Once Black Jockeys Ruled the Tracks

             

J. Winkfield Two Time Kentucky Derby Winner riding Alan a Dale

Then they Disappeared: What Happened?

“Everything that comes with the Derby right now for me is not the same as the majority of the other riders, or any other riders, because I’m the only African-American rider in the race,”

Kevin Krigger

The rise to prominence of this young black Jockey, Kevin Krigger, mounted on Goldencents in today’s Kentucky Derby strikes most contemporary racing fans as a strange unprecedented phenomenon. This is but further evidence of American’s ignorance of their history.  And more often than not when the issue involves the shameful racist history of white Americans the official mythmakers, as well as average white citizens, prefers to forget it, bury it under a pile of empty self-serving mythology about all people being equal in “the land of the free.”

Some southern states, which have the worst records on race relation, are even attempting to remove all references to white America’s bloody oppression of Afro-Americans.  Hence the tawdry racist history of thoroughbred racing is best left in obscurity to these people.  But the history of black jockeys is far to fascinating a story to lie in obscurity; for while they are extremely rare today they once dominated the sport.

In his his reveries about Afro-American life in New York City, Black Manhattan, James Weldon Johnson recalls that when he first came to New York in the 1890’s, among the wealthiest and most famous black men were prizefighters and jockeys.  Indeed, in this period black Jockeys dominated in thoroughbred racing.  This is because in the US horse racing began during slavery, a time when black men handled the care and training of horses on the plantation.

It is even said that some of the Africans were skilled horsemen before they enslaved in America.  This is not at all hard to believe because there were Hausa and Fulani’s among the slave population and they were great horsemen.

Fulani Horsemen of Nigeria

The source of America’s first great Jockeys?

 Hausa Horsemen in Nigeria

 

 Riding in battle formation

Whatever their source, black Jockey’s dominated thoroughbred racing in the US during its early days.  Before professional racing there were races between plantation owners, and even races down Pennsylvania Avenue in the nation’s capital, and the Jockeys were generally African American slaves.  Already an established sport in England, it would become a major American sport with million dollar prizes.

Today is the 139^th running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, the jewel in the crown of professional horse racing in the US, an event on which black jockeys were once kings.  They were once so ubiquitous little statues of black jockeys were cast for people to place in their yards…thus the famous “lawn Jockeys” that we still see holding street lights or address signs on the lawns of white America.  Like the Tango in Argentina, they are the only evidence that black jockeys ever existed, although as with the Tango nobody connects them with real black people.

Owners of greatest horses from around the world would like to run their magnificent beasts in this race, but only the cream of the crop among three year olds will be permitted to compete.  Hence the choice of jockeys is critical.  And those choices are made by owners and trainers in a very closed process. It is a process where black riders must struggle to be recognized.  In fact the very idea of a black professional jockey strikes many people as an oxymoron.

However when Churchill Downs opened for business with its inaugural race on May 17, 1875 the elegantly attired crowd of men in waistcoats and high hats, and the ladies in fine frocks and spectacular head pieces were not at all surprised that the winning jockey,  Oliver Lewis, mounted atop a chestnut colt, was black.  In fact, they probably discussed everything about the Derby winner except the race of the rider, since 13 of the 15 jockeys competing in the great race were black!

First Derby Winner Oliver Lewis

He set the standard!

Isaac Murphy

Three time Kentucky Derby winner!

 Lewis won by a length and set the fastest time that has ever been run by a three year old horse.  He set a standard of excellence on the race tracks that was expanded upon by other black jockeys to enter the tracks, and they dominated thoroughbred racing in the US for the next thirty years.  Afro-American Jockeys won the first Eight Kentucky Derbys, and fifteen of the first twenty eight.

For instance during the  1890’s Isaac Murphy won the derby three times, a feat that only four other Jockeys have managed to duplicate in the history of American thoroughbred racing.   Isaac Murphy also has the all-time record in percentage of races won.  These achievements on the track have convinced some racing experts to conclude that Ike was the best ever.  The son of former slaves Murphy was born and raised in Kentucky, where many of the horse trainers were black – just as was the case with horse handlers when I was a boy in Florida.  Hence black jockeys had plenty of clout in Murphy’s day…unlike today when Kevin Krigger had to literally beg white trainers and owners to give him a chance to mount up.   The last black superstar on the tracks was Jimmy Winkfield, who won back to back Kentucky Derby’s in 1901 and 1902.

Resentful of having to compete with blacks for purses, and often losing, white jockeys followed the example of the trade unions affiliated with the recently formed American Federation of Labor and formed an all-white jockey’s union and barred blacks from riding in professional races. If the great black jockey’s wanted to continue participating in the sport they loved they had to accept jobs as mere grooms, curry combing horses for white boys who were often their inferiors to mount.  If they were lucky they could become trainers or exercise riders.

Since their exclusion from the tracks mirrored what was happening to Afro-Americans in all areas of American society since the Supreme court legalized racial segregation and discrimination in employment in the Plessey v Ferguson Decision of 1896, some black jockey’s accepted their fate, while others left the US to race on foreign tracks.  After winning back to back Derby’s in 1902 and 03, Winkfield came in second in 1904.

As racial hostilities intensified in his native Kentucky Winkfield came to New York to race.  And while there were owners and trainers willing to give him a mount, the white jockey’s banded together to drive him from the track by boxing him in driving him into the rail, kicked his shins and ankles as they rode beside him and repeatedly hit him with riding crops.  And they warned owners that they would not allow a black jockey to win major purses.

Facing such formidable odds Winkfield gave it all up in his first season and shipped out for Russia, where he became a superstar, riding horses for Russian nobility,  earning over $100,000, and hanging out with habitués at the court of Czar Nicholas Romanoff II.  He learned to speak Russian, dressed in high style, and was the toast of the town.  He was having a ball…until the Bolshevik revolution ended it all and he was forced to flee in a daring ride with 200 of Russia’s finest thoroughbred horses across several countries before reaching their destination. He would go on to distinguish himself on tracks all over Europe.

When he was invited back to Louisville during the run for the roses at the 1961 Kentucky Derby, along with his daughter who became a horse doctor, he was almost denied admission to the ceremony because most of the ignorant racist in attendance didn’t even know who he was!  So much for life in the “land of the free.” The young black jockey competing in the Derby today, Kevin Krigger, is well aware of this history and he has sought out Winkfield’s daughter who is now 88 years old.  And he has promised to win the Derby in honor of her father.

Jimmy Winkfield

 Sitting atop his mount after winning the 1901 Derby

Jimmy Winkfield and Superstar Bing Crosby at the Derby

 

His racing days done, Jim is sharap as a tack at the track

Born and raised in St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, where he learned to ride, Kevin was surprised at the racism directed at him by his fellow jockeys on US tracks – both white and Hispanic.  But it’s a different day and if they tried some of the tactics employed a hundred years ago they would be suspended and Kevin might well  break his foot off in their ass to boot!  Krigger has ridden “Goldencents’ to victory in the Santa Anita Derby – the first black jockey to win it in the 78 year history of the event – and today he is going for the win at the Kentucky Derby.  In fact, with a Muhammad Ali like swagger…he has promised not to just run for the roses but to win them.  I say God speed to you young brother!!!

