Say something bad about universally revered person?

Arduach

seamus wrote: »

I read something on Ali a couple of years back that gave me a lot more compassion for his position.

Basically he was the world champion, unbeatable at the time, but was still treated worse than a dog when he got home. Fanfares and honours that were typically bestowed on white athletes were all denied to him, sporting institutions snubbed him.

He realised then that the treatment of black people in the US was never just a matter of gaining respect - black people would never be respected no matter what they did.

As a result he basically boycotted the cultural norms at the time as he saw them all as extensions of white culture and tools to keep black people down. His refusal to go to Vietnam was a part of that; it was a white man's war. White America saw an opportunity to strip a troublemaker of his titles, Ali just saw another attempt at black oppression.

It doesn't excuse his racism, but it certainly makes it a lot more understandable. If you treat someone badly, it can hardly be a surprise when they turn on you.

All pretty common knowledge. As heavyweight champion after the Rome Olympics, 1960, he went into a fast food restaurant in Louisville and asked for a cheeseburger. He was greeted by a member of white staff with 'we don't serve nig*ers' and he replied 'and I don't eat them either'.

He went and threw his olympic gold into the Ohio river.

Mary Robinson. Descendent of slave owners and her liberalism her career is really just about status and power. She left the Irish presidency for what she saw as a promotion. Now she says she was bullied into it.

tipptom

Tony EH wrote: »

Not being an idiot is something he should be lauded for.

So the rest of the people who were called up and served their duty were idiots?

tipptom

tipptom wrote: »

So the rest of the people who were called up and served their duty were idiots?

Could go down a rabbit hole on this. Define serve your duty? Go to war on the say so of someone who wouldn't do it or have their children do it?

Ash.J.Williams

Billgirlylegs wrote: »

Firstly, which of them are "universally revered"?

Secondly, I think your point belongs in another thread -

Young men, money no object, supplied with drugs and alcohol allegedly behaved in a fashion that is inappropriate judged by 2021 popular culture.

Not sure if y”all familiar with Neil hamburger but he recently played a support slot for mr bungle and was true to form ie he was himself:) anyway the “joke” that I cannot get out of my head since is “ knock knock ....who’s there?......Luke ....,Luke who? Luke up “Steven Tyler ..statutory rape” on Google .... fascinating it really is. Do it... it’s amazing “

Arduach

Arduach wrote: »

All pretty common knowledge. As heavyweight champion after the Rome Olympics, 1960, he went into a fast food restaurant in Louisville and asked for a cheeseburger. He was greeted by a member of white staff with 'we don't serve nig*ers' and he replied 'and I don't eat them either'.

He went and threw his olympic gold into the Ohio river.

There seems to be some embellishment of that story over the years. Did he really come out with a zinger like that at 18 years old? At that moment of his life? I don't believe it. The story is powerful enough without bits of fiction added.

tipptom

Deleted User wrote: »

Could go down a rabbit hole on this. Define serve your duty? Go to war on the say so of someone who wouldn't do it or have their children do it?

They were worse cowards in my opinion,using daddys political influence to come up with sudden "ear" problems,at least Ali was somewhat honest about why he refused to go

Loved Ali as a boxer and a lot of his musings,just think he gets a free pass on this when he was just using cues from racist homophopic murderers whom he got involved with who had a history of draft dodging going back to ww2

Ash.J.Williams

[Deleted User] wrote: »

There seems to be some embellishment of that story over the years. Did he really come out with a zinger like that at 18 years old? At that moment of his life? I don't believe it. The story is powerful enough without bits of fiction added.

There’s only a limited amount of insults and that one is Common and Ali had an answer for everything so speed and quality retort is not beyond him

Cathal Shannon mentioning negro on RTÉ ruffled his feathers for about 2 seconds and you could see Ali’s brain working out “ this guy isn’t racist he just a feckin Irish halfwit “

.anon.

bertiebomber wrote: »

Cos she says she is irish yet hates us and wants to stop us expressing ourselves. irish people have always expressed themselves we are the land of saints & scholars & writers after all.



She is over weight and wont do anything about it therefore promoting unhealthy living.
She is 'woking' the mayoral office and never stops going on about racism & hate while never actually examining the information & facts



that the plantation of n ethnic race from a hot country onto a cold white island in the atlantic -with 90 % white people is not really working here or in europe and wont work unless they integrate and adopt our work ethic and pay tax like the rest of us. They must change not change us .

No messing about with dog whistles there anyway, I'll give you that at least.

Tony EH

tipptom wrote: »

They were worse cowards in my opinion,using daddys political influence to come up with sudden "ear" problems,at least Ali was somewhat honest about why he refused to go

Loved Ali as a boxer and a lot of his musings,just think he gets a free pass on this when he was just using cues from racist homophopic murderers whom he got involved with who had a history of draft dodging going back to ww2

So Ali was a "coward" for refusing to go to a war he didn't believe in, in which his country basically "involved" themselves in another nation's affairs and dragged it down into a quagmire of disaster for over a decade.

