Hypothetical question: let’s say a major sports figure — one with with debatably anti-Semitic and racist tendencies in his past — steps up to the mike at a banquet and tells the following two jokes. “What’s the difference between a Jew and a canoe? A canoe tips!” And “A black, a Puerto Rican, and a Mexican are in a car. Who’s driving? The police!”
For most people, the uproar would be instant. People get fired for that sort of thing. So why, when Muhammed Ali told those jokes Monday, was there essentially no reaction?
I’m not asking to make some sort of political point; I’m genuinely interested. Earlier this month, Denver Nuggets coach Dan Issel got into a heap of trouble for yelling at a drunken heckler, “Go drink another beer, you Mexican [expletive],” which to my mind is at least debatably not worse than what Ali said. (The guy in question evidently was quite drunk and belligerent, and I’d consider simply using the word “Mexican” to describe someone Hispanic less offensive than perpetuating stereotypes about an ethnic group.)
Ali is, of course, now a culturally beloved figure nowadays, but it wasn’t too long ago he was talking about “white devils” and towing the Nation of Islam/Farrakhan line on the evils of Jews, so one might think the slightest misstep in that direction would be grabbed onto immediately. Is it the Parkinson’s that makes his inviolate to criticism? (If so, can we expect Michael J. Fox to start mouthing off soon?)
I’m interested in how different people get treated differently for saying the same things. If Bill Clinton had said half of the things George W. Bush has said in the last year, he’d have been pilloried by conservatives, because the storyline of Clinton-bashing had already been ingrained into the media and the punditocracy. In Ali’s case, I think it matters that he has no boss: if someone who says something bad can be fired by someone, the urge for columnists et al to make a big fuss about it is greater. Any ideas?
3 thoughts on “ali’s race jokes”
Comments are closed.
Wow – now you’ve started something ;). Going totally w/o backing, I think you’d find historically U.S. citizens are more likely to single out someone who is white that makes the derogatory statement than someone who is considered a “minority” (insert whatever religion, background, etc. here). At least that’s what is played out in the press I read.
Another example for you – last year, Allen Iverson was allowed to continue playing basketball even with highly-controversial lyrics on his rap album (yes, the lyrics were eventually removed from external pressures). Yet when John Rocker went off his rocker with the Braves, Selig suspended him for an unprecented amount of time.
ESPN’s Dan Patrick, considered an expert in sports matters, would agree in many ways.
Perhaps a sports analogy is too limited, but I still see any type of forced bias/segregation as a sign of fear by one group toward another.
And this comes from a bit of experience… I’m half-Jewish.
Certainly minorities have generally been given more leeway when talking about whites than the other way around — and it’s possible to argue that that’s not a bad thing. (I certainly have less of a problem with, say, a black comic making jokes about white people than I would with the opposite — that’s not too far from the standard journalism encomium that a newspaper is supposed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.)
But what surprised me is that usually anti-Semitic comments get noticed more, whether they’re from David Duke-style whites or minorities. Prominent black leaders have historically gotten more in trouble for saying bad things about Jews (Jesse Jackson’s Hymietown comments, Al Sharpton’s [unsubstantiated, to my knowledge] “bloodsucking Jews” comments and Crown Heights role, Farrakhan’s whole career) than about whites. But Ali skates.
I wasn’t really surprised, because Ali does have this inviolate air about him, but I’m just curious why.
Perhaps people feel almost sorry for Ali. Here’s a guy who was on top of the world, who was so arrogant that he alienated others. No that a disease has hobbled him, he’s “come back to the pack” so to speak. America loves a winner to a point… then they envy that success. The underdog, on the other hand, seems to almost always be in style. Death gets us all. Parkinson’s may get him there faster, and that brings him closer. We’re more tolerant of family or the underdog, that’s for sure.