The American Spectator

Sports Arena

(Page 2 of 2)

br> His message was manna from heaven to a generation of young writers who themselves opposed being sent to Vietnam. Chief among Ali's media promoters was Howard Cosell and the apparent contradiction of a Jew fronting for a man whose religious mentors were nothing if not blatant anti-Semites was ignored in the face of such a marketing coup. But, was Ali a racist?

He and his followers have tried to paint the picture that everyone who rooted against him was a racist, his fame and fortune in "white" America notwithstanding. Conversely, every opponent who did not call for the overthrow of the "establishment" was an Uncle Tom, deserving of whatever abuse Ali saw fit to dole out, racial or otherwise.

p>Sometimes he tinged it with humor, as in this quip about George Foreman: "It's a divine fight. This Foreman -- he represents Christianity, America, the flag. I can't let him win. He represents pork chops." He often sneeringly referred to Joe Frazier as "The White Man's Champion" and worse, a gorilla. And he was deadly serious in an interview in 1970 : br> /p>

I was determined to be one nigger that the white man didn't get. Go on and join something. If it isn't the Muslims, at least join the Black Panthers. Join something bad....I hate to see black women and men, once they get prestige and greatness, where they can go into ghettos and pick up little black babies and make them feel good, to go leave and marry somebody else and put the money in that race....Now the white man's got the heavyweight champion -- Joe Frazier's got a white girlfriend.

br> He expanded his views on interracial relationships in an interview with Playboy : "A black man should be killed if he's messing with a white woman." When asked if a black woman dated whites: "Then she dies. Kill her, too." Yet, this is the same Ali, who joked upon his return to America after beating Foreman in Zaire, "Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat."

So was he a racist, a shining black Muslim prince fighting for peace and equal rights, or simply a comic self-promoter who exploited the woes of the time for his own advancement? That he was probably all of the above is lost on too many of a new generation of American athletes who are still bombarded with his message: that to act in a respectful, humble way, is to sell out.

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