Ali the racist

[Cultural Revolution]

It was one of the most iconic boxing matches of all time, and the culmination of an intense rivalry between the fight legends Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. Yet the so-called Thriller in Manila, as argued in a new documentary of the same name, was marred by the racist antics and erratic behaviour of Ali, whose relentless abuse of Frazier became strangely obsessional and ultimately revealed the dark heart of a beloved sporting hero.

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Ali was in the nation of Islam, and was an ardhent racist and black seperatist.

He famously went to a KKK meeting, and said "I believe blue birds should march with blue birds, white birds with white birds and black birds with black birds, now he was either an early promoter of Lesbian marrige, or was a racist idiot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtEcYVp4Izk (ali talking about his KKK love)

He also calls Joe F an uncle tom, though, Ali never worked a day in his life, Joe was picking cotton at the age of 9, and was a real working class fighter.

Whenever there is a documentary on film on Ali, it makes him out as some kind of all loving, anti racist hero, though, as we can see from history, he believed racial mixing should be illegal, he believed the KKK were just looking out for the interests of white people, and wanted total seperation of the races.

This was a time when many young black people were joining the BPP and seeing through all this racial bullshit, so to put it up to the times is letting him off, in my view, Ali was a bad person, who was a mouthpiece for the NOI, and was even told to say his famous "no vietcong ever called me Ni**er" line.

If the workers and leaders of 1917 could legalise homosexuality and make racism and anti semitism illegal, then how can we uphold Ali as one of the greatest sporting personalities of all time?

The end of the story is the better judge of the two men

Ali lives lavishly and spends his time doing liberal charity work and holidaying, while Joe gave most of his money away, and runs a community gym and lives in the room above it, it one of the poorest sections of America, refusing to charge gym admision.

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

The NOI is inherently racist, it's no suprise that it's followers are also racist.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Many black people during this time converted to the Nation of Islam. You've gotta understand that. Many black people were treated like complete shit during those times, so when a religion comes along that gave them actual recognition against the shit they went through, it's no wonder so many joined the Nation of Islam.

Though, he's not part of the Nation of Islam any longer. He's a member of Sufism now.

I really have nothing against people who join these organizations, or believe in what they believe, because a person's belief reflects that of the environment he grew up in. When a KKK member comes up calls a black man the n word, is this because s/he's truly filled with hatred, or because that's what s/he's been brought up to believe in? With the black community who joined the Nation of Islam, so many were separated from the very society they lived in. So for a religion to recognize them, praise them, love them, of course they're going to reflect in what they were taught.

We shouldn't really put it against them. Rather actually work with them, try to understand them & help them. Malcolm X clearly dropped the "white man is the devil" routine & went Socialist. So why not others?

[Jimmie Higgins]

The NOI oppresses white people? :rolleyes:

I have white skin (although my family background is mixed), Ali gave me his autograph and was very kind and gracious. White power racists near the school I went to would threaten me with violence and walked around the neighborhood with their tats on display shooting white power NAZI salutes to any minority they saw driving or walking through. I find it highly offensive and politically confused to imply that Ali was the same as these guys or the KKK.

Black nationalism - especially of the highly petty-bourgeois nature like the NOI - is very problematic but it is not "racism" in the way that the KKK is a racist organization. At a crude basic level just think, what is the purpose of white segregationists? Do they want black people gone, no they want them "in their place" which according to the racists is subservient and not in possession of the same rights as the dominant race. This system existed and so the KKK and similar organizations were seeking to preserve or extend an oppressive system that actually existed.

What is the point of the NOI's segregationist sentiments... to get the hell away from a system where they were they were 2nd class people forced to be subservient! It's a shitty solution to racism and oppression and can not work, but it is not the same as the racism and nationalism of the oppressors.

Or as Malcolm X would say: is the hatred of someone towards their rapist equivalent to the hatred of the rapist towards the person he is raping?

[Cultural Revolution]

Yeah TVM is right that the NOI racism was not the same as the racism of the oppressor, however, he should not be championed, and the NOI should not be supported, not only because they are reactionary, but because, there were many black groups like the Panthers at that time, who were revolutionary and had progressed from malcoms nationalism and risen to be maoist intercommunalists, rather than trying to free themselves with an obsolete outlook.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yeah TVM is right that the NOI racism was not the same as the racism of the oppressor, however, he should not be championed, and the NOI should not be supported, not only because they are reactionary, but because, there were many black groups like the Panthers at that time, who were revolutionary and had progressed from malcoms nationalism and risen to be maoist intercommunalists, rather than trying to free themselves with an obsolete outlook.

I think your timeline is a little off. The NOI came to prominence long before the Panthers had formed - long before black power even became a concept. Ali was close with Malcolm X - the Panthers didn't form until after he died.


The end of the story is the better judge of the two men

Ali lives lavishly and spends his time doing liberal charity work and holidaying, while Joe gave most of his money away, and runs a community gym and lives in the room above it, it one of the poorest sections of America, refusing to charge gym admision.Ali face jail for refusing to be drafted! He lost his title and potentially tons of money - he went from fame to infamy in the eyes of most people, so I hardly think that Ali was just coasting and not serious about the stand he was taking. True, he drifted from black nationalism and is now an acceptable liberal figure... but how many people politicized in the 1960s are just as radical now... very few. Should we argue that the Black Panther's were full of shit in the 60s and early 70s because some of their prominent members became liberals later? The New Left and produced radicals who later went on to become self-help gurus, wall street investors, liberals - so many liberals, LaRouche went from radical to the leader of the crypto-fascist wing of the Democratic party, and the Moaist New Communist Movement even produced Islamophobic Neo-McCarthyist right wingers like David Horowitz.