Kevin Krigger in Action!

 Winning the Santa Anita Derby on Goldencents

 

Stylish Afro-Americans at the Derby

The beautiful Lynn whitfield

His Airness!

Mike chillin at the track

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Playthell G. Benjamin

Harlem, New York 

May 4, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is Colin Kaepernick Trans-Racial?

Colin Kapernick

On Football,  Race and American Culture

After witnessing the performance of African-American  quarterbacks like Mike Vick, Cam Newton, RG III, Russell Wilson, and Colin Kapernick, who started in the Super Bowl for the San Francisco Forty Niners, it is fair to ask: Is the age of the dominant “double threat” black quarterback upon us?

I have seen this country evolve on so many racial fronts in my lifetime that it is almost impossible to convey the magnitude of that change to someone who was born after the passage of the great Civil Rights legislation of the 1960′s.  The present celebration and pursuit of black quarterbacks is a dramatic part of that change.

Today the fact that a black family lives in the White house and an African American man is beginning his second term as the President of the USA and Commander-In-Chief of the armed forces, and his beautiful brilliant wife and daughters are the first ladies of this nation, is greeted with a yawn, shows how the unimaginable has become routine.

This is also their response to what is happening at the quarterback position in football, which on the symbolic level is a comparable advancement in the way the leadership abilities of black men are perceived. Given the central position of football in American culture, who plays quarterback is a very serious business.  For instance, it has been estimated that a Heisman Trophy elicits more money from Alumni of Texas universities than a faculty member winning a Nobel Prize!

I know this sounds crazy to those who are not football fans, and have no interest in the game, but even after Afro-American Air Force General Daniel “Chappie” James became the commander of NORAD – North American Air Defense Command – with the power to launch a nuclear attack without consulting the President, at the height of the Cold War with Soviet Russia – a decision that could destroy the earth – football fans, sports commentators and team owners were still debating whether a black man could lead a damn football team!!

And by the way, a black Admiral had commanded the Atlantic fleet from pole to pole; a force capable of destroying the world just like a nuclear air attack, and a black man had commanded a space shuttle flight, before a black man was hired to coach an NFL team.  Even now, with an African American President presiding over the nation’s affairs, a bunch of head coaches were recently hired in the NFL and not one of them was black!

It is such a scandal, given the proven black talent around, that Dr. Melissa Harris Perry – a professor of political science and MSNBC host – did an investigative report on the situation of black coaches in the NFL. Hence it is not surprising that despite the dominance of the sport by males of African heritage – especially at the glamorous “skills” positions – there has been only one black coach to win the Super Bowl – albeit in a rare and glorious historic moment when both coaches were black!   There has been no comparable moment since.  Nor is there likely to be unless the selection system changes.

As historians of sports know, sports reflect deeply held societal values.  And football mirrors the most fundamental aspects of the American character. Like football, Americans are highly territorial and aggressive.  And football teams mirror the organizational models of corporations and military units, and the Quarterback routinely functions like a CEO or commanding general officer – they are routinely referred to as “Field Generals,” the sports equivalent of a “Field Marshall.”

The game even expropriates military battle terms like “advancing into enemy territory,” “Lobbing the bomb,” “battling in the trenches,” fierce players are referred to as “warriors,” and the arms of quarterbacks who are great passers are referred to as “rifles” or even “Howitzers.” Football is a war game that expresses the martial spirit symbolized by the Bald Eagle, a vicious bird of Prey that is our national mascot.

With the entry of black athletes into the NFL new terms were borrowed from the military lexicon, such as “turning on the afterburners,” a term associated with jets and rocketry.  This metaphorical imagery is employed to describe the superior speed of black athletes.  The terms associated with throwing the ball – a high art when performed on the level of pro-quarterbacks – were used to describe white quarterbacks, and the terms regarding speed i.e. running were used to describe black quarterbacks.  Indeed these terms have been substituted for any reference to race.

Some observers view this as a sign of progress.  Could be, depending upon how you look at it.  If you think it is fine to be color blind when it comes to celebrating the positive qualities that black men possesses, while their vices are everywhere advertised by race is a good thing   However the most amusing thing about Colin is the way so many whites are quick to say his black ancestry does not count.  That he is as much white as black, and in any case it doesn’t really matter because he is colorless to them.  Some have even accused Afro-Americans want to claim Colin and Obama because it make us “look cool.”  They forget that Barack chose us and we invented cool!

This blown call cost San Francisco a Super Bowl

 

 Colin threw the ball to exactly the right spot

The truth is that Afro-Americans accepted bi-racial children and white Americans rejected them – and whites are the majority in the US and thus determined the definition of race and defined racial status in law and custom.  It is is a testament to the superior humanity of black people.  After all, no less an American icon than Thomas Jefferson enslaved his seven children by his slave concubine Sally Hemmings because they were “tainted” by African blood.

Yet visitors to Monticello, his slave plantation in Virginia, say his son Madison looked just like him.  Bi-racial Americans have never been given the choice of being “white” in America, and the white males who ran the country refused to acknowledge them because they would have been admitting they were hypocrites, and criminals too, since they would be violating their stated beliefs about white racial superiority and the laws against racial miscegenation that they had enacted.  That’s why the great southern writer Lillian Smith, observed in her extraordinary book “Killers of the Dream,” that the Founding Fathers were “Front porch puritans and backyard lechers!”

So the complaints by white males, who now want to claim Colin Kapernick, reflect both a profound ignorance of American history and the present realities about race.   It is whites who defined bi-racial children as “black” not us.  As far as I am concerned if Colin Kapernick wants to identify as white I say good luck with that.  Barack Obama chose to be Black, and his love for Afro-American culture is palpable – it is clearly visible in his choice of music, dance, language, basketball over bowling, his church and beautiful black wife.  Barack chose us and we love him…and accepting him as an Afro-American is no big deal because almost every Afro-American has somebody in their family who favors him.  He is darker than a lot of people in my family.

Obviously the definition of race in America is sociological rather than biological.  Hence it is a group consciousness born of the peculiar experience of Afro-Americans that forms the basis of our group culture and cohesiveness, which is the basis of our group identity.  Dr. WEB DuBois, the most important American humanist intellectual of the 20^th century, explained it best “The Negro is a seventh son, born with a veil and gifted with a second sight in this American world.”

Hence when Dr. Dubois talks about life behind the veil of color creating a special consciousness, he is also speaking to Barack’s experience.  I would love to know more about Colin’s experience since race relations are constantly evolving in America…it has now reached the point where it is hardly mentioned…whereas for most of the history of this country it would have defined him above all his virtues or vices.   And that must be viewed as progress.

However statements such as that of Michael Patmas, posted on the San Francisco Forty Niners web site strikes me as wishful thinking:  “He is beyond race.” Patmas says of Colin,” he is above race. He is a post-racial person. Calling him black is racist. Calling him white is racist. Just call him Colin, the best QB in the NFL. In a few hours we will be calling him MVP. That’s what he cares about. That’s what I care about. folks in Nevada never thought of him in racial terms at all. It never crossed our minds. We just love the kid.”   

I would rather hear this from Colin, the fact that this white guy thinks he has the right to define him strikes me as just another instance of white male privilege, and his assurance that white Nevadans never thought about his race strikes me as delusional.  And if it be true it is really something new under the American sun.

