
Can any boxing expert explain how he can be that fast? Is it a practice + muscle memory + probablistic decision or is his reaction time that good? Is he anticipating the punches or reacting to them individually?
I'm not a boxing expert, so take this with a pinch of salt. But I expect he uses the same techniques that Bruce Lee advocated in Jeet Kune Do [1], which is about looking for the tiny trigger movements of your opponent and reacting before they've even started really moving (if you look in that video, he sometimes moves out of the way of a punch that doesn't come); probably combined with selling the opponent a 'dummy' to tempt them into making a known move.
If you are relaxed and trained you can dodge the punches because it takes time for them to reach you.
You really have to be aware of what is happening though, it's hard to learn not to flinch/close your eyes when the hand is flying to you. But if you are completely relaxed and see it coming, with good footwork and balance you can dodge many of them. You don't actually have to move your head that much, it's just the tiniest distance that will take you away from the trajectory of the punch. The thing with punches is that once you throw a punch, you can't really change its direction or it will lose most of the momentum and speed... That's why it's possible to dodge them, because they fly into particular spot and you can just move away.
It's important because it lets you counter instantly. You can only really hit somebody when they are exposed, meaning not holding the guard - so when they are punching. If you were to block the punch with your hands, you couldn't react as quickly because your hands wouldn't be in the ready position. It's really good skill to have but takes years and years of practice to develop.
Sad day. A video that probably won't be played very often, but might be special to this crowd: a 1997 Apple commercial staring The Greatest, during their Think Different campaign.
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 Foreman in a way nobody had predicted, leaning into the ropes and taking a lot of beating to his upper body, while giving short, fast hits on Foremans head. After 2/3 of the fight Foreman was completely out of fuel and Ali gave him one legendary, sudden last punch, and the giant tumbled down.
Muhammad Ali is something we won't allow public figures to be anymore. Being outspoken and standing up for his beliefs, against all repercussions, were his his greatest feat(s). I hope, over all else, his contributions to the human spirit reign over the rest of us. We need another (dozen) Cassius Clays.
Ali wasn't "allowed" anything. He lost his livelihood for roughly a third of his athletic prime for standing up for his beliefs. He faced constant racism and bigotry. He was viewed as a bad guy by most of the country for much of his early career. Many people even refused to call him Muhammad Ali including other African American boxers. He persevered and became popular through shear will, determination, charisma, and talent, not because anyone allowed him to be that way.
I think he's correct in the choice of the word "allowed" - yes, he had to fight for his beliefs, very hard fights, but he lived in a society that still valued individual struggle and determination, and that in the end rewarded it with success. Otherwise he couldn't have achieved what he has achieved. It's at least debatable if in today's softer world somebody who gets out and tells everybody that he's the greatest would still be "allowed" to earn reputation that way. I would argue that competing for victimhood status has become the prevalent approved strategy rather than fighting for your cause.
"somebody who gets out and tells everybody that he's the greatest would still be "allowed" to earn reputation that way"
Golden age fallacy?
Off the top of my head, here are few people who fit that description in various ways and who seem to be doing quite well, despite today's "softer world":
Donald Trump, Kanye West, Peter Thiel
Also, softer world? He faced constant death threats. Also: "Almost as quickly as Ali had arrived, his World Boxing Association heavyweight title was gone, revoked after he claimed conscientious objector status in refusing the draft. He also was stripped of his passport and all of his boxing licenses. He faced a five-year prison term after losing an initial court battle defending his objection to serving in a war that he called "despicable and unjust."
Ali lost the chance at tens of millions of dollars in endorsements while appealing his case to the U.S. Supreme Court."
I take offense to the idea of the "golden age fallacy".
Let's constrain fallacies to actual logical mistakes.
Some things actually have had a golden age -- e.g. for bebop it can be fairly accurately be told to be certain decades, and it's not wrong to point to that to say that things are not the same anymore.
(And even if individual outliers might produce an X equivalent to a "golden era of X" artifact, statistically it would still be true to say that now it's not like the golden era of X, if less such works are produced in total and even less consumed and appreciated -- e.g. if I make a great "Miami Bass" tune, it wont mean that the late eights weren't the "golden age" of Miami Bass).
In fact the golden age is so much not a fallacy, that is a valid historical construct (e.g. for Roman democracy the golden age was so and so centuries -- no ifs and buts about it).
Also, this idea of a "soft world" is contradictory. Your claim seems to be that back in the day, because things were less "soft", Ali was allowed to be more self expressive. Yet, it's precisely this "soft world" which promotes the kind of diversity which, for example, would make Ali's conversion to Islam far less of a controversial issue today.
