Muhammad Ali: The Brand and the Man

by clorenz1 | January 17, 2007 at 02:58 pm

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The images of a confident, fast talking, lively Muhammad Ali are fading into the world of black & white. My generation and those younger than I will see him as he is presented, the man crafted in a different mold, marketed, shaped by the media to be a passive old man. A man who might not be as revered when placed in the context of his opposition to war, his strength, his ability to throw uncomfortable truths in your face.

Would Tom Brady be the same hero if he spoke out against the war or left the side of the President?

Would any hero of the current sports world dare to even speak politics or oppose the realities of war, racism, & injustice publicly?

It could mean less money, more criticism, less access to fame.

Steve Nash is the only sports figure I can even think of that has spoken out against war, and I have not heard much lately.

We are a far cry from what the old footage, and stories portray. A man fighting racism, war, and other men in a very large arena. Teaching that hero's are born in struggle, and speaking out can be more a victory than winning in the arena of sport.

This man may all ready have faded to far away.

As Sharp told the Associated Press, young students are ideal since market research shows they know "the Ali brand" but are unaware of his early years as an unrepentant black nationalist and resister to the war in Vietnam.

"They're going to remember the media-spun image of Ali, which is mostly positive," Sharp said.

The irony of this repellent spectacle is that as the Ali brand grows in stature, his all-but-forgotten history as a war resister could not be more relevant. Today Iraq is the new Vietnam, with words and phrases like "quagmire," "body bags" and "civilian death tolls" returning to the national lexicon. At such a moment remembering the actual Ali becomes a question of salvaging a past that can offer a challenge to the horrors of the present.

Some people thought I was a hero. Some people said that what I did was wrong. But everything I did was according to my conscience. I made a stand all people, not just black people, should have thought about making, because it wasn't just black people being drafted. The government had a system where the rich man's son went to college, and the poor man's son went to war. Muhammad Ali

I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin' hell, but as long as they ain't free, I ain't free.

Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?