Now that Colin’s birth mother – Hedi Russo not Janet Kaepernick, who adopted him –has emerged and made it clear that she would like to meet her son, we can see the resemblance between them because he has her beak.   But she won’t discuss his father, although he is rumored to be an African. The basic outline to their story seems pretty obvious from the little we know. It is not hard to imagine that an 18 year old uneducated white girl in Milwaukee, stuck with a black baby 25 years ago, concluded that the best solution was to put him up for adoption:  She could have aborted him.

Hedi Russo: Colin’s Mom

Colin has her Beak

While we are assured by Mr. Patmas and his like that whites neither notice or care about Colin’s race today, he was surely black back then and the racist attitude toward black Americans harbored by whites was a major reason why his mother put him up for adoption.  But being rich and famous can make it possible to avoid the inconvenience of racism; it can even make it meaningless in one’s own life.

However he was not always rich or famous, and we don’t know what his experience with racism has been; but there is a video taped interview online with his white adoptive parentsKaepernicks, explaining all the measures they took to  him feel good about being “different.”  They also talk about their attempts to connect him with Afro-American culture by trying to braid his hair in cornrows.

 And Colin tells us that they gave him the nickname “Bo,” after bo Jackson – who was also a star in football and baseball like Colin.  However if it were just a matter of finding a sports role model John Elway would have been a better choice since he was an accomplished baseball ball player but also an athletic quarterback.  Do it asurd for so many media wags and football fans to try and evade the issue of his race as though it were taboo.

As for myself, I could care less about Colin’s race beyond my interests in what it says about race relations in America today, and especially his performance on the football field.  In this regard I definitely consider him a black quarterback, because he possess a style and prowess that only black athletes have, the mislabeled “new style” quarterbacks are all African American….including Colin Kaepernick.

The former star African-American quarterback Donavon McNabb, who was great running and throwing, rotinely refers to Colin as “African American.”  I believe that along with Michael Vick, RG III, Russell Wilson and Cam Newton, the way Colin Kaepernick’s plays the game represents the triumph of black style at the quarterback position.

I am especially referring to their speed, quickness, and elegance of movement. My daughter – who is a sports scientists and former Division I sprinter in the 100 and 200 meters – tells me that this is due to the distribution of fast and slow twitch muscle fibers in black and white athletes, which explains why on average black athletes run faster and jump higher than other athletes.  It’s not an accident that all of the Olympic sprints, where the best athletes in the world compete, black athletes whose roots lie in West Africa hold the world records.

Since I have already written extensively about this question I don’t want to re-litigate it here; if you are interested in a deeper discussion of this issue see “On Race, Culture and Sports” on this blog.  Then you will get a better understanding of the points I am making here.  My daughter tells me that the ability of black athletes to run faster and jump higher than whites on average is not in question among sports scientists, but everybody avoids the subject because they don’t want to be involved in the rancorous controversy it is sure to inspire.   She said that when she was competing in track and a white girl would show up in the sprints or high hurdles, they would wonder if she was a masochist.  Hence the movie “White Men Can’t Jump is not just a joke.

What is without question is that black quarterbacks have brought a different style to playing the position, and while the speed and jumping abilities are biological their grace of movement is cultural…the great writer and blues philosopher Albert Murray says it results from the “tendency of African people to turn all movement into dancelike elegance.”  This also explains Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordon.  In the tendency to improvisation that characterise the black athletes style represents the impulse to innovation that reaches its apotheosis in the art of Jazz.

The question that now titillates Football fans is whether this new black style will become the dominant style in the NFL.  It is worth noting that not all black quarterbacks play in this style, some have remained true to the traditional pocket passing style, including Hall of Fame passer Warren Moon, and Doug Williams, the only black quarterback to win the Super Bowl.  When asked what he thinks of the new black running quarterbacks on the eve of the Super Bowl, Doug replied: “I don’t believe in the quarterback running.”

On the other hand Johnny “Football” Manzell, who won the much coveted 2012 Heisman Trophy, is a white quarterback that plays in the black style; he also has a black coach at Texas A&M – the only team to beat Alabama, the national champions.   “Johnny Football” leaves no doubt that he has adopted the dynamic athletic black style when he tells us that his role models were Cam Newton and RG III.  And by the way, all the emphasis about Colin Kaepernick being a good student, in an apparent attempt to distinguish him from other black athletes, is misguided BS, because RG III got his Masters in four years while winning the Heisman.

It is clear that there are people whispering in his ear, and they are telling him to identify with his white side.  We’ll see how that goes for him, but despite the fact that he is quoted saying Brett Favre was his role model…he does not play like Favre, but like Randall Cunningham – who also went to college in Nevada, at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.   And Randall is the paterfamilias of all the in the “double threat” quarterbacks in the NFL!  So whether he knows it or not – and if he doesn’t he’s not half as smart as people say he is –Colin Kapernick is the spawn of Randall the Great. 

Yet the most interesting aspect of the Colin Kapernick story remains the way his racial identity has been handled.  For most of this country’s history, I’d argue right up to present moment, his black father would have been all the talk and he would have been labeled a “colored man,” or a “Negro” by enlightened whites and a “dirty black nigger” by the others.

For the first 250 years of this country’s history his brown skin, the mark of African ancestry, meant that he would have been described a 3/5 of a man during the Constitutional Convention of 1787.   Told he had “no rights a white man was bound to respect” by Roger B. Taney, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in the Dread Scott Decision of 1857, which means that he could be enslaved.  And for a hundred years after that he would have been legally discriminated against in all aspects of life due to the Separate but Equal decision in the Plessey V. Ferguson case of 1896.

That’s why bi-racial Americans like him were in the forefront of the fight against white supremacy – Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington first among them.  Interestingly Homer Plessey, who brought the discrimination against the train company that yielded the decision that established legal segregation, was a New Orleans Creole who argued that the racial segregation laws should not apply to him because he was an octoroon, which means that he was only 1/8 black, and therefore much whiter than Colin! So was Walter White, the militant leader of the NAACP during the racially troubled years of the early 20^th century when white supremacy was enshrined in the laws of the land.

And until the great Doug Williams won the Super Bowl in 1986, Colin would have been routinely converted to a defensive back or a wide receiver given his athletic skills and the prevailing belief that only white boys had the intelligence to make the kind of quick decisions a quarterback had to make on a routine basis under heavy pressure from the opposition.  I am convinced that this kind of thinking is the reason that he only got one offer to play quarterback at a Division I college, and the coach at Nevada says he considered switching him to one of those positions.

I wonder how much of this history either Colin or his family knows.  Given how surprised he was by it all I doubt that they understood much.  That’s the major problem with Euro- Americans raising African American children, most do not have the kind of knowledge about the realities of “life behind the veil” to adequately prepare them for the slings and arrows the will suffer from whites once they leave their parent’s house…and even if they were accepted in their neighborhood it becomes a different world once they venture away from their safe harbor.

Corban Fennell

Colin’s College Girlfriend

Colin chillin with is Afro-American cutie

It is worth noting that he had a beautiful black girlfriend in college, but rumor has it that he has kicked her to the curb.  Perhaps it was just a college romance, or maybe its part of the attempt to whiten him up that appears to be underway.  However it seems that this whitening process may require him to remove the myriad tattoos that virtual cover his upper body and many people consider a symbol of the black “thug life” style promoted by the late Tupac Shekur…and he looks hip hop to the max in those caps that he wears at a rakish angle – if not a black thug certainly a Chicano thug!