That's not being a "coward". That's was being smart. He didn't want any part in a disastrous war propagated by shithouses in power who were using young men to further their own goals.

Vietnam was none of America's business. It was even less Ali's business and he was right to stand against it, like many others of his generation.

Tomaldo

The King of Thailand and Alex Higgins

Tomaldo

Balmed Out wrote: »

An awful lot of rock stars of the David Bowie, led zeppelin, elvis, rolling stones, marvin gaye generations who took advantage of a groupie culture. No proof against any but enough accusations that id tend to think that many were guilty of statutory rape. The only one that comes to mind that are reviled for it is jerry lee lewis who married his underage cousin if memory serves.

Gary Glitter rightly vilified. Elvis 'met' his future wife when she was 14, he was about 10 years older. Was that a legal relationship.

tipptom

Tony EH wrote: »

So Ali was a "coward" for refusing to go to a war he didn't believe in, in which his country basically "involved" themselves in another nation's affairs and dragged it down into a quagmire of disaster for over a decade.

That's not being a "coward". That's was being smart. He didn't want any part in a disastrous war propagated by shithouses in power who were using young men to further their own goals.

Vietnam was none of America's business. It was even less Ali's business and he was right to stand against it, like many others of his generation.

Ali refused on religeous grounds

Communism was a very real threat to lots of people at the time and there was a big fear at the time that if Vietnam was turned over that it was going to be unstoppable
The like of Ali and Farrakhan would have been the first to complain if they were to be turned out to the fields for the collective in the event of communism taking over.

French Toast

Season 2 wrote: »

I'm a better singer than Bob Dylan and I can't sing.

The brother went through a phase of listening to him.

A nasal whine. Very average.

iamstop

Anyone said Winston Churchill yet?

Bengal Famine.


Also John Lennon is was the peace loving hippy to his kids and women in his life that you might first expect.

Tony EH

tipptom wrote: »

Ali refused on religeous grounds

Communism was a very real threat to lots of people at the time and there was a big fear at the time that if Vietnam was turned over that it was going to be unstoppable
The like of Ali and Farrakhan would have been the first to complain if they were to be turned out to the fields for the collective in the event of communism taking over.

Bollocks.

America dragged itself into a region it had no right being in and subjected a nation (which had just come out of a long struggle against French colonial ambitions) to the worst period it had experienced in a completely unnecessary war, in which it got its arse kicked and didn't alter the final outcome one bit. In fact, American involvement made things worse, with her bombing of Cambodia next door and its use of chemical weapons.

It had no business whatsoever even being there and Muhammad Ali, for all his faults, was entirely correct to see through the bullshit.

There was no "cowardice" on his behalf. It was sense. The sense many others had too in opposing US ambitions in the area. Vietnam is rightly remembered as the tragic and criminal waste of lives that it was and the people who opposed it were correct.

Thelonious Monk

People calling Ali a racist. Black people were treated like dirt at the time, especially in the south where he was from, of course he was bloody weary of white people. Treated like second class citizens just a couple of generations from slavery and then they're sending them all off as canon fodder to a war that no one wants to be in.
People seem to just love calling black people racists these days for one reason or another.

Tony EH

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

People calling Ali a racist. Black people were treated like dirt at the time, especially in the south where he was from, of course he was bloody weary of white people. Treated like second class citizens just a couple of generations from slavery and then they're sending them all off as canon fodder to a war that no one wants to be in.
People seem to just love calling black people racists these days for one reason or another.

That may be the case. But it doesn't excuse his own racist rhetoric.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

There seems to be some embellishment of that story over the years. Did he really come out with a zinger like that at 18 years old? At that moment of his life? I don't believe it. The story is powerful enough without bits of fiction added.

Quite likely not the first time he heard it.

Feenix

tipptom wrote: »

Ali refused on religeous grounds

Communism was a very real threat to lots of people at the time and there was a big fear at the time that if Vietnam was turned over that it was going to be unstoppable
The like of Ali and Farrakhan would have been the first to complain if they were to be turned out to the fields for the collective in the event of communism taking over.

Communism taking over? Even the Yanks stopped spouting that ****e around 1960.

Feenix

JeffreyEpspeen wrote: »

Jon Walters was turfed out of Blackburn as a youth team player for stealing from his teammates.

The universally revered Jon Walters?

tipptom

tipptom wrote: »

They were worse cowards in my opinion,using daddys political influence to come up with sudden "ear" problems,at least Ali was somewhat honest about why he refused to go

Loved Ali as a boxer and a lot of his musings,just think he gets a free pass on this when he was just using cues from racist homophopic murderers whom he got involved with who had a history of draft dodging going back to ww2

You volunteered for any wars yourself?

