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Ali the Race Exploiter
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Harry Benson, Express, Hulton Archive / Getty Images
HBO’s hot documentary Thrilla in Manila reveals the sad truth about Muhammad Ali: Beneath the jive and brilliant boxing, he was one of the nation’s great race hustlers.
There has rarely been a more truthful 90 minutes on the subject of manipulation and opportunism within the sometimes lunatic cubicle of race than HBO’s new documentary Thrilla in Manila. (Click here for showtimes.) This one is so special because it pulls the covers off of a ritual unique to our history: For at least the last 40 years, we have been duped whenever possible by ruthlessly narcissistic black men. Their game has been using politics and race for no real purpose other than self-elevation and big profit.
This documentary takes the shine off of Muhammad Ali and is very nearly great primarily because it does something extremely difficult. We see with fresh clarity the extent to which Ali exploited the turmoil of the civil-rights era with great dishonesty. But the movie does not deny the man the genius of his glowing skills and the singularity of his astonishing feats. Thrilla in Manila only clarifies what he actually was during his period of greatest fame and influence.
The accepted myth is that Ali represents both extraordinary athletic abilities and a brand new level of courage and integrity because he took great career risks and stood up to white America in a way that separated the former champion from all of the black athletes who had come before him. He had testicles too big for white men to cut off and that is why they attempted to destroy his career when he refused to serve in the Army on religious and racial grounds.
He claimed that his religion, Islam, was opposed to war. (Yes, it did take big balls to say that and hold a straight face). Ali went further and made another much more inflammatory point: As a black man living in an obviously racist country, the very thought of invading a non-white country was despicable: “The Viet Cong never called me a nigger.”
That entire stance was a Dagwood sandwich of bunk. Seeing witnesses from within the Ali camp and the Nation of Islam itself, we learn that the boxer was repeating ideas that were not his at all and only doing exactly what he was told. The documentary could have been much, much stronger had it focused more fully on the absurd racism taught by the Nation of Islam and for which Ali became an obnoxious mouthpiece after being led into the fold by Malcolm X.
It was a serious mistake for Thrilla in Manila not to even mention Ali’s relationship to Malcolm X, the man who introduced him to the mix of cartoon religion, racism, and separatist politics—and whom Ali rejected as soon as Malcolm X fell out with the Nation and charged its founder, Elijah Muhammad, with being a fake, a liar, and a hypocrite who had fathered illegitimate children by his young secretaries. Hot stuff. Ali’s turnabout is seen as a revealing betrayal and a foreshadowing of betrayals to come.
While Thrilla does not look into that, it is still a far more than merely good move toward a fresh and unsentimental awareness of the multilayered hustles run by one of our most famous men.
Many assumed then and still believe—on the quiet!—that Malcolm X’s attacks on Elijah Muhammad were what actually formed the motives for his assassination. In the 1995 documentary about that assassination, Brother Minister, Louis Farrakhan deepens the assumption of culpability. In a secretly filmed Savior’s Day Chicago address from 1993, one of our most prominent demagogues virtually admits that the Nation “dealt” with Malcolm the way any nation would deal with a traitor whom it had raised from nothing and taught all that he knew.
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Stanley Crouch's culture pieces have appeared in Harper's, The New York Times, Vogue, Downbeat, The New Yorker, and more. He has served as artistic consultant for jazz programming at Lincoln Center since 1987, and is a founder of Jazz at Lincoln Center. In June 2006 his first major collection of jazz criticism, Considering Genius: Jazz Writings, was published. Next year the first volume of his long-awaited biography of Charlie Parker will appear.
Siouxie921
It's about time. This man has all but been canonized in this society. Why? Because he was a very good looking black man with strong values?
What I remember about Mr. Ali was the atrocious was he treated his opponent Joe Frazier. Joe Frazier has told the whole story but nobody was listening.
muybuena
Muhammad Ali is STILL the Greatest of All Time and no amount of intellectual pontificating is going to change that! Now, I do appreciate someone like Mr. Crouch challenging dogma and sacred cows now and then. But to try and discredit someone like Ali who lived in a time when Negroes had to march to be served in a restaurant is incomprehensible. Yes, Ali was an entertainer as well as an athlete who was a rare combination of talent, drive, charisma and provocativeness. Many of us will never know what it was to live as a Black man during those times. Yes Jack Robinson was "allowed" to play baseball. But he was also spat upon and booed when he entered the stadium! What made Ali different was that he didn't allow those same people who spat upon Jackie to condescend him and "put him in his place." That is why so many people love Ali. Because, unlike so many other athletes and entertainers who become successful, he never took his success for granted or forgot the struggles that everyday people face. He challenged the system and people's perception of Blackness. He didn't have to show gratitude for his lot in life. He got where he was through his own hard work, persistence, and clearly the belief that, contrary to accepted belief, he was worthy of respect.