Colin’s Thugged Out Look

This is the look offends some whites

Thus far it seems that the worst thing that has happened to young Colin thus far is that a ref stole a super bowl title from him with the whole world watching.  Although he is too much of a sporting gentleman to say so: He was robbed!   But older black men, who have seen just how down and dirty white Americans can be when asserting racial privilege – which I am convinced millions still feel is their birthright – see a racist conspiracy.

One of them told it to me this way: “Well we got a great President who is the product of a black man breeding a white woman, and this cracker referee decided the country don’t need another half bred nigger with a black daddy and white momma being idolized…why, his daughters might decide they want to make one of these magnificent mulattos!   That’s what a lot of the white guys said when they complained about a sexy ad with Terrell Owens and Nicolette Sheridan that was aired on Monday Night Football.

As far-fetched as this sounds to me…far stranger things have happened in the history of race relations in the USA.  So good luck to Colin on his journey through this strange new world where all the white folks claim to be color blind while millions continue to discriminate against people of color….particularly African Americans.  And no matter what he considers himself to be racially, his approach to playing quarterback is part of the triumph of black style in the National Football League.

 Real black Magic!

 Doug Williams: Super Bowl Champion

The Most Valuable Player

A Rifle Man who rarely ran the Ball

He set 9 records in his Super Bowl Victory!

 Warren Moon: The Best Passer Ever?

 

He Gets My Vote!

His Laser Arm took him into Hall of Fame!

Standing tall in Canton

Colin’s Got A Laser Passing Arm Too

He can pick you apart from the pocket Like Doug

Or he can bust a move…..

……and run around

Like Randall The Great!

I believed he could fly!

Randall was also a Great Passer!

The Pater-Familias of contemporary black quarterbacks

 Donovan McNabb

Graceful and deadly as an Eagle

Mike Vick!

Deadly with his Arms and Legs!

The Magician!

Going with the flow

Cam Newton! 

The quintessential Double Threat

It’s a Bird!  It’s a Plane!

It’s Superman!

Russell Wilson

An Overnight Sensation!

An elusive runner …..and a great passer!

R. G. III: Rookie of the Year!

He can do it all!

African American Quarterbacks are changing the Game

Their Speed and illusiveness is befuddling defenses!

(Double click to see documentary on black quaterbacks)

http://youtu.be/76LLhGvVOfM

(Double Click for highlights of Mike Vick and Randall Cunningham)

http://youtu.be/mecBHwxfIOM

(Double Click to see Highlights of Cam Newton)

http://youtu.be/aNi9JY40ijs

(Click Here to see Highlights of Colin Laepernick)

http://youtu.be/vjTcvK9EsXE

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Playthell G. Benjamin

Harlem, New York

February 6, 2013

 

It’s Hawk Time!

Aaron “The Hawk” Pryor marking his prey

 Panegyric for a Wondrous Light-Welterweight

Aaron “The Hawk” Prior, the Cincinnati magician, majestically rules the realm of the rectangular arena dedicated to the macho art of prize fighting in the Jr. Welter-weight class.  He is to boxing what Richard Pryor is to comedy: gutsy, funky, adventurous, inventive, original and black.  Both artists approach their art in a fashion that epitomizes the unique style of black America.

Considered by many boxing aficionados to be “the most exciting fighter in the game,” Pryor has also convincingly demonstrated that he is a superb technician.   He is a legit practitioner of the “Sweet Science, ”  when boxing becomes such a complex, highly nuanced, athletic performance that passion and pain combine with speed and grace in some special alchemy  that combat is transformed into art.

The Hawk in Battle!

Dominating the great Alexis Aguello

And twice he stopped him before the final bell  

Many fans, as well as boxing wise guys, didn’t need The Hawk’s devastating destruction of the Great Alexis Arguello to recognize Pryor’s pugilistic gifts.  For me it was quite enough to witness his stunning performance against then Canadian Light-weight Champion, the hard punching Gaeton Hart.  It was clear that Pryor was as versatile a fighter as I have ever seen; as he out-boxed and outpunched Hart at will.

It was amusing to listen to the comments of the self-styled boxing “experts” preceding Pryor/Arguello fight.  Their comments resembled an unbroken panegyric to the invincibility of the three time Nicaraguan champion.  Over and over, one heard the opinion that Pryor was just too wild and reckless to have any real chance of defeating the cool, methodical, Arguello.

The more these “experts” pressed their arguments, the more they revealed their bias for Arguello and their blindness to the brilliant gifts of Pryor.  Strangely enough, like Jazz, a quintessentially black male art, all the big-time media critics are white males.  For the superficial observer this fact may have no special relevance, yet it is key to understanding the point of view of the clique of white guys who mold the public perception of the boxing game.

As the former Director of Public Relations for Butch Lewis Productions, which represented several black world champions – beginning with the great Michael Spinks – I know whereof I speak.  By virtue of his light complexion, straight hair, suave soft spoken manner, and executive style of dress, the average middle class white male finds it much easier to identify with Alexis Arguello than Aaron Pryor.

I have no doubt that they would all vehemently deny this.  But the treatment accorded Pryor and Arguello in the press convinces me otherwise.  One need only consider the language employed by the boxing wags to find abundant evidence for my claim.  Arguello is constantly referred to as “a complete gentleman,” who is “very intelligent,” and therefore “too classy for Pryor.”

At one point Pryor had to remind them that he was the American fighter: “Alexis Arguello is trying to take the sympathy from the home boy with that nice guy act.  There are no gentlemen in the ring!”  At no point preceding the match did Pryor give the impression that he had the slightest doubt that he would stop Arguello.

Rather Pryor regarded this as a dream match that would finally provide him the opportunity to demonstrate his conviction that pound for pound he is the best boxer in the world.  Pryor feels that he has been denied the opportunity to display his true greatness because the biggest names in the game have been avoiding him!

The list includes Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns – whom he beat as an amateur – Roberto Duran, Wilfredo Duran, et al.  With his convincing demolition of El Grand Champion Alexis Arguello, stopping him twice, The Hawk has greatly enhanced his case!  Now let’s see what other big names will step in the ring and prove their mettle.

(To see the second fight Click on the Link below.)

http://youtu.be/R2pHoltBBX4

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* This is a is a Golden Oldie

Playthell G. Benjamin

Harlem New York

November 1982

In Memory of Manny

                        Manny and Protégé Hit Man Hearns

 Panegyric to a Master Teacher

While trekking up the rock cliffs in the wilds of Northern Manhattan communing with the forces of nature, my senses titillated by the Technicolor foliage of autumn in New York, and my spirit dancing to the myriad birdsongs that had attracted Robert Audubon to this sanctuary, I suddenly found myself thinking of Emanuel Stewart, Motown’s Master Teacher of the Sweet Science, who lately danced and joined the ancestors.