>> "It's at least debatable if in today's softer world somebody who gets out and tells everybody that he's the greatest would still be "allowed" to earn reputation that way."
I don't think it's debatable at all. Just look at Mayweather or Conor McGregor. Both spend most of their time telling everyone how great they are and people are fine with that, as long as, like Ali, they back it up with results.
>but he lived in a society that still valued individual struggle and determination
If you believe throwing someone in Jail at the prime of his career, on top of other atrocities he fought through his career while he had to stand up for himself is "society valuing individual struggle and determination", then I believe you need to sit down and open a dictionary. This is some amazing revisionist history.
That's only because of his exceptional achievements. A normal human being, standing up for his beliefs in that period, would not have had the same treatment.
>It's at least debatable if in today's softer world somebody who gets out and tells everybody that he's the greatest would still be "allowed" to earn reputation that way.
> Ali wasn't "allowed" anything. He lost his livelihood for roughly a third of his athletic prime for standing up for his beliefs. He faced constant racism and bigotry.
Joe Frazier supported Ali financially when he was unable to box and supported the restoration of Ali's licence.
"The greatest" [sic], who for reasons you have stated should have been more aware than most about racism and abuse, paid back this great friend who supported him while others persecuted him in the most foul, racist ways (Ali had links to the KKK and gave at least one speech to a KKK rally), calling Frazier an "Uncle Tom" and a "gorilla".
This post obviously won't go down well with Ali fanboys who only accept the hype and mythology and who don't want unfortunate facts about Ali getting any wider exposure, but Ali's reprehensible treatment of Frazier was so egregiously appalling - even had Frazier not been such a decent and loyal supporter of Ali - it should not be hidden, forgotten or excused, any more than the persecution Ali faced should be.
Anyone who hasn't seen it should check out HBO's brilliant documentary from a few years back, centred around the Thrilla in Manila. It's on Youtube:
From the same article, "One of Ali's greatest regrets — and he said as much — is that he never patched things up with Malcolm, that he never told Malcolm how important he was to him."
His regrets after Malcom X was dead were warranted, and doesn't excuse his betrayal. What matters is how you treat someone when they're alive, not what your sentiments are after their death.
It's been several years since I read Malcolm X's autobiography, but he did specifically talk about his relationship with Ali and what happened, which was the real basis of my comment. Malcolm's depiction of the events is much more negative from my recollection. I just provided the above link instead, since I wasn't able to find an excerpt from the book.
Not sure why my previous comment was voted down, given that it was both true and on topic. I can only assume someone would prefer to keep their hero on a pedestal rather than admit everyone has their flaws.
Same reason mine was. Tedious and predictable Ali fanboys.
It's really nice that he finally got around to expressing some kind of weak regret decades after the event - as if the only reason he didn't apologise at the time was Malcolm got himself killed just before he could do so ("he was killed before I got the chance").
The reality is Ali spent a decade after Malcolm's death fully endorsing and promoting the very organisation that murdered him (after they'd found their replacement mouthpiece, from a sport they had zero respect for, and prior to Ali had zero time for).
> Muhammad Ali is something we won't allow public figures to be anymore. Being outspoken and standing up for his beliefs, against all repercussions, were his his greatest feat(s).
What? You think current public figures are being prevented from being out spoken? Have you seen 50cent's twitter? Have you seen Donald Trump's? Lots of people are being out spoken, maybe more than I personally like, but whatever floats their boat.
There's a big difference between Trump's blowhard populism and Muhammad Ali's firm, unpopular beliefs. Trump says things with no filter, with utter disregard for their meaning, consequence, or congruence with the last thing he said. I respect him for having the guts to be stream of consciousness and throwing out each thought, but he's not, in any of his campaign, stating policy, but just this thought process.
Muhammad Ali had much to say. He was an outspoken civil rights supporter, anti draft activist, and convert to Islam, and a true believer in all those thoughts even when the majority of the country, even his fans, were against his positions. Hell, I'm against two of the three of those, and I still respect him enormously. He had a well spoken, eloquent, and coherent speaking style. He made you understand what his precepts were, how they shaped his philosophy, and he came to conclusions that you could respect. He wasn't simply outspoken, he was a good orator and a philosopher.
There's a great interview with him in The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. Tom Wolfe is not his intended audience, but is utterly enthralled. He comes across as genuine, progressive (in a meaning of that word that is positive), and concerned with his fellow man (if intending to be insular in parts of his philosophy.) He's no saint, but one of the most genuine people in the stardom limelight.
> My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn't put no dogs on me, they didn't rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father... Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.
