In Louisville a
proposal has been made to solve 2 problems…remove the statue of the
Confederate soldier and replace it with one of Ali.
Wrong.
Better we put up a
plaque at that downtown diner that refused him service when he came home
from winning an Olympic gold medal...because he was black, and
Louisville/Kentucky was segregated.
We need reminders of
our past history, and what courageous blacks did to stir our
consciences and get us to correct past wrongs. Ali is a fine example of
that---maybe even The Greatest.
We need to remember
him when he exercised the right of every American to protest unjust laws
and policies...as when he took his stand against the Vietnam war—saying
his religion forbade taking lives in war,
that “no Viet Cong had ever called him nigger," and he didn’t want to
go kill brown people in behalf of their white colonial oppressors. (And
the more you know about French policy of its former colony the more you
know he was right.)
He stood against war—always dangerous in our society (remember more recently the Dixie Chicks?) It took 3 years for the Supreme Court to decide Ali was right. Meanwhile professional boxing (always a sleazy
sport) blackballed him from fighting in his best years.
How do we look at the 'Nam war today? Or Iraq and those great WMDs?
That’s how to
remember Ali…as the Conscience of our Nation (and our World.) I think
he’d like that...and as he also said "maybe how pretty I was.”
I'm just sayin'...
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