I thought of the fact that he was two years my junior, yet I felt fit as a fiddle as I smoked some high grade wisdom weed and scaled a rock surface to my favorite spot overlooking the great rivers, where I reflected on the meaning of death.  Without giving it a thought, the poet in my soul began reciting lines in my mind from Thanatopsis, the epic contemplation of death in William Cullen Bryant’s timeless poem.

“So live

That when thy summons come/To join that innumerable caravan / which moves to that mysterious realm/ where each shall take his chamber/ In the silent halls of death/ Thou go not like the quarry slave at night/ scourged to his dungeon/ but sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust/Approach thy grave like the man who wraps the drapery of his couch about him…and lies down to pleasant dreams.”

I believe that’s how Manny went out…for his was a life well lived.  While all life may be equally precious in the sight of God, some lives have been lived in a way that makes them more significant than others.  Manny Stewart lived such a life. At first glance the listener of delicate sensibilities may question why a man who taught other men to fight in the brutal sport of boxing is worthy of celebration.  On the face of it the question seems fair enough, but only to those who are untutored in the art of pugilism…the sport the late great essayist E. J. Liebling called “The Sweet Science.”

Alas, constraints of time and space restrains me from defending the Sweet Science of pugilism here, but If you require convincing that there is virtue in this manly art you need only read the essays in two anthologies: “The Sweet Science,” by Liebling, and the elegant insughtful essays in Professor Gerald Early’s “The Culture of Bruising.”  I shall simply offer the testimony of former World Middle Weight Champion Rocky Graziano: “Boxing takes bad guys and makes good guys out of them.  If it wasn’t for boxing I’d be in Sing Sing or San Quentin.”

Lennox the Great!

Manny with Heavy-Weight Champ Lenox Lewis

 The Real Deal!

 Manny with Evander Holyfield and M.C. Hammer

 Wladimir Klitschko

 Manny and the Russian Assassin

 Hence the true greatness of Manny Stewart lies not in the fact that he trained more great world heavy-weight champions than anyone in history – with a record in title fights of 45 wins, two losses and two draws – or that he trained the great pugilistic artist Thomas “Hit Man Hearns,” the “Motown Cobra,” from an amateur fighter to Five world titles in different weight classes; but in the thousands of young men he rescued from the destructive pitfalls that are ubiquitous in the post-industrial urban wastelands of America…where spunky young men often turn to crime in the Darwinian struggle to survive.

The Motown Cobra!

 

Tommy “Hit Man” Hearns

Not all of Manny’s students became great, but the discipline and values of fair play they learned under Manny’s tutelage helped them to succeed in other professions, choosing to be law abiding productive citizens over a life of crime.

Although spawned in the Brewster Street Fight Club, from whence the great Joe Louis emerged, in a city that also produced Sugar Ray Robinson – whom the boxing wise guys have crowned “Pound for Pound the “Greatest Boxer of All Time” – Manny never rivaled these great pugilist in the ring, but he was arguably bout for bout, the greatest teacher of the sweet science ever!   Alas, we may never see his like again.

 The Master at Work

King of the Kronk

With his Star Pupil

 

Manny and Tommy: A perfect Match

 *******************

Playthell G. Benjamin

Harlem, New York

October 26, 2012

The Pass that Settled a Strike

                     The Great Dispute

 Revealing sad Truths about American Values

Although people who listen to my commentary may find it hard to believe, I am not necessarily a contrarian.  Even so, I often find myself marching to a different drummer.  Hence I disagree with the howling mob who wants to hang the referee’s whose controversial call gave the Seattle Sea Hawk’s a victory over the Green Bay Packers, in last Monday night’s football game.

The out roar became so loud it was echoed by hard news reporters on nationally televised news shows.   The controversy even found its way into the presidential campaign.  To the casual observer with either a cavalier interest in football, or is indifferent to game, all the hoopla must appear an absurdity. “How can adults get so bent out of shape by a missed call in a kid’s game?” they ask.

Well, as the Trinidadian historian and political philosopher CLR James warned in the opening of his seminal text Beyond a Boundary: “He knows not Cricket who only cricket knows.”  And he shows us how the game of cricket reflected the values of the Victorian upper class.   The same can be said of football, which reflects the values of American civilization.  It is the perfect game for a warlike people whose national anthem is a war song and national symbol a vicious bird of prey.  Football is literally “America’s game.”

The importance of the game in American culture is reflected in the fact that it has been referenced by both President Obama and Mitt Romney on the stump.  And the character of the candidates was exposed in their statements.  President Obama is pro-union and routinely stands with the workers in their demands for fair wages and benefits, which is why they turn out and work for him come election time.  Hence the president’s support for the refs comes as no surprise.

But when Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney called upon the owners to settle the lock out and get the “real refs back on the field,” which meant successfully bargaining with their union over wages and benefits, they were completely out of character. Their hypocrisy was shameless.  Paul Ryan comes from Wisconsin, a state where the governor has curtailed the rights of public sector unions.  And Lyin Ryan has backed his play.

But Wisconsin is also the home of the Green Bay Packers, in fact the team is owned by the citizens of the town, who hold shares in the organization.  So it was an act of opportunism by a man whose allegiance to principle is determined by expedience.  Thus while Ryan is quite prepared to deny bargaining rights to teachers, nurses, fireman, and cops, he insists that the demands of NFL referee’s be met because the home team lost.

He and Mitt could even be heard arguing that the “real refs” should be adequately compensated for their expertise.  Hence by kick off time tonight the “real referees” will be back on the field. The contract they settled will pay the over $200,000 a year and generous benefits including healthcare and a pension, for a part time job a few months a year,  Good for them.  Yet No teacher, nurse or cop anywhere in America is so well compensated.

Republican apologists for this blatant hypocrisy – in which the demands of vital public servants for fair compensation are scoffed at while they demand that the National Football League give the referees what they want – argue that the refs are different from teachers and nurses because they are not being paid from the public till.

Yet everywhere in America hundreds of millions of public dollars are spent in the construction of lavish sports arenas in order to seduce the owners of sports teams into locating in their city.  Hence this kerfuffle over a football game further exposes the duplicity, and twisted values, of the Republican ticket.

They all went for the ball

And started a fight that reverberated around the nation

****************

Playthell G. Benjamin

Harlem, New York

September 27, 2012

On The Olympic Games: Past and Present

 The Brown Butterfly takes the Gold!

A Reflection on Race, Nationality and Sport

Although it is considered chic in certain leftist circles to hate on the Olympics, accusing the promoters of unspeakable transgressions like seeking corporate sponsorship and serving as an arena for the exercise of big power chauvinism; I continue to be smitten by the games.  There is no other event that brings together the family of man in a celebration of human aspiration and possibility like the Olympics.

Everybody I have ever met that participated in the games says it was a highlight of their lives.  Even multi-millionaire professional athletes with vast followings like the 1992 US basketball “Dream Team,” which is widely considered by experts as the greatest team in the history of sports, say their participation in the Olympic games was the crowning moment in their athletic careers twenty years later.

Hence this is no picayune affair. Despite the billing of the games as entirely dedicated to athletic competition, an unabashed celebration of sport, it has often encompassed issues that transcend sport.  Today the big issue is the rise of women in unconventional roles, symbolized by the inclusion of women in the boxing competitions and women from Muslim countries who are competing in track and field contests for the first time.  The issues of race and nationality have largely faded to black, but continue to linger on.