I'm not comparing Muhammad Ali to these people. I'm refuting that public people aren't allowed to be outspoken. Muhammad Ali maybe had more meaningful things to say and said them well but lots of public people are outspoken on all kinds of things.
People are talking about being firm in your beliefs and being outspoken about them, not being a troll on Twitter/Instagram (50 cent) or making purposefully incendiary comments (Trump)
Nobody allowed him to be this at the time either. It was not easier in any way. He just had the gut to do it.
In France we had some old celebrity known for their very funny yet inapropriate one man show. Everybody said that he would not be able to do the same today. Well, all his friends responded, at the time neither. He got sued. Threaten. Physically and financially attacked.
Disruption is always hard. And eventually others benefit more from it than you do.
His words were met, in the media, with challenge. Having his words even echoed was a feat in and of itself. You or I could not replicate his feat as we don't have the stage. People hinged on his every word because of his prowess in a field people could understand. Guys like LeBron James and Michael Phelps are the only folks who could garner the same level of respect in the here and now, but the field has changed, there's too much money at risk...
People don't hinge on words (although their lives may); they hang on them. The idiom is "case in point", meaning "here is an example in furtherance of my argument."
Yes, that may seem like nitpicking, but whether it's fair and logical or not, people will at least partially base their assessment of your message (or argument, or what have you) on the language you use to convey it.
What I mean is that the only known way to produce a Muhammad Ali is to start with a Cassius Clay, even though there is an important distinction between them.
Can you imagine the repercussions today for a sportsman or woman who said something like[0]:
"no intelligent white person watching this show, or no intelligent white man in his or her right white mind, want black boys and black girls marrying their white sons and daughters, and in return introducing their grandchildren as half brown, kinky haired black people"
"It ain’t sad because I want my child to look like me, every intelligent person wants their child to look like them, I’m sad because I want to blot out my race and lose my identity? Chinese love Chinese they love the little slanty eye, pretty brown skin babies. Pakistani love their culture, Jewish people love their culture, a lot of catholic wanna be with Catholics and want the religion to stay the same… who would want to spot up yourself and kill your race? You’re a hater of your people if you don’t want to stay who you are. You ashamed of what god made you? You think he made a mistake when he made you?"
If you want to understand Ali's genius then I highly recommend When We Were Kings, an Oscar-winning documentary about Ali's 'Rumble in the Jungle'.
After watching it, I finally understood that he wasn't just another athlete with a big ego and mouth, but a brilliant, courageous competitor, far beyond the rest.
For as beautiful as it was to watch him box, it is even more beautiful to watch him and Howard Cosell interact. The two of them were a pair, and Cosell was one of the first if not the first to acknowledge his name change. Cosell also stood by him when he decided to be a conscientious objector.
It lasts only 8 minutes. The opponent is clearly a slugger who is baffled by Ali's style. Ali moves very fast, and fights with his gloves down. I'm not a fan of boxing, but she's right, that fight is an amazing spectacle.
He was a really smart dude. The way he marketed himself was I think the first of his kind.
Plus he won some of his fights even before stepping in through the ring by getting into his opponents head. Just imagine Ali going to your yard a few days before the match in the middle of the night with a loud speaker
There's a couple of people in here still referring to Ali as Cassius Clay or Mr. Clay. He's quite clear in this excellent interview talking about racism [1] that Clay was a slave name and he was now a free man and wants to be called Muhammad Ali.
> "How would a Chinese look named 'Robert Smith'?"
He was one of my favorite folks in the world.A very good man.I often read his words for inspiration.He will be missed.
"A man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted thirty years of his life."
"Champions aren't made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them: a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill."
"He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life."
"It's lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself."
It would be hard for someone who did not grow up in the '70s to understand the huge cultural influence of Muhammad Ali. The kids next door were African-American and my younger brother and I watched several of the Ali matches. He was strong, fast, smart, and good looking. He was outspoken and opinionated. He was a different kind of black man than what was portrayed in movies or on TV. He was revered by us kids at the time. If I knew nothing more than what I witnessed in the boxing ring he would still have been revered. But of course there was much more to Muhammad Ali than boxing.
I don't think any athlete will ever match Ali's impact. He could get into see anybody. The US State department used him as back door conduit to pass messages.
He was a big fan of basketball. He had a house outside Benton Harbor on Lake Michigan is the southwest part of the state near Indiana. Someone passed word to the coach of the Michigan State Spartans that Ali was a fan of the team. Coach Izzo arranged for him to attend a game each year.
To make America the greatest is my goal, so I beat the Russian and I beat the Pole. And for the USA won the medal of gold. The Greeks said you're better than the Cassius of old.' - He said this quote after he won the Olympic light-heavyweight gold medal at the 1960 Games in Rome
Pretty amazing for an 18 year old .. if a bit Trump-like.
