H-ALI-iography

Muhamnad Ali

I'm so tired of being outraged. I'd like to believe that I'm out of rage but I suspect not. I suppose I could roll over and play dead but then that would leave me even worse off.

Every day, I feel like I'm being assaulted on multiple fronts. It's wearying. And yet, I have much for which to be grateful....it's not the 1800's and I'm free and not just technically so. It's not the early 1900's and I can vote. Still, as I wrote many weeks ago, I feel like Pyrrhus is dogging my heels.

Last night, as I was watching CBS' 60 Minutes, I heard the dreaded words again "he transcended race, religion" in the preamble to the report on Muhammad Ali and I wondered, "Will this ever end?"

For no reason that I can articulate, I really thought I could expect better from Lesley Stahl. But why? Why would I expect better from her? Has she somehow proved to me that she's so evolved that she wouldn't drop that nugget and keep moving like it ain't nothing? What's my proof that Lesley Stahl ain't another talking head, talking without thinking? Ain't no proof. I just assumed.....and you know what happens when you assume (you make an ASS of U and ME).

And then there's all the caterwauling over the death of Muhammad Ali. Listen, I'm not saying that the acknowledgements of The Greatest's greatness are fake, I just wonder how many of these people hailing him as great really would have been of the same mind had he been floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee and trash talkin' like a boss today. I don't actually have to wonder but it's fun to pretend like I don't know the answer to that question.

It wasn't a month ago that Piers Morgan was fighting mad at Beyoncé for releasing Lemonade complaining that he liked her better when she was more malleable. It wasn't three months ago that right wing talk radio and conservative media in general were up in arms about Bey's Formation. It was barely a year ago that the right wing felt that Freddie Gray's and Laquan McDonald's deaths were entirely justifiable. It wasn't quite a year ago that folk were pitching up to raise money for the defense of the indefensible actions of Dylan Roof. At the same time, Roof's judge was asking for our kind thoughts for the family of the malefactor because God knows their lives had been upended by the actions of the boy (miscreant?) they raised. In the same span of time, there has been an explosion of Black anger channeled into the Black Lives Matter movement and activism. In response, we've heard a thousand negative things about Black activism, not the least of those being that BLM is a terrorist group. Why do we not think that the Ali whom we honor today, wasn't a fan of BLM? Was he not the BLM of his age? Or are we just going to pretend that Ali wasn't an activist and that his activism wasn't an enormous part of his character and brand?

When the men of the St. Louis Rams team came on the field with their hands up in recognition of the Mike Brown shooting, the DailyMail online headline the next day screamed, "Rams players should be PUNISHED for 'hands up' Ferguson protest". The St Louis police demanded and apology. The gesture was described by St. Louis PD as 'tasteless, offensive and inflammatory' much, I imagine, as Ali's refusal to be conscripted to fight in Vietnam was. And now folk wanna make like Ali was all that? Ali was a Ram or perhaps better put, the Rams are the new Ali but y'all ain't see that. You ain't see it in the 1960's with Ali, we ain't see it in 2014 with the Rams and folk ain't trying to see it now either.

Richard Sherman, Seattle Seahawks CB

Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers QB

When Richard Sherman and Cam Newton were blowing up the place with their amazing feats of athleticism and smack talk, all folk didn't do was call them n*ggers. Sportscasters and others in the blogosphere certainly wasted no time calling them thugs or arrogant, and now folk wanna make like Ali was all that? Ali was Newton and Sherman before either young man was a twinkle in their fathers' eyes or better put, Cam and Sherman are the Alis of this new age.

Please forgive me if I say, "Spare me the public grief and hagiography!" It's hagiographic ramblings if you had no use for the individual during his life and at the height of his power but now, deceased, he is this great man we should revere. Stop! Just stop. Spare me. Spare us. And spare yourself the humiliation....though there's probably no humiliation. Ali was an earlier incarnation of BLM, the same BLM many now revile. Watch some of the video of his interviews and tell me it ain't true.

I get that we feel a need to honor those whose body of work speaks volumes. My only request is that we try to be honest in those remembrances. I've written before that as a nation, we are very quick to accept the benefits of the work others have done, even when we've been intellectually and/or morally too lazy to lift a damn finger in the fight. (Shades of the plantation there but I won't go down that particular rabbit hole.)

We proudly claim the benefits of the Civil Rights Movement when we have neither sat down nor have we stood up one single time against oppression. We celebrate freedom when we haven't one time stepped away from our cushy lives and suffered the deprivations of the soldier or his family nor have we lifted a finger to help a homeless vet. And here we are now, loudly celebrating Ali when we have blithely stood for every blasted thing he rebuked and had we had half a chance, we would have called him every thing but a child of God.

Why did I expect Lesley Stahl to know better than to be talking about Muhammad Ali as having transcended race and religion? Why? That's boilerplate celebrate a dead negro language. It's been said of Prince, MJ, MLK and probably every other Black man or woman who 'was a credit to his/her race'. Why would I expect the very people publicly berating the Rams, Sherman and Newton to stand up now and recognize the Ali-ness of all those men for this new era? Why, because I keep hoping - against all reasonable evidence - that there's evolution taking place. Sometimes I can't believe the depths of my own naivete!

Every time we lose an icon we have to hear how they transcended race. Boilerplate. Standard operating procedure. Reflex. Well here's my reflex: thanks but no thanks. We who are Black in life are just as Black in death. Death causes no change in that state. The only transcendence to which we look forward, is the one that takes us into the next dimension. Let me disabuse all and sundry of any belief that we are looking to transcend anything. We good right here. Thanks, but no thanks.

If you can't revere the work we've done while Black, don't bother with the reverence. We managed to survive and sometimes even thrive without broad approbation in life, I assure you we can rest in peace without it in death.  We good right here. Thanks eh, but no.