Friday Open Thread ~ "What are you reading?" edition ~ The Bittersweet Science
Boxing, the historian Gerald Horne argues in his engaging and meticulously researched new book, was effectively weaponized by Blacks in the battle against white supremacy.
Toxic masculinity and other offshoots (including homophobia) are a major theme of this book and the author does not neglect women boxers–and wrestlers too—whose skills were honed in day-to-day battles with the pestilence that is male supremacy.
This book traces the story of Black dominance in the sport, from fighting en-slavers in Africa, through the brutal “battle royals” of slavery when enslaved men were placed in a ring blindfolded and forced to fight until one man was left standing, while, at the same time, it exposes the gross exploitation of fighters and the gargantuan profits garnered by the likes of Don King, Bob Arum–and a former Atlantic City casino poseur named Donald J. Trump.
Gerald Horne on the Political Economy of Boxing and Slavery
Gerald Horne is Moores Professor of History & African American Studies at the University of Houston. He is the author of more than three dozen books including White Supremacy Confronted: US Imperialism & Anticommunism vs the Liberation of Southern Africa from Rhodes to Mandela, The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, and White Supremacy and Capitalism in 17th Century North America and the Caribbean.
Boxing, as the historian Gerald Horne argues in his engaging and meticulously researched book, “The Bittersweet Science: Racism, Racketeering, and the Political Economy of Boxing,” was effectively weaponized by Blacks in the battle against white supremacy. It was vital in demolishing the ugly stereotypes and myths propagated by the white majority about Blacks. Johnson, perhaps the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, was as eloquent and uncompromising as he was tactically brilliant in the ring. And when he could not be defeated, the white ruling class hounded and persecuted him, as they would do decades later with Du Bois, by perverting the law to banish him from the sport and drive him into exile.
Boxing was, as Horne notes, “in many ways the ne plus ultra of capitalism itself, the essence of its unavoidable accoutrements: white supremacy, masculinity, violence, profiteering, corruption.”
Boxing matches were a common diversion for white slaveholders. Olaudah Equiano and Frederick Douglass write of witnessing boxing matches arranged by slaveholders, “not only as entertainment for themselves,” Horne writes, “but also as a way to encourage divisions and rancor among captives.”
Continue reading:
Battling White Supremacy in the Ring by Chris Hedges
Trivia Q related to this topic ... [Submitted by JCWeb on Sat, 02/06/2021
What action that had the unanimous support of the Congressional Black Caucus did President Trump take that President Obama refused to take?
A: A posthumous pardon for Jack Johnson, first black HW Champion of the World.
Here's a link to a Grammy-award winning documentary based on the excellent biography entitled Unforgivable Blackness, by Geoffrey Ward, directed by Ken Burns
Comments
Gerald Horne is a good historian...
I've enjoyed getting to know him through his interviews with Aaron and others.
Jack Johnson drove the racists crazy...
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Fare thee well Titanic, fare thee well
wouldn't let Jack Johnson on board
"this ship don't haul no coal"
Fare thee well
Cool interview in the Sun
The theme is different. https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/540/our-great-reckoning It's a long interview, but worth it. She says that human supremacy is at the root of the problem.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Maybe the word "supremacy" is the problem
Ayn Rand had a point about the "Gospel of Envy" - and I think Nietzsche's observation about "slave morality" was spot-on. If you set it up so that "Power" is the Postmodern "Satan", then that's pathological beyond words.
[[I tried to insert Monty Python's "Complaints about complaints" sketch/segue here, but darn it if I can't find a copy of it online anymore]]
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Ermagerd!
Kim Stanley Robinson -- The Ministry for the Future
Margaret Atwood -- The Testaments
Joan Slonczewski -- A Door Into Ocean
Andreas Malm -- Corona Climate Chronic Emergency
Carl Boggs -- Facing Catastrophe
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Good morning, philly ~~
Gerald Horne is awesome. Thanks for bringing his work to c99.
Enjoy the day!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Good morning philly. Mostly reading stuff about latest wave of
censorship in the US and muy backlog of journals/magazines. Sounds like a wonderful book, though I doubt I'll ever get to it.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Trivia Q related to this topic ...
What action that had the unanimous support of the Congressional Black Caucus did President Trump take that President Obama refused to take?
A: A posthumous pardon for Jack Johnson, first black HW Champion of the World.
Here's a link to a Grammy-award winning documentary based on the excellent biography entitled Unforgivable Blackness, by Geoffrey Ward, directed by Ken Burns: https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/unforgivable-blackness