It's all about perspective. Trump should jump on this because in spirit they're alike; at least when it comes to a duty to succeed as a nation by vanquishing others with competitive success.
A sad day. He was an inspiration for American youth for 3 decades and being a 3 time heavy weight champion when he was active. RIP, the world has lost a champion
Muhammad Ali was so popular in the 1970's that they made a (not so good) Saturday morning cartoon about him, back when most people were only watching 3 network TV channels.
I remember him receiving an honorary doctorate degree on stage during my own college graduation. He was shaking from Parkinson's, helped by his daughter, but looked strong. This was 9 years and 3 days ago.
My wife visited his home in Berrien Springs, MI. As an exchange student she had no idea who he was. Hugging The Champ in his frail years without having a clue... sigh. Fun fact.
When I read and see some interviews with people like him, it's interesting to me how Islam was seen - not very long ago - as some self-determination movement for black people. (Malcolm X, and all that.)
It makes sense to me of course, but it's still interesting to see Islam being perceived totally differently today, just a few decades later. If you hear someone mention today that he wants to make "islamic nation", your mind goes to what is happening in Middle-East right now.
Don't care for people hitting each other, even if it is consensual
HOWEVER - he overcame amazing odds for growing up in a heavily racist, segregated country and I have massive respect for him giving up his career while refusing to serve in the Vietnam War and kill others simply at the order of the government.
So why do we always wait for people to die to honor them - why not do it when they can appreciate it?
There are a lot of small honor ceremonies, for example he lighted the olympic torch in Atlanta 1996. The problem is that is difficult to coordinate that all the major newspaper put an article about him in the front page. (Perhaps for some anniversary, like the x0th anniversary of the word championship? And what happens if he lives 10 more years?)
Also, there is some social norms that prevent criticism at the obituaries so they are more hagiographic than usual articles.
By the way, I sometimes wonder how appropriate it is to say "rest in peace". To me, it always sounds like you assume someone may not rest in peace (i.e. end up in hell?).
You're over thinking it. It's like telling someone to have a safe flight. You're not assuming they're going to have an unsafe one. Or wishing someone good luck - you're not assuming they'll have bad luck. It's just a nice platitude.
I met him briefly in 1991 but will never forget. A man in the history books now and forever. I shall look up to the sky and smile. I'm sure he is resting in peace.
Such an embodiment of what it means to stand up for the truth in a time it was powerlessly rare. "Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee..." RIP, ALI.
This news item currently has 260 upvotes on hacker news.
Think about this a little. Think and try to name anybody else from boxing (or heck, any other sports) who could be up here. I know can't think of more than a few people.
He was the greatest in his time.
Rest in peace, Mr. Clay. You are among the icons of the 20th century.
When one converts to Islam, it's customary to change his name but generally people hold on to their surnames. So I always thought of him as "Muhammet Ali Clay". This apparently wasn't the case with him. Too late to edit my post now...
I've read Hacker News for a long time and never published a comment until today.
Ranked by my earnings and by education I'm probably in the bottom 2% of users on this site...but I'm proud to see today that in spite of that fact I'm one of the very, very few who refuses to deify sports celebrities.
By and large the majority of you who throw adoration at Muhammed Ali never lived through his era. You never interacted with him. You never experienced him as a person other than retrospectively through his manicured public image. And yet you revere him unsparingly, without hesitation, without qualification.
How disgusting.
It is this trait in human beings, this desire to worship and affiliate with those one wishes to be like that enables power stratification in society...and always will.
One of the best qualities people can have is to see the good in something/someone. The bad is of no value, so forget it, but celebrate the good. People here are celebrating the things they admired about a public figure. Likewise you can look at an online community and take heart at how people had a shared recognition of great achievements and are able to celebrate it together. It does no good to dwell on the negative and suppose that people would actually deify someone or support everything they do without hesitation in order to affiliate themselves in some way.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. In defense of my mentality:
> One of the best qualities people can have is to see the good in something/someone. The bad is of no value, so forget it, but celebrate the good.
This depends on your objective. If your objective is to be liked by others - then by all means ignore the undesirable aspects of people and things and only acknowledge those which perpetuate warm and fuzzy feelings all around.
My problem with this behavior is that it makes its way into the democratic process, and tends to override objective critical analysis.
I think as a society we need to respect and honor openness and critical thought. Censoring our interactions in a manner that perpetuates some kind of self delusion - although a happy delusion - is counter productive to progress.
> Likewise you can look at an online community and take heart at how people had a shared recognition of great achievements and are able to celebrate it together. It does no good to dwell on the negative and suppose that people would actually deify someone or support everything they do without hesitation in order to affiliate themselves in some way.