All the fuss being made about Gabrielle Douglass, the effervescent beautiful “Brown Butterfly” who just won the Gold Medal for the best individual performance on all apparatuses, because she is the first woman of African descent to win this much coveted prize, is a case in point.

The constant medal count between China and the USA presents unimpeachable evidence that the issue of nationalism is alive and well.  The expectation that the American basketball teams, male and female, will trounce all others is a dramatic demonstration of national chauvinism, since basketball is an American invention.

Yet all one need do in order to see how far humanity has progressed is to recall the gravity with which the issues of race and nationality once weighed on the Olympic Games. The Berlin Olympics of 1936 remains the most poignant case in point.  Held in Nazi Germany as Hitler’s war machine menaced the world; the Games were viewed as a test of Nazi ideology regarding the natural superiority of the blond, blue eyed, Teutonic “master race.  Some thought the fate of the world depended upon exposing the German master race theory as a myth.

It was a double irony that the USA assumed this burden, because Hitler imported his racist theories from a book by the New York Eugenicist Madison Grant, and patterned his racist anti-Jewish laws on the anti-black laws in the American South.

       White American Terrorist’s Favorite Sport

This is what Jessie’s family fled in Alabama

Yet it was Jesse Owens, whose family along with millions of southern Afro-Americans, had been driven out of his native Alabama by white racist terror, upon whom the burden fell of disproving the Nazi master race theory. His destruction of German athletes in several Gold Medal performances lifted the spirits of Jews everywhere and raised the morale of the US for the coming war against the Nazi’s.

And then there was the Moscow Olympics, in which the careers of gifted American athletes were wrecked when President Jimmy Carter decided the US should boycott the Olympic games as a protest against Russian foreign policy.  Since no such earth shaking issues are at stake in these games, we are free to enjoy the Olympics for what they are intended to be: an exhibition of the beauty of athletic competition in a unique gathering of great athletes from every corner of the globe, who put on the greatest show on earth.

Jesse Owens on the Victory Stand: Berlin 1936

Jessie Owens recieves his Gold Medal Surrounded by Nazi’s

Double Click on Link to view Jessie Owens’ 4 gold medal performance

http://youtu.be/HCmvDwDocrw

*****************

Playthell G. Benjamin

Harlem, New York

August 3, 2012

The Gospel According to King James!

 The King Holding Court

A Victory that Resounds Beyond the Court

             Averaging 30 points and 10 rebounds throughout a grueling NBA final, Lebron James led the Miami Heat to a World Championship and was selected by unanimous vote as  The Most Valuable player in the championship series.  The trophy will make a handsome  companion to his league MVP award for the 2012 season.  Not only was King James honored by league officials, he was showerd with love from his teamates and warmly embraced by opposing players after their defeat.

James put on a rare performance of such magnitude that Magic Johnson, a first ballot Hall of Famer who is one of the greatest artist to play the game, was moved to enthusiastically declare Lebron James “One of the greatest athletes to ever put on basketball sneakers!” He placed him in the Top Ten of all-time greats right now, and suggested that Lebron could well be anywhere in the top three by the time he is through.

In this playoff series Lebron demonstrated why he deserves the title “King James,” as he put on a clinic on all aspects of the game:  passing, rebounding, smothering defense, and unstoppable offense.  Unlike the late King James of England, who had the temerity to rewrite the Judeo-Christian Bible – although many suspect he employed William Shakespeare to do the actual writing – there is no doubt that the marvels attributed to Lebron were of his authorship.  The whole world watched him do it!  And unlike the original King James, Lebron was not born to his title: he had to earn it!

Today Basketball is a game where grace and prowess are wedded in a public spectacle that has transcended the sport Dr. James Naismith invented at Springfield College in 1891, an era distinguished by “white supremacy” and American imperial expansion.  Naismith, a trained minister and Physical Education teacher, created the game of basketball because he was ordered by his superior to create an indoor sport that could channel the energies of virile young men into constructive activity during the long New England winters.

Dr. Naismith intended his game to promote spiritual objectives, not serve as an arena  for cutthroat competition. But that was before basketball became a market driven professional sport in a multi-billion industry.  His Christian purpose of cultivating piety and moral toughness is clearly evident in the fact that he invented basketball under the auspices of the Young Men’s Christian Association.

This reflected the the spirt of a time when the doctrine of “muscular Christianity” stressed physical fitness as a prerequisite for white Christian soldiers – men who were  tasked with spreading the gospel everywhere, civilizing the colored savages and ruling the world. In this evangelical view the role of sport was to promote western interests through “godliness and good Games.”

           Dr. James Naismith: Inventer of Bscketball           

He conceived a Very Different Game

That vision of sports has evaporated as the world changed.   The collapse of the racial bar that made professional sports in America a white man’s affair permitted the emergence of Afro-American athletes, who reinvented the game of basketball.  What was once a stiff game of rigid prescribed plays with gangly stiffs doing a Two Step shuffle, has become a free flowing improvisational ballet performed by agile giants.

Afro-American ballers have bewitched the world with their magic show, but not everyone is applauding….and there is no paucity of Playa Hatas.  No playa has been the object of more virulent enmity, expressed in pious putrid invective, than King James.  So what’s it all about…really?

The source of this animus is located in Lebron’s decision to announce that he was leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers and taking his talents to the Miami Heat on a cable television special – his critics conveniently ignore the fact that the TV show raised two million dollars to fund programs for poor kids like he once was.

Yet in an era where athletes are being arrested and tried for real crimes Lebron is like Caesar’s wife: pure as the driven snow.  Whether it’s using illegal performance enhancing drugs to gain an unfair advantage against his opponents, carrying illegally concealed weapons off the court, disturbing the peace by cutting the fool in the public square, or even showing up late for practice; Lebron is above reproach!  So what’s the beef?

Among New Yorker’s, and hard core basketball fans in all the cities that vied for Lebron’s talents with dreams of a World Championships dancing in their heads like the Sugar Plums in Tchaikovsky’s  famous Nutcracker Suite, this hatred is the universal response of rejected lovers.  But for the majority of those whose team was never in the running, the hatred is an irrational response to Lebron’s self-confidence and business decisions.

Hence  Lebron was cast as an arrogant, self-centered ingrate; some thought him an uppity nigger who was disloyal to the franchise that provided him the opportunity to play pro-ball.  This is ridiculous: Loyalty to a corporate sports franchise?  As former pro-footballer and sports commentator Marcellus Wiley pointed out on ESPN Sportscenter: Professional sports is a business and players often don’t find out that they have been traded to another franchise until they hear about it on Sportscenter.

I explored these issues in two essays at some lenght  and posted at them  at Commentariesonthetimes.wordpress.com while it was happening.  But what objective observer could fault Lebron for quitting the “Mistake by the Lake” for that perpetual bacchanal in the Magic City?  It doesn’t make sense.

That’s why I believe  much of this hatred is racial resentment expressed by closet racist who detest King James’ wealth, fame, independence and color.  It is rooted in irrational societal and cultural issues that transcend the game.  Hence Lebron’s victory resounds beyond the court!  And the haters will have to live with the fact the King has claimed his crown!  Every head must bow!  Every tongue must confess it!!

