Artwork by Michael DiMilo
The controversy over the freshmen Congressional members of the “Squad”, ginned up by President Trump in inflammatory tweets last week, reminds me of how prominent black athletes who spoke out for black rights in the ‘60s and ‘70s were condemned by mainstream American culture.
Muhammad Ali is the archetype for this treatment. He was certainly problematic. Cocky, braggadocious, unapologetic, he “doth bestride the narrow world (of sports) like a colossus”. First and foremost, he broke the self-effacing, team-oriented athletic norm with his declaration: “I am the greatest!” After winning Olympic gold in boxing, representing the US, he caustically renounced his given name. “Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn’t choose it, and I didn’t want it. I am Muhammad Ali, a free name – it means beloved of God – and I insist people use it when speaking to me and of me.”
As a sports-besotted middleclass white kid, I didn’t know what to make of this braggart. I grew up on Bart Starr, the polite Alabamian who deferred to his coaches and bosses, and who seemed genuinely humbled to share the spotlight with Vince Lombardi and Paul Hornung. White America in the ‘60s didn’t have the vocabulary for an outlandish blowhard like Ali – much less one who always delivered.
I remember conservative commentator Paul Harvey tut-tutting when Ali announced his refusal to register for the draft. “Man, I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong,” Ali stated. “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?”
The white rulers of the boxing world, the New York State Athletic Commission, took their revenge. They stripped him of his world title and revoked his license to box. A federal jury took only twenty-one minutes to convict him of violating Selective Service laws.
This totally confused the 10-year old me. But Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 10 years older and growing up in New York, saw it differently: “…he was so anti-establishment and he kind of thumbed his nose at authority and got away with it. The fact that he was proud to be a black man and that he had so much talent… made some people think that he was dangerous. But for those very reasons I enjoyed him.”
Ali knew what he was doing. “I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.”
Well, the evidence is in. And guess what. America STILL hasn’t gotten used to outspoken and confident black people. Minnesota’s newest member of Congress, Representative Ilhan Omar, is the prime example. Omar takes it a step further than Ali. Not only is she black, but she’s a Muslim immigrant who dresses stylishly in hijab.
Omar doesn’t show the deference to America that we expect from our immigrants. “‘I arrived at the age of 12 and learned that I was the extreme other,’ she explained to the Washington Post, noting bullying when she was in school in Arlington, Va., an affluent Washington, D.C., suburb. ‘I was black. I was Muslim. I also learned I was extremely poor and that the classless America that my father talked about didn’t exist.‘“
She doesn’t speak with the expected reverence for the tragedy 9/11. “CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something, and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.”
“Some people did something” – the howls of protest that arose from conservative media have yet to subside. In fact, she is like catnip for the primarily white viewers of Fox News – their mentions of her are three times greater than on CNN or MSNBC.
Ilhan Omar has even taken on the political establishment’s most sacred of cows—the government of Israel. She doesn’t let her Islamic beliefs get in the way of calling a spade a spade. “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country. I want to ask, why is it OK for me to talk about the influence of the NRA, of fossil fuel industries or Big Pharma, and not talk about a powerful lobbying group that is influencing policies?” Of course, she was referring to AIPAC, the Israeli lobby beloved of both political parties. “How dare you imply that we have dual loyalties!” came the cry from both parties. Of course, as she also tweeted succinctly “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.”
President Trump, with his unhinged tweets and chanting rally crowds, has done more to rehabilitate Omar and her fellow “Squad” member– and to re-unite them with mainstream Democrats– than a hundred meetings with Nancy Pelosi could ever have accomplished.Yet the entire controversy has to make you wonder. Have we “gotten used to” black Americans speaking their mind? I don’t think so.