That might hold some weight, in this case, if there wasn't an overwhelmingly disproportionate amount of grieving for someone whose life as an entertainer made little impact on the daily lives of others.
Sure, there was admiration and fantasy spread amongst the throngs of enthusiasts who followed the life and times of Muhammed Ali. But had he never existed the world would be no different today.
So I think it is absolutely incumbent on me to outwardly, vehemently condemn the intellectual class (Hacker News) for being so shallow, so superficial, and so sycophantic. We must rise beyond this mentality as a people in order to gain equality and value those who contribute in a more fair sense.
I disagree. I think everyone has their own journey and everyone must accept and respect it for the value it offers. Just because you can't see the value or the impact does not mean it's not there. Wings of butterflies and all that. Ali's influence on the world is incalculable. How's that for critical thinking?
"We must"? No, we musn't. If you don't like sports, don't watch them. I don't.
Clearly you come here with an agenda. The goal of your "progress" is by definition regressive. Equality means respecting and defending everyone's rights equally as individuals and not a specific ingroup, such "those who contribute in a more fair sense." That would be collectivism and you appear to be demonstrating authoritarian attitudes and socialist (culturally Marxist) shaming techniques in an attempt to make people feel disconnected from the intellectual elite as a means of coercing them to join your group/cause. We are not your weaponized zombies, shamed into submission and programmed to deliver your message so we fit into what you define as an elite group.
That's called 'malignant narcissism' by the way. How's that for openness?
The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as individuals is what needs to be promoted if you believe in free will/agency as a goal. And with that you have to accept the good with the bad, whatever you believe them to be.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know freedom meant people doing stuff that sucks." --Summer, Rick and Morty Episode 203: Auto Erotic Assimilation
In this case there is much more to the story than sports entertainment. Ali was a man who stood up to a government that had conscripted him into a dubious war in a faraway land. He did so on principle, publicly, at great personal/professional cost. People can't help but admire that - a polemicist with skin in the game, someone willing to take risks that all of society will benefit from. And yes this causes a strong emotional response, not just intellectual, in fact I'd say it might be one of the most powerful emotions people feel, but that too is a good thing. It shows an emotional response based on a sound value.
Now, if someone is behaving badly or acting in some subversive way or whatever, then by all means challenge them. But this is about someone who has passed away. None of their negative qualifies matter anymore. What's left is the achievements that people can reflect on, or be inspired by.
The saddest thing about Ali's life IMHO is that he lived in a world where the best way he could make his living was hitting and being hit by others. It is time to recognize boxing for the barbarism that it is and retire it from the repertoire of human activity along with bullfighting and bear baiting.
The barbarism in bull fighting and bear baiting lies not in the animal's absence of consent. Animals don't consent to be eaten, but eating animals is [EDIT] not generally considered barbaric. What makes boxing and bull fighting and bear baiting barbaric is the fact that the object of the game is to inflict pain on another living being. Many other sports have pain as a consequence (football, rugby), but in boxing the goal is to inflict pain. The more pain the better. The ideal outcome is to render your opponent unconscious. That, IMHO, is barbaric.
Money and social constraints also significantly distort the matter of consent. Muhammed Ali was a black man living in an age of discrimination. His professional prospects were limited more by the color of his skin than by the content of his character. I think he was capable of a lot more than bashing people's skulls in. But because society places so much value on bashing people's skulls in, we will never know.
That's a minority view. Most people think it's OK as long as the animal is raised and slaughtered humanely. I edited my comment to make it a little more precise.
I agree that OPs point is not necessary and his analogy with animal murder is plain wrong, but the definition of barbarism does not hinge on the existence of consent. Brutal, uncivilized, or cruel imply barbarism. Consent does not imply non-brutal and civilized and uncruel.
Sorry, I was sloppy with language just to riff on his words. Of course you are right. I wanted get at the subtext of boxing being exploitative, in particular where it is comparable to something like bullfighting. Are we really aiming for a non contact world because some people see it as primitive and cruel? That's what comments like OP's make me think. Go after unscrupulous managers or the long term injury aspect, but I just don't see the problem with fighting sports where everyone is opting in and aware.
In retrospect, I realize I should have said that it is time to retire professional boxing, not boxing in general, but it's too late to edit my original comment. Amateur boxing, where protective head gear is worn and the object is not to render your opponent unconscious, is fine with me. What makes professional boxing barbaric IMHO is that it is designed to maximize the possibility that the participants will get injured. The goal in professional boxing is to render your opponent unconscious. That is IMHO barbaric.