They Rode their Horse to the Top

A Merry Band of Brothers

**************

Playthell George Benjamin

Harlem, New York

June 22, 2012

A Star Is Born!

 

 Jeremy Lin….Who Knew???

From the Back Bench to King of the Apple

The incredible rise of Jeremy Lin from a back bencher riding the pine, to the toast of Broadway, testifies yet again that truth is stranger than fiction.  A Harvard educated Chinese American basketball player crashing on his brother’s couch in China Town, about to be cut from the team roster, comes literally out of nowhere and in six magical days rescues the New York Knicks?  And he makes his game with such flash, dash and high style a “Brother” wrote a rap song about him after two games?

No editor worth their hire would have touched it as the premise of a novel.  I can hear the legions of literary naysayers, with all the pomposity of their God-like power to decide whose creation lives or dies, offering an endless stream of “authoritative” literary explanations as to why such a story just wouldn’t be believable. Say what?

Lin reminds me of the bumblebee.  According to the science of aerodynamics a bumble bee can’t fly.  Any run of the mill engineer familiar with the physics of flight can mathematically demonstrate that the bumble bee can’t fly because his little wings are too small for his huge body.  But since the bumble bee doesn’t know shit about the equations of aerodynamics he flies anyway!  I’m sure Lin heard all of the smack about Asians guys being good at math but washouts on the hardwood.

But he decided to play past the haters and let his game do the talking.   He attacks the game with a grace, panache and joi de vivre that is infectious; he plays with the kind of attitude that brings to mind Cool Mo Dee’s rap anthem “How you Like Me now?”  I love it!  My greatest thrill in life is proving the naysayers wrong!

Firing Up the Garden!!!

 How ya like me now?

This kid is not only good for the Knicks and New York City, he is good for America.  This country desperately needs more role models for youths that convey the message that it’s hip to be smart!   He is an excellent corollary to President Obama aka “Chilly B,” who is the quintessential symbol of the brilliant hipster.  And he can ball too!  I’d bet my bottom dollar he is the best B-baller to ever occupy the Oval Office – since Dollar Bill Bradley didn’t make the cut.  Maybe Lin will change that too…there is no limit on this kid’s potential.  He could become the first Chinese American President of the United States!

Harvard Guys Got Brains and Game

 Excelling in the Game and in Life

At first everybody thought his performance was a fluke; the dude got lucky…entertaining but no big deal.  The question on everybody’s lips was …is he just a six day wonder?  Can he do it again?  And when he did it again the question became: “Can he do it consistently?   Well, after leading the Knicks to four straight wins in such spectacular fashion the he elevates the play of his team mates beyond the wildest dreams of cynical New Yorkers, who had suffered through 11 losses in 13 games during this young season, everybody is singing The Mighty Lin’s praises now.

Not only does he have his own hip hop panegyric, but his teammates speak of him as if he is the Messiah who has come to lead them out of the wilderness of humiliation and defeat in a city that loves winners!  He has brought real excitement back to Madison Square Garden – the most famous sports emporium I the world!

I became convinced Jeremy was “da bomb” when I saw him blow past the great John Wall and dunk the ball!   And after he scored 38 points against the mighty Los Angeles Lakers, showing off against their legendary guard Kobe Bryant, a future first ballot Hall Of Famer, everybody here in the Apple is convinced Lin is the answer to our prayers.  It’s beginning to look like anything is possible…the Knicks’s season could turn out to have the same kind of fairytale ending as the Giant’s season.

The most telling accolades are pouring in from the iconic players and commentators on the game; a very hard crowd to impress.  Yet they have become so enamored with the Jeremy Lin show many are beginning to sound like giddy teenagers who got to watch their favorite rock star at a series of concerts.

Former basketball great and TV commentator Jaylen Rose was hesitant to jump on the Jeremy junket, but after watching his first four games as a Knick’s starters at point guard, and calculating his stats, he gave Lin his props.  “It’s my job to be skeptical,” Rose said, “but this kid is for real!”

The greatest seal of approval came from Erving “Magic “Johnson, for my money is the greatest athlete to ever play the point in the NBA, who enthusiastically described Lin as “Charismatic;”  “Smart;”  “Always passes the ball to the guy who can make the shot;”  “expands the floor for the Knicks;”  “Makes everybody around him better,” and “plays the game with a big smile on his face!”

That’s as accurate description of how “Magic” played the game as I have ever heard.  It is hard to imagine a greater honor than to see yourself reflected in the image of the Greatest of all times.  I can’t get enough of the Jeremy Lin show….a star is born indeed!   The only question that remains is how long, and how brightly, it shines!

The Mighty Lin

Dunks after faking out John Wall

He Plays Killer D Too!!!!

The Mighty Lin is the Complete Package!

And the Chinese Girls Go….

  

…Oh Hell Yeah!!!!!!

Double click on link to see Jeremey Dunk on John Wall

http://youtu.be/Xso2bGDTSjg

*****************

Playthell G. Benjamin

Harlem, New York

Februrary 11, 2012

Why I Won’t be at the Giant’s Parade!

  The Victorious Giants in the Canyon of Heroes

 On Football, War and American Society

Among the many splendid insights the brilliant and prescient Trinidadian revolutionary activists, political theorist and intellectual polymath CLR James provided to those of us who are trying to understand the riddle of human life, is his recognition of the role of sport in society.  According to the distinguished Barbadian professor of British Diplomatic history Keith Sandiford James taught historians that “it is impossible to understand the Victorians without understanding the role of sport.”

Hence when CLR James tells us in his seminal book on Cricket – the quintessential Victorian upper class game – “He knows not Cricket who only Cricket Knows,” we are alerted to the deeper meanings of the game in British society through his interrogation of the value system that determine the rules of the game.

The same can be said of football.  It is a war game that organizes it players like combat squads, and the language of the game is strictly military, with talk of ‘Field Generals,” “penetration of lines,” “throwing the bomb” and the like.  It is the perfect game for the most warmongering society on earth.

The game’s terminology goes perfectly with the war song that is our national anthem, which speaks of “bombs bursting in air.”   The perfect background sound for the vicious bird of prey, the Bald Eagle, which is our national symbol.  But a strange thing has happened: The game of football is being used to take people’s minds of the real wars and internal strife that plague or nation.

Eric Williams Came from Australia for the Party

A Happy Camper!

The Room Erupted in Joy!!

When the Giants took the Patriots Down!

Our Host: Brother Zach 

The Thrilling Giant’s Victory even put a Smile on the face of  a Raven’s Fan! 

I didn’t give these issues a thought as I cheered the Giants at Super Bowl Party hosted by Zach Husser, a community organizer in Hackensack New Jersey who routinely mobilizes people to take collective action in defense of the public interests.  And I think of these things all the time.

Like all other football fans, I too was caught up in the combination of grace, elegance and physical prowess displayed by the great athletes out on the football field.  During my boyhood in Florida football had been a civic religion; and I had measured my manhood by the game.  So I was as bewitched by the spectacle of the Super Bowl as anyone.

But as I looked at the pictures I took of the enthusiastic crowd the day after, reveling in the scrumptious culinary delights while heightening the euphoria sipping vintage spirits, I wondered if Zach could command an enthusiastic crowd such as this to protest the looming invasion of Iran.  And I remembered the slogan advanced by the Emperor Diocletian in the dying days of the Roman Empire: “Panen et Circenses!”  Give the untutored mob “bread and circuses” and they won’t notice the empire is falling apart.

