PIERS MORGAN SHOULD APOLOGIZE FOR MUHAMMAD ALI RACIST SLUR

BY GABRIEL PRINCEWILL-

Yesterday, Ali’s daughter paid a moving tribute to her father, and punctuated her comments by quoting her father who said anybody who is the same at 50 years of age as they were at 20 years, has waisted 30 years of their lives. She was implicitly alluding to the criticisms of her father’s seemingly racists comments to white people. One of those critics being the confident and opinionated Piers Morgan. Some of our readers sent strong critical comments about Morgan, many of which were not published on our comment section.

However, the pressure for us to address this issue now has been both internal and external. A brief appraisal of the mindset of Ali and those of his unfair critics is worthy of evaluation for the sake of his memory.  Ali was a radical, charming, and controversial character who lived in a time of extreme racism in America. Racism still apparent today, observable in the boundless and unjustified police killings of black men that has continued with impunity. Muhammad Ali was uneducated, though very intelligent. He was an angry man who lacked the prudence and measure required to vent his grievance in a sophisticated, proportionate and enlightened manner.

This is a man who was stripped of his heavyweight title belt, simply because he would not go to war. He is known to have said he had no quarrel with the Vietnamese people, that they never called him a nigger. His latter comment evidenced his deep seated anger at racism, against which he was committed to waging a war. His methods were not pretty, though he himself was quite pretty. He never put his unedifying comments in the context of his reasons, something that would have been expected of an educated man. Ali’s decision to change his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali was directly connected to his bitterness against slavery, which he avowedly connected with Christianity- a faith he perceived to be the slaves master’s religion. His view about Christianity was subjective, since we know that those who act in the name of a religion are not necessarily positive representatives of the faith in whose name they purport to act.

Ali was an impulsive and daring man, who did not have the insight to understand this. Many today still share his views, especially when influenced by articulate and radical proponents of this ideology. A lover of controversy and drama, he used his platform as world heavyweight champion to profound express his anathema to racist and discriminatory practices, fighting back with every vigor in his bones. Morgan and other commentators who have openly criticized Ali have blissfully and uncharitably overlooked the circumstances of Ali’s unbridled rhetorics of venom. This does a disservice to Ali’s memory, something Morgan and his critics really should apologize for.

Ali was not racist, he was simply a bitterly angry man. Comparing him to Trump was abysmally spiteful or ignorant at best. Racism fundamentally requires an element of superiority to the race being victimized, as well, this embodying a element of power to make them feel inferior or acknowledge the superior feeling of the offending racist. Donald Trump will have the power to suppress those against whom he may be racist, if he becomes president. Muhammad Ali did not. Trump also can reasonably be said to feel superior to any race he subjects to racism. Muhammad Ali  could not reasonably be said to have felt superior to white people; he was just deliberately trying to offend them in an attempt to get even. Ali was conceivably also trying to please those black people whom he felt would approve of his far reaching comments.

Ali was clearly repentant of his comments, evidenced by his words in which he expressed maturity by impliedly stating that his reflection on some of his words uttered in his 20’s were regrettable in his 50’s. In death, Ali should be remembered for his boldness, supreme confidence, charisma, and delivery on his promises in the ring.  A true gem, Ali changed the face of boxing and introduced an unrivaled level of class to the sport, not seen before or after him. Some boxers have tried to emulate his trash talking today, but none has come close to the brilliant and elegant way in which the greatest himself delivered it. Eloquent, witty, funny, and original, Ali was a masterclass and an exemplar of all round quality and legitimate supremacy. He truly shook up the world!

The extreme comments he said about white people must never be emulated by sensible members of any society. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Furthermore, people of every race are intrinsically capable of racism and prejudice, and do sometimes manifest this reprehensible cancer is different ways where they know it is oppressive and unacceptable. Racism should be fought whenever it is definitively encountered,  reciprocating racial and discriminative conduct is is not vengeance- it is stooping the same low level as the original offender. Knowledge is power, but Muhammad Ali did not have the knowledge being expressed here.

He fought with the weaponry at his disposal, using his position as a platform to execute vengeance.It is absolutely crucial, that intelligent, honest, and objective people acknowledge this. Piers Morgan is a straight talking journalist. It is better that he spoke his mind, than not. However the basis of his express thought is patently flawed, and it is right that he be told this.

The eye of media.com will today take time to mail as many publications as we can who have unfairly criticized Ali for racist remarks, in order to present them with the perspective they rally should have, but may have overlooked.

He suffered with Parkinson’s disease for three decades, barely able to talk. This was a sad sight to see for a man once so vigorous and outspoken in a manner than made him very interesting and entertaining. He was truly the greatest, and the splendor and excitement he brought to a sport will live in our hearts forever. May his soul rest in perfect peace. The eye of media.com contacted Piers Morgan to express our disappointment in his comments and present to him the appropriate perspective from which he should have viewed Ali’s comments, and ask for his reaction. He declined to comment.