[Cultural Revolution]

I hate to do this to you, but Ali went to the KKK rally the same year he fought the thriller in manilla - 1975

The panthers were at their height in 1969, and yes, Huey formed them after the death of Malcom X

You do not seem to be reading the things i write lol.

[RedSonRising]

Ali's prejudice against the dominant white culture and racial segregationism was not an oppressive institution, and therefore could not contribute to racism as an oppressive social structure. I'm sure after witnessing many black women fall subject to abuse or exploitation by the hands of white men, a separation of two cultures with conflicting positions in the power structure did not seem like a bad idea. Fuck the KKK, but I can't say myself I like seeing my half-white cousins lose the ability to speak Spanish and communicate with my grandmother. I know better than to preach racial bigotry, but it's a different time. Likewise, after witnessing many black boxers become the puppets of white businessmen, Frazier joining a group of boxing business associates dominated by white entrepreneurs, it's not surprising he called him an uncle Tom. Uncalled for, perhaps, but not unfounded.


The man publicly drew parallels between the colonization of the Vietnamese and the internal colonial structure of black exploitation at home. He distinctly outlined the relations of power in the US and how the nature of the enemy is one of class with an undeniable racial character. "It is YOU who denies me empowerment at home, it is YOU who denies me religious freedom at home, it is YOU.." pointing a very loud finger at the white bourgeoisie and the white privileged population. The NOI may have suggested the line "The Vietcong never called me Nigger," but they certainly didn't serve his 3-year prison sentence for him. People love to highlight how harsh he was to Frazier, but forget he called him the greatest fighter behind himself in the history of the sport after the Thrilla in Manilla. Frazier to this day, or at least until very recently, jeers at his Parkinson's and stated he wished he could have pushed Ali into the Olympic fire when he carried the torch.

I'm with you in reinforcing the notion that prejudice against dominant populations (usually white ones) distracts from proper analysis of class-based observations and is destructive to proletarian empowerment, but to take the harsh words of Ali and the contextually comprehensible prejudiced (which he has long renounced) he held against white culture infringing on black identity politics and pretend that invalidates his significance to promoting the advancement social justice is a disservice to a deserving icon.

African Americans will forever be grateful that they could look up to the Greatest on tv and in the papers and see, like them, a black man; a descendant of slaves.


“I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.”


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“Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn't matter which color does the hating. It's just plain wrong.”

[Manic Impressive]

I hate to do this to you, but Ali went to the KKK rally the same year he fought the thriller in manilla - 1975

(Just wanted to add to this) He went to a clan rally and was cheered for saying that people from different races should not marry or have children.

The NoI is a group I really used to hate, I used to think they were as bad as the white supremacists and it's not hard to see why with some of the shit they've come out with and still do come out with. Although their goal is to emancipate an oppressed group which is against bourgeois interests so they have been victim to propaganda and sabotage as we have.

I said I used to hate them and I still don't like them as there is still a lot to dislike but my opinion changed when I met one of them. We had a long debate and I agreed to go to their community centre to see the work they were doing, providing facilities for youths in a very poor area of London which was available for the entire community to use not just black people. So I have some respect for them but they certainly shouldn't be lauded as a progressive group, they simply try to make things a little better in some of the most deprived areas but they do not see capitalism as the problem they do not see class as a central issue they are nationalist and religious. All are things we should never support and personally they are things I oppose.

p.s. someone used the argument that they cannot be racist because they do not discriminate against white people, while that may be true let me remind you there are two parts to racism Discrimination and Prejudice and some of their members are certainly propagating prejudice against white people.

[Cultural Revolution]

like recruiting my cousin after he got out of prision, like the black muslim group my cousin now has some sick loyalty to.

fuck that

[Tzonteyotl]

I hate to do this to you, but Ali went to the KKK rally the same year he fought the thriller in manilla - 1975

The panthers were at their height in 1969, and yes, Huey formed them after the death of Malcom X

You do not seem to be reading the things i write lol.

Just because another group is out there with a different-and non-separatist-view doesn't mean everyone is going to get on its bandwagon. Given the conditions, it's understandable that many would have felt that separatism was logical, given the way they were treated. They had little to suggest America would truly integrate them and acknowledge their rights as humans. Likewise, some may have seen that it wasn't whites as a people who hated blacks, but a select minority of them. Thus they believed cooperation was possible and worked along those lines. Either way, given that Ali has done as Malcolm did and renounced those sentiments, I think all this criticism is a mute point.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Yeah TVM is right that the NOI racism was not the same as the racism of the oppressor

Well I was actually just trying to say that, no matter whether they were of the Nation of Islam or the KKK. These people who join them are not filled with complete hatred or evil. We shouldn't see them as such. That they believe in what they believe through their environment - human conditioning, instead of the phony "human nature".

Racism is only a part of the societal environment. We should teach them a better way of thinking. Create a better social-living. This is why we say Capitalism creates racism, because the society in which upholds Capitalism permits racism, & many other acts of conditioning.

You put a glass, see-through wall between a snake & a mouse, the snake will keep trying to lunge at it, because s/he's been brought up to eat mouses for their survival. Keep doing this for a good 10-12 times, then release the glass wall & see if that snake attacks the mouse again. If not, then you've officially reconditioned its very way of looking at things. It goes on to something new. Humans are the same way. We just gotta learn how to recondition them.