How Ali's Legacy Destroyed Mike Tyson

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

Promoter Don King had taken Muhammad Ali's misbegotten racial rap and commercialized it. If Ali was sincere, King was not, and his cynicism made him all the more lethal. Ali abandoned racism as he and the society matured, just as Malcolm X had before him. King and the other race hustlers – Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton among them – had no more reason to abandon racism than they did any other viable promotional gimmick – Christianity, Islam, patriotism, whatever. [details]

[hitmanhomey]

race made tyson a star, sadly

It seems to me that the very reason that Tyson became the most popular and profitable fighter in the post-Ali era was the clever (if cynical and reprehensible) way that he was marketed. Like Sonny Liston, Tyson was portrayed as the "white man's nightmare"--the big, criminal, animalistic black man. White people ate it up, making King and Tyson rich. Unfortunately, Cashill's point about Tyson blaming race for his rape conviction and other problems--Cashill implies that being black isn't a problem in America--is an oversimplification. Obviously, not every black man turns out to be a rapist or felon, so in that sense Cashill is correct that Tyson was foolish (and self-pitying) to blame race for his plight. However, the fact of his blackness, and the way that promoters and the media pushed him into a box defined by his color, no doubt contributed to his demise. He obviously has a screw loose, and would have had problems anyway, but his handlers and the media made his meltdown a lot more baroque than it might have been. I think the most telling commentary on his rape conviction came from Tyson himself, when he said, "Everybody expected me to act like an animal, so I did," or something to that effect.

It is a sad statement about boxing that the Jack Johnson-Sonny Liston-Muhammad Ali-Mike Tyson storyline about cementing racial stereotypes and playing on white fears is still far more compelling to the fans than the Joe Louis-Sugar Ray Robinson-Sugar Ray Leonard storyline about transcending race and "crossing over." (Yes, I realize that Muhammad Ali moved from one storyline to the other as his career progressed).

[toehead]

interesting thread