Feenix

Feenix wrote: »

Communism taking over? Even the Yanks stopped spouting that ****e around 1960.

Well I am sure the Soviet Union had plans for Europe. What was happening in Asia though was up to Asia.

tipptom

Tony EH wrote: »

Bollocks.

America dragged itself into a region it had no right being in and subjected a nation (which had just come out of a long struggle against French colonial ambitions) to the worst period it had experienced in a completely unnecessary war, in which it got its arse kicked and didn't alter the final outcome one bit. In fact, American involvement made things worse, with her bombing of Cambodia next door and its use of chemical weapons.

It had no business whatsoever even being there and Muhammad Ali, for all his faults, was entirely correct to see through the bullshit.

There was no "cowardice" on his behalf. It was sense. The sense many others had too in opposing US ambitions in the area. Vietnam is rightly remembered as the tragic and criminal waste of lives that it was and the people who opposed it were correct.

Ali wasnt walking around the univeritys holding up the red book,he wasnt going over to Vietnam to stand on top of a tank,he didnt give a sh*t about vietnam or America or any noble objection,
He refused because he was hooked up with a racist murdering organisation who refused to serve in ww2 and who Ali told Sugar Ray Robinson they would kill him when Sugar told him to sign up.
CO objectors dont refuse to serve,they usually are given jobs of a humanitarian nature,he refused even that
There was and are plenty of black people who think he was a coward while his fellow black men fought for their country and many died while he used his money he earned in America to avoid jail for five years while still race baiting with pearls like,"violence should be visited on any white or black person in a relationship".

tipptom

Deleted User wrote: »

You volunteered for any wars yourself?

No,not lately,yourself?

tipptom

tipptom wrote: »

There was and are plenty of black people who think he was a coward while his fellow black men fought for their country and many died while he used his money he earned in America to avoid jail for five years while still race baiting with pearls like,"violence should be visited on any white or black person in a relationship".

Not sure about that, maybe some black people thought that. Doubt it was the majority. African Americans were treated very poorly in the services.


Punishment and casualties - Vietnam


African American troops were punished more harshly and more frequently than White troops. A Defense Department study released in 1972 found that Black troops received 34.3% of court-martials, 25.5% of nonjudicial punishments, and comprised 58% of prisoners at Long Bình Jail, a military prison.[4] It further remarked, "No command or installation...is entirely free from the effects of systematic discrimination against minority servicemen."[8] Black troops were also almost twice as likely as White troops to receive a punitive discharge.[8] In 1972, African-Americans received more than one-fifth of the bad-conduct discharges and nearly one-third of the dishonorable discharges.[5]



In the Vietnam War, African American troops initially had a much higher casualty rate than other ethnicities,[4] though this declined somewhat throughout the course of the conflict. In 1965, nearly a quarter of troop casualties were African American. By 1967, it had fallen to 12.7%.[3] In total, 7,243 African Americans died during the Vietnam War, representing 12.4% of total casualties.[13] The refusal, by some southern communities, to bury dead African American soldiers in unsegregated cemeteries was met with outrage by African American communities.[5]

Johnny BGood

Have to mention the “Irish sport star”, what would we be without him?
Universally loved, particularly by the yanks who must think that all Irish people are brash, egotistical and proper whiskey drinkers!
Still bemuses me that he still has supporters in Ireland with the crimes he’s committed over the past 3 years.
Unfortunately the average Joe will never know what these crimes are because, well, money talks...

tipptom

Feenix wrote: »

Communism taking over? Even the Yanks stopped spouting that ****e around 1960.

So communism was not getting a stranglehold in Asia in the 60s

OOkay

Tony EH

tipptom wrote: »

Ali wasnt walking around the univeritys holding up the red book,he wasnt going over to Vietnam to stand on top of a tank,he didnt give a sh*t about vietnam or America or any noble objection,
He refused because he was hooked up with a racist murdering organisation who refused to serve in ww2 and who Ali told Sugar Ray Robinson they would kill him when Sugar told him to sign up.
CO objectors dont refuse to serve,they usually are given jobs of a humanitarian nature,he refused even that
There was and are plenty of black people who think he was a coward while his fellow black men fought for their country and many died while he used his money he earned in America to avoid jail for five years while still race baiting with pearls like,"violence should be visited on any white or black person in a relationship".

Ali may have stated religious and conscientious objection to the war, but he stated specifically that...

"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..."

That was where his objection lay.

He had no belief in an unjust war and he was correct.

iamstop

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

compassionate to saudi royals which makes her not very intelligent considering they are literal bona fide head hackers

In a similar vein. Joan Rivers.

Blind support of Israel and what they get away with doing to the Palestinians.