Muhammad Ali, 74, dies

[TomCat88]

http://espn.go.com/boxing/story/_/id/15 ... li-dies-74

[imacat]

R.I.P. Muhammad Ali. The title of The Greatest was well earned.


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[Hi-Line Bobcat]

R.I.P. Muhammad Ali. The title of The Greatest was well earned.


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Can I ask why? I assume you are only referring to him as the greatest when referring to a boxing. He was a great boxer don't get me wrong, but if you have done any research on him you would know he was a hypocrite and man who's words didn't back up his actions as a man. His boxing made him great, but a great Ameeican, he wasn't even close to being one. In fact he hated the country that gave him everything, but as he got older he learned to love it because it worked in his favor, which clearly shows today with how people weirdly revere him.

[Grizlaw]

Can I ask why? I assume you are only referring to him as the greatest when referring to a boxing. He was a great boxer don't get me wrong, but if you have done any research on him you would know he was a hypocrite and man who's words didn't back up his actions as a man. His boxing made him great, but a great Ameeican, he wasn't even close to being one. In fact he hated the country that gave him everything, but as he got older he learned to love it because it worked in his favor, which clearly shows today with how people weirdly revere him.

Ahh - the country "gave him everything," did it? So what you're essentially saying is that Ali "didn't build that." Right? Interesting.

That aside - I don't know if right after the man's death is the right time to debate whether he was a "great American" or not. He was a hero to a lot of people, so my tendency is to let them mourn him now, and to the extent I might disagree with any actions he took during his life, I'll voice those opinions some other time. One observation I would make, though, is that to understand Ali's issues with the "white establishment," I think you have to at least try to look at the world through his eyes. He grew up in the South, as a black man, during the pre-civil rights era. Most of us have no idea what that would've been like (including me), but I suspect a lot of us probably wouldn't have loved America in the 60's if we had grown up in that era and were black. To the extent he embraced the country later in life, could it be that the country has also changed?

[91catAlum]

Can I ask why? I assume you are only referring to him as the greatest when referring to a boxing. He was a great boxer don't get me wrong, but if you have done any research on him you would know he was a hypocrite and man who's words didn't back up his actions as a man. His boxing made him great, but a great Ameeican, he wasn't even close to being one. In fact he hated the country that gave him everything, but as he got older he learned to love it because it worked in his favor, which clearly shows today with how people weirdly revere him.

Ahh - the country "gave him everything," did it? So what you're essentially saying is that Ali "didn't build that." Right? Interesting.

That aside - I don't know if right after the man's death is the right time to debate whether he was a "great American" or not. He was a hero to a lot of people, so my tendency is to let them mourn him now, and to the extent I might disagree with any actions he took during his life, I'll voice those opinions some other time. One observation I would make, though, is that to understand Ali's issues with the "white establishment," I think you have to at least try to look at the world through his eyes. He grew up in the South, as a black man, during the pre-civil rights era. Most of us have no idea what that would've been like (including me), but I suspect a lot of us probably wouldn't have loved America in the 60's if we had grown up in that era and were black. To the extent he embraced the country later in life, could it be that the country has also changed?

For the sake of accuracy, he didn't grow up in the South - he grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, which borders Indiana.
That said, I agree with your thought that it's best to let some time go by, before discussing the controversial aspects of his life.

[Grizlaw]

For the sake of accuracy, he didn't grow up in the South - he grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, which borders Indiana.

We could quibble about whether Kentucky is part of the South or not; there is some disagreement about which states are included and which are not. If you're interested, here's an article that seems to indicate that self-described Southerners are roughly 50/50 as to whether Kentucky is included: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/whic ... the-south/

That's not really the point, though. My point was that he grew up in a time and place where racial segregation and Jim Crow laws were the norm, and any anti-American sentiments he may have conveyed should be viewed in that context.

[SonomaCat]

Southern Indiana was also a hotbed of the KKK ... it was as bad there as anywhere in the country (as was Kentucky to the south of there). So even if one doesn't classify that region as "the South," the characteristics we are talking about were certainly in place there and have to be the context through which we view attitudes of black people who were raised in that kind of hostile environment.

[InTheBag]

http://billingsgazette.com/sports/round ... 3be42.html

Francis was a good friend of Sonny Holland in college.