He?s crass. He?s materialistic. He?s megalomaniacal. None of which makes him bad, per se. None of which even makes him different?
?The only color Don King cares about is green.??Larry Holmes
I do not get the black/white divide. I get that black is black. I get that white is white. I get that race is tribalism, a way to elevate one skin color, or religion or gender or class, over another. I also get that we?re no more responsible for our skin color than we are our height or IQ. But since reductionism is the sine qua non to keep us apart, so that depletion of spirit can go undetected, misconceptions concerning race, the ultimate visual delineation of the supposed ?other,? never seem to go out of style.
Oppress anyone long enough and rebellion is inevitable. Rage, like a pot boiling over, like a fire burning out of control, scorches everything within reach and even extends, sadly and not imperceptibly, into the realm of boxing.
Floyd Mayweather is the face of boxing. The sport may be a classic case of athletic multiple personality disorder, but when you strip away the alliances, the illusions, the ego trips and fibs, you still have the only sport that matters, and in that context Mayweather is the one.
Some had hoped that his May 2 fight would tip the scales in Pacquiao?s favor. But they were hoping against hope, buying into a false narrative perpetrated by Manny?s promoter, his trainer, and a subservient press corps. The good versus evil dialectic got folks to tune in at no small cost, but letting an injured fighter fight, whether he?d been saved or not, turned that storyline into mush.
The black/white paradigm aside, there?s much about Floyd Mayweather to dislike. He?s crass. He?s materialistic. He?s megalomaniacal. None of which makes him bad, per se. None of which even makes him different. But there is also much to admire. In a world where capital is king, Money Mayweather has earned his crown and scepter. He may not live as I live, but there?s no reason that he should.
He lives as he chooses and answers to no one because he earned the right not to answer to no one.
If anyone has anything to answer for, it?s Manny Pacquiao. He was anointed ?Sportsman of the Decade,? but sportsman du jour he is not. By making a few tactless post-fight remarks, Pacquiao blew decades of goodwill in one fell swoop. He succeeded, insofar as he succeeded at anything on May 2, in coming off as a ?poor loser? with more excuses than common sense.
But I?m no more interested in bashing Manny than bashing Floyd. They are fighters, after all, world champions, definitive self-made men. They are not, however, no matter how many masks they try on for size, exemplars of anything but the noble art of fighting, which is not only enough, it?s more than enough.
In an article titled ?Television and the Decline of the Sweet Science? by Ismael Reed, the author maintains that Floyd Mayweather has been mistreated. For example, his opening sentence reads, ?Floyd Mayweather once complained that boxing commentators, except for the boxers among them, are biased against black fighters.?
I do not agree.
Boxing has tracked, mirrored, and often led the way when it came to race relations in America. One need only mention Tom Molineaux, Peter Jackson, Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali, and Floyd Mayweather to understand that not only do black lives matter, but in boxing they have always mattered.
?Mayweather was cast as evil,? continues Reed, ?because of charges of domestic violence, for which he served time, but?Pacquiao was hardly the Saint portrayed by the media; the Huffington Post has also charged him with reactionary politics while serving as a congressman?that is, when he showed up for work.?
Pacquiao?s work habits aside, how did Arianna Huffington morph from being a plaything of the right into a totem of progressivism? And as far as reactionary politics are concerned, if it weren?t for reactionary politics, we wouldn?t have no politics at all (which would be a good thing). We know all we need to know about St. Manny of General Santos City. He?s against birth control. He?s pro-life. He hates gay marriage. He was lost and now he?s found. All of which means what? That Floyd?s not bad in comparison?
Reed contrasts comments made by MSNBC?s Melissa Harris-Perry, who is African American, to those made by Dave Zirin, the lily-white Jewish sportswriter for The Nation, to illustrate bias. Harris-Perry is iconic in some circles, but anyone who calls Glenn Greenwald?who is a trapeze artist to Harris-Perry?s gadfly?a ?loser? is carrying water for the ruling elite.
Reed believes there?s a ?campaign to demonize Mayweather,? as though Mayweather hasn?t gone out of his way to goad and needle. To expose the full extent of the demonization, Reed resurrects the kerfuffle between Mayweather and Larry Merchant after Floyd sucker punched Victor Ortiz. A tired trope then which is even more tired now, Reed writes that ?Mayweather apologized to Merchant, but in my mind no apology was necessary.? Merchant is, after all, one of those ?middle-aged guys,? which of course explains everything.
Reed writes that ?Merchant said that Mayweather was ?the best pure boxer of his time,? but added a dig. He said that Mayweather would ?rather watch a dramatic fight than to be in it???which is true, reasonable, and not necessarily flippant. Boxing is the art of hitting and not getting hit in return. Floyd doesn?t need to read The Lancet to learn about concussive blows to the head. He can listen to Roger. But Reed compares Merchant?s ?strange comments? to those sportswriters who ?lost their minds? over Jack Johnson?s ?Golden Smile.?
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.
After taking a well deserved shot at Dana White and an undeserved shot at Teddy Atlas, Reed took aim at a ?feminist sports writer,? whatever that is, named Kavitha Davidson of Bloomberg. Just in case you don?t know where this leads, she was ?brought on by the wealthy white men who own NBC to diss the brothers.?
Raising the stakes, if just slightly, Reed writes about the New York Times coverage of the fight. Why anyone would read about boxing in the Times, or any other subject for that matter, is beyond me, but the ?vicious, hateful and bizarre? article titled ?Mayweather Wins, Preens and is Booed? dragged other black athletes, specifically Ray Rice and Anthony Peterson, into the discussion. Given the givens, that doesn?t sound so strange. But it does sound like race-baiting, which as we know is a two-way street.
Reed devotes a couple paragraphs to the subject of ?running,? known hereabouts as footwork, and informs us that everyone from Sugar Ray Leonard to ?Jake Lamotta? [sic] lost their cool with pestering spouses. ?Domestic violence is a terrible crime,? notes Reed, ?but often women can give as well as take.?
Misogyny, thy name is Ismael Reed.
After a gratuitous takedown of Jim Lampley, who ?who can be (and is) accused of hypocrisy,? Reed might have ended on a high note.
But it was not to be. That?s not his style. That?s not his intent.
All men and women, whatever their race, religion, or creed, are my brothers and sisters. That which divides us, whether in furtherance of a cause or not, is by its very nature flawed.
Ismael Reed?s full article can be read here: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/22/television-and-the-decline-of-the-sweet-science/