That’s why Americans would rather throw a ticker tape parade in the “Canyon of Heroes”- located in the financial center of the American empire- for football players, make believe warriors, grown men playing a boys game, rather than our real warriors.  The young men and women we sent to hell and back on the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan – the cream of the working class and some of the bravest and most honorable of our fellow Americans who voluntarily answered the nation’s call to service – are ignored.

That’s got to be a big part of the reason the suicide and homeless rate is so high among veterans of these wars.  They want a parade too, one that acknowledges their supreme sacrifices on our behalf: A chance to bask in the nation’s gratitude in a national healing ritual that celebrates their service to the nation.  I’m down with them….and until they get a parade I’m not going to any more parades for pampered, highly paid and over praised, athletes whose work is their common pleasure!

 Mambo Yo Yo!

Victor Cruz Salsa Dancing in the End Zone!

*************************

Playthell G. Benjamin

Harlem, New York

February 7, 2012

Smokin Joe Dances into History

 Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier: First meeting in the Garden 1971

 

 Setting the Record Straight on Ali and Joe Frazier

For serious fight fans, like yours truly, or even those with a casual interest in the “sweet science” of boxing – which is why you have so many fighters called “Sugar” – The death of Joe Frazier is a momentous event. To students of the boxing game the epic ring battles between “Smokin Joe” and Ali are exciting to watch on video tape even now, years after the events when we have all seen these fights many times.

Their lasting appeal results from the fact that they represent the highest expression of the art of pugilism.  We are witness to some magic moments in the history of heavy-weight boxing on the world championship level.  However, while Joe Frazier was a great fighter – undoubtably one of the all-time greats of the sport – the attempt by many sports commentators to say that he was a better fighter than Ali – some have even gone to the absurdity of saying a “better man” – is wishful thinking propagated either by members of Frazier’s entourage, die hard Philly fans, or vindictive white sports writers who never liked Ali’s political stances.

However I knew them both and saw all of their fights in real time and I am certain that Frazier would never have won that fight against Ali if the Champ hadn’t been forced out of the ring because he refused to go to Vietnam and was a member of the Nation of Islam!   Had Frazier fought the Ali that fought Sonny Liston he wouldn’t have been able to hit the Champ with a hand full of rice!  And nobody knew that better than Joe.

A week after the Boxing Commissioners took Ali’s title I ran into Joe Frazier in a popular West Philly night club “Mr. Silk’s,” run by that elegant Philly player the legendary Gus Lacy.  At the time Joe was a top contender.  I asked him point blank if he thought he was ready to take the title from Ali.  He grinned sheepishly, did his little country shuffle, and said “Naw, I ain’t quite ready for the Champ yet.”  When Frazier fought Ali the Champ had been exiled from the ring for 3 years! Among boxing wise guys, like yours truly, it was obvious that Ali was suffering from RING RUST!

Frazier’s Greatest Moment in the Ring!

A collective gasp went up the Garden when Joe dropped Ali

  Just look at what happened when Joe fought George Foreman.  Big George whipped Frazier like a runaway slave!  He flattened him several times then knocked his ass out in two rounds!!!!  I believe the same thing would have happened had Joe fought Sonny Liston.  Ali knocked both of these maulers out!!!  Here we see the true greatness of Ali.  Sonny Liston said he was shocked and confused by Ali’s blinding hand and foot speed.  Ali danced on Liston’s ass and hit him with punches from all angles.  He made the most feared fighter of his time look like a chump while taking the Undisputed Heavy-Weight title!!!   Then he whipped him even worse in the rematch.

Years later, near the twilight of his career, Ali did it one mo time against the Fearsome Foreman – who was even bigger and stronger than Liston – and had avoided a life of crime like Liston, who had been a mob enforcer in St. Louis – only because of the time he spent in the Job Corp.  In that fight Ali “roped the dope!”

Foreman now says that he never met anybody who could take a punch like Ali, who laid back on the ropes while George shot his best shots.   Big George says Ali kept whispering in his ears: “You hit like a girl…can’t you do better than that,” messing with his mind and causing George to lose his head.  George also recalls that he was also surprisedby  how hard Ali could punch as he found himself on the canvas with his head spinning like a merry- go – round!

The truth is that Joe Frazier was a brawler; he had an aggressive straight ahead style called “smoking,” but against BIG PUNCHERS smoking proved dangerous to his health!!!  So much for inside the ring.  Outside the ring i.e. the lives they led as men: THERE IS NO COMPARISION; JOE IS NOT IN ALI’S CLASS!!!   In a physical fight it would be a criminal mismatch: a Feather-Weight vs. a Super-Heavyweight, which would result in a public homicide and everyone involved with the promotion, would be jailed!!!   Ali was the perfect champion for our generation, a militant generation whose activism destroyed the legal racial caste system in America and restored the vote to black southerners.

These achievements changed America so fundamentally that we now have had a succession of black Mayors in Atlanta and Birmingham, and now enjoy the tenure of a brilliant black President in the Oval Office, and a gorgeous highly educated first lady – the best ever – directing the White House and their fabulous children are the envy of parents everywhere.

Ali was a major inspiration to Barack as a youth, who kept his picture on his wall even after he became a Senator!!!  Ali’s example of courage and conviction in the face of adversity – which manifested itself as grace, charm and elegance in the face of imminent bodily harm – inspired millions of people around the world of every race and creed!

However Ali is remembered today because of things he did outside the ring, the principled stands he took – like giving up the Heavy-Weight Crown and losing millions because he opposed the Vietnam War!!  Compared to Ali Joe Frazier was just a run of the mill pug!!   For the record, there was no chance that Ali would ever have been sent into combat, rather he would have been assigned to Special Services and used as a morale booster fighting exhibition bouts for the troops, and employed as a spokesman to hype the war and recruit other youths!

Hence Ali made his decision on principle alone!!!  I know some readers of this thread will consider it bad form to Praise Ali upon the passing of Joe Frazier.  But I shall take the position Fredrick Douglass took in his speech at the unveiling of the “Freedman’s Memorial” to Abraham Lincoln: “Truth is beautiful and proper in all places and all times, but it is never more beautiful or proper than when speaking of a man who will be commended to history!”

 Ali Slays the Mighty Liston

What’s my Name Sucker!!!

 

 Foreman Wipes out Frazier

Dispensed in two Rounds!

 

Ali Ropes a Dope!

And the Fearsome Foreman Crumbled

 

 Ali and Smokin Joe’s Last Dance!

 

The Thrilla in Manila

The Greatest and hisVictims!

A Mighty Three: Frazier, Foreman and Ali

 

However the Old Lion slowed down in Retirement

 

In my wildest Dreams!

                                                                   

Double click to see highlights from  Ali = Frazier Fights

http://youtu.be/jQhFhdmW6Vs

Double Click to see Forman take Frazier’s Heavy weight Title

http://youtu.be/W4-WjL8jIyQ

Double Click to see Ali take the Heavy Weight  title from Foreman

http://youtu.be/55AasOJZzDE

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Playthell Benjamin

Harlem New York

November 9, 2911