Chuckv
A couple of points. First Ali believed that "jihad" was the only ethical war, and jihad was a war to protect Islam. Viet Nam obviously was no jihad. Also, an argument can be made that all modern wars are to advance national causes and not jihads, making a modern Muslim effectively a pacifist and opposed to all war. If my memory of 40 year ago events is correct, this was Ali's position. Ali was sincere in his belief that Islam was opposed to war.
Second, Ali was sincere in his Black Muslim believes, however absurd and racist they seem to us. People believe absurd things like Scientology or that Texas should secede from the Union. He did not try to dupe anyone. He was just not intellectually the equal of Malcom X or Martin Luther King and his reaction to the racism of his times reflects that limitation.
stinger8821
Hasn't quite been 40 years...
David Remnick wrote an excellent biography in 1999 called "King of the World" that exposed much of the Ali myth.The book paints an unbiased portrait of a great man and leader, while exposing a lesser known dark side - namely, his treatment of Frazier and abandonment of Malcolm X.Solid read.I still find the man to be fascinating.I even had the opportunity to meet him briefly about 15 years ago and it was one of the thrills of my life.
Dbr2009x9
Amazing. History re-defines our ingrained beliefs. I still admire the man but I am again humbled by the re-telling of of the past. Once again reminded that differing perspectives are the only paths to some form of the truth. Thanks for a great piece.
genoftheheart
Stanley,
Aren't you guilty of a little race-baiting yourself here? You make an interesting observation about the omission of Ali's relationship with Malcolm X in the documentary. I have another omission for you. Would Barack Obama have been possible without Muhammad Ali?
nortonclybourn
Yes
larry278
Smart asses everywhere still idolize Ali. He did what we smart asses want to do. Ali made the world eat his feces. For at time the world loudly proclaimed that each bolus of Ali's feces war ambrosia. Hustle he did. Damn, he was good, Ali, the greatest.
proscribe
Stanley Crouch's piece on HBO's Thrilla in Manila is a welcome addition to the corpulent corpus on Ali. It's not surprising that Crouch denigrates Malcolm and the separtists in general, exemplifying, as usual, the reactionary middle-of-the-roadism for which he is best known. What is surprising is that he just discovered, or just saw fit to write about, Ali's overt racism. Those who lived through that time and weren't blinkered by the hype were aware, even way back when, that Ali's humiliation of Frazier (calling him a "gorilla," "Uncle Tom," etc.) was a low blow, contrary to the ideals Ali professed. To many, it was all good fun, just Ali being Ali, a chance to watch master builder build the gate for the bout. Some of us, however, felt otherwise. But among Ali's many gifts as a fighter was his ability to get beneath the skin of his opponents, to know which buttons to push and when to push them. He, in effect, landed the first solid shot, won the psychological war, before the opening bell had sounded. But, no matter how crude and unsophisticated Ali's taunts were, in the end men need to be judged by their actions, not by their words, and Ali's actions speak louder than words...including Stanley Crouch's.
attaylor
Something was not right with the documentary and this article. On the (political) documentary it was very one sided. I think that if Ali's narrative was more fully portrayed in said poli-Doc it would have had more value. It just seemed like a hit-job, however truthful.
On this article, black folks cannot be racist if racism connotes systemic political-economic-military power - Barack is just one person. Other than that, Stanely too is a "race-hustler" by his own lights (I wonder why his classic image was portrayed and no one else on the Daily Beast main page?). His language is provocative and politically motivated - and I am his hustle on race rewards, monetarily. What is sad is that his text rings of and account that is blaming the oppressed for their (assertive) response to oppression.
Att
piepipy
Well stated.
By his own criteria Crouch is a "race hustler," not only in his uncritical parroting of the HBO demonization of Ali, but his uncritical analysis of the Nation of Islam (why was NOI worse than the Latter Day Saints at that given period of time? Both groups had theological beliefs that demonized and sainted whites and blacks given the audience).
However, the coup de grace was Crouch sliding Barack Obama at the end to push his "book about the Barack Obama presidential campaign."
It's Crouch as modern day Race Hustler.
quizblorg
I must have missed the part where Crouch praised the Latter Day Saints...
jaymone
Let's be careful not to view 40 year old history through 21st century eyes. In the 1960's, there were very few ways that a black man (or women) could achieve anything close to prosperity in an openly racist, and in many areas, apartheid, country. Sports and music offered the only real opportunities to rise out of poverty and away from open, white hostility. So what is wrong with an extraordinarily gifted young black man giving back to white people a little of what he grew up with. Ali was always in your face. You weren't better than him. My father went to his grave praying for any white heavyweight to beat Ali. There just weren't any. Jerry Cooney, Tex Cobb? Please.
Ali gave us what we deserved, a big plate of humble pie, over and over, and was entertaining as Hell as he did it. The Greatest of All Time.
SlimSoldier
Stanley Crouch, "The Race Exploiter...." or should I say, "The Race Explainer.."
I don't understand why you feel the need, time after time to write article after article going after different figures in the Black Community. Your assault last week on Mos Def was one thing, because well, he can defend himself if he chooses to do so but Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, the ENTIRE Black Nationalist movement of the Civil Rights Era?
Obviously, your work is written with an incredible slant so this omission is to be expected but prior to Mr. Ali losing his ability to speak, didn't he say that he regretted the way that he treated Joe Frazier? I'm sure I read that somewhere.
I still find it absolutely repugnant that you time after time go after Black Leaders from that era that you have disdain for but I have yet to read once where you mention just what the FBI did to warrant the ire of some of the rhetoric of the era. Of those whom you apparently agree with historically because of their "conventional", and in some cases apolitical stances, what became of them? What happened to Joe Louis?
Hell, Hoover spent damn near twenty years putting the full resources of the FBI into domestic spying and smear campaigns aimed at taking down ANY members or organizations in the black community that were involved in any aspect of the Civil Rights Movement. I believe he called them Public Enemy Number One.
When are you going to write an Article about that?
exploora
I can't stand the way people misuse the word narcissism.
Ali did not spend his life looking in the mirror, and because he had higher expectations that he was dictated to have, and possibly achieved greater than he ever expected he could, makes him great, and of course not perfect but not a narcissist.
A person who [felt that if a man as famous as Malcolm X could be mercilessly taken down for talking against the cult and its leader, an illiterate boxer with little besides surpassing ring skills and a gift of gab would have absolutely no chance at all.] (excerpted from this article) should be a clue that he was protecting himself, and in a civil society, it wouldn't have been necessary but possibly if he had not lived among such harshness, he would have not grown to be so great but he had the right to value his own life and personal safety, that does not make him a narcissist.
He worked at his skill. Narcissism is a word often used to make frivolous another person's achievements after he surpasses others dictated expectations and become greater than they are, or ever will be, while enjoying a place way beyond his "place" in society, which is what the civil rights movement believed was possible. That people could achieve greatness if they could bypass the barriers that kept them in their "place".
Maybe if Martin Luther King had the kind of protection described in this article, he wouldn't have been assassinated.
That would have changed everything, and possibly would go against the whole idea of non violent resistance which Martin Luther King, believed in whole heartedly would probably rather have died than give up that conviction that he believed in so strongly. Sadly that is possibly what did happened.
And possibly since Ali was such a great money maker, his protection possibly was forced on him but he was living in a society where until the early 1960's, lynch mobbing which was mostly done to young black men, was legal.
And that is the world he lived in, and it wasn't right the world was like that, and it wasn't of his making, and that is the real story isn't it.
FluffyRoss
Years ago, I was a P.R. person for Ali. I remember him coming to the office/apt. at the John Hancock, while yet married,but with his then-girlfriend Veronica (a high school education, but said she was "pre med"). He wouldn't address me because I was a white woman, and did some mumbling without looking at me. I remember the Muhammad brothers, too: Herbert especially. They all, including Ali, came to the place one afternoon, with their particular porn delights, and to watch two women go at it. Gag. What a bunch of sanctimonious dimwits.
Mary50
Word. Crouch does the damn thang again.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
mindlessmissy
So, Is Stanley Crouch the house negro or the field negro ... ?
Debate amongst yourselves ...
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