Comments Thread For: As MLB Sets the Record Straight, Boxing Should Shine a Light on Its Overlooked

[MusoMeanderings]

Imagine being a professional boxer & fighting for a world title whilst having tuberculosis.

Kinda mean to your opponent. And everyone else in the building.

[Doctor Bill]

The color barrier in sports was very real, as real as the disenfranchisement of blacks (in most of the South, less than 10% were registered voters until the Voting Rights Act of 1965). It is all to the good that great black athletes, whose carriers were obscured by the color line, are being recognized. Regarding boxing, one example of how black fighters were ignored as late as the 1920's, can be shown by the career of Gene Tunney, one of my favorite all-time fighters. He never fought a black fighter, so far as anyone seems to know.

Two asides to the article: Josh Gibson died not from a broken heart but a brain tumor, which he refused to have removed (of course brain surgery was far more risky then, so maybe he was right: he lived with the tumor for at least four years). And Ty Cobb, often portrayed as a racist, now appears to have been the victim of a smear campaign. His views on race were egalitarian, making allowances for the context of his time and place. He supported the breaking of the color barrier in baseball. In 1952 he said "Certainly it is O.K. for them to play," he said, "I see no reason in the world why we shouldn't compete with colored athletes as long as they conduct themselves with politeness and gentility. Let me say also that no white man has the right to be less of a gentleman than a colored man, in my book that goes not only for baseball but in all walks of life.”

[dannnnn]

Imagine being a professional boxer & fighting for a world title whilst having tuberculosis. Or fighting whilst clinically blind. Or fighting the same guy 22 times.

Hey man, don't give Tyson Fury and Derek Chisora any ideas.

[DClefthook]

Rewriting history will only escalate hate.

Almost forgot....MusoMesanderings: Rewriting history will only escalate hate

[Oldskoolg]

Rewriting history will only escalate hate.

Spoken like the true spirit of revived racism via the m-a-g-a mindset

[Oldskoolg]

The color barrier in sports was very real, as real as the disenfranchisement of blacks (in most of the South, less than 10% were registered voters until the Voting Rights Act of 1965). It is all to the good that great black athletes, whose carriers were obscured by the color line, are being recognized. Regarding boxing, one example of how black fighters were ignored as late as the 1920's, can be shown by the career of Gene Tunney, one of my favorite all-time fighters. He never fought a black fighter, so far as anyone seems to know.

Two asides to the article: Josh Gibson died not from a broken heart but a brain tumor, which he refused to have removed (of course brain surgery was far more risky then, so maybe he was right: he lived with the tumor for at least four years). And Ty Cobb, often portrayed as a racist, now appears to have been the victim of a smear campaign. His views on race were egalitarian, making allowances for the context of his time and place. He supported the breaking of the color barrier in baseball. In 1952 he said "Certainly it is O.K. for them to play," he said, "I see no reason in the world why we shouldn't compete with colored athletes as long as they conduct themselves with politeness and gentility. Let me say also that no white man has the right to be less of a gentleman than a colored man, in my book that goes not only for baseball but in all walks of life.”

I’ve also read that Cobb wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the common narrative. Well done

[MusoMeanderings]

Spoken like the true spirit of revived racism via the m-a-g-a mindset

Are you saying they are doing the right thing?

[Boxingfanatic75]

It's disheartening to read about just how pervasive, and rampant racism was back in those days.
To see it rearing its ugly head around again is down right infuriating, and we have to stand up against its growing revival!

Real question here. Where exactly is its revival? Other than a few dumb asses across the country and abuses of power? I can tell you the vast vast majority don’t wake up every morning saying, “how am I going to screw over <insert minority group here> today?” Most don’t give two s h I t s about their own neighbor let alone a group they don’t know. Most go to a job, go home, eat dinner and don’t give it a single thought. So I’m trying really hard to find its “revival.” Now if you mean the stoking of the flames by the lame stream media then yes, absolutely! I’d imagine anyone watching that brain rot and being told what is happening live in a world that has been built upon lie after lie.

Did it exist systematically? Yes absolutely. If it did still exist systematically (I.e. government, business, institutions) everyone would know and the law fare would be ongoing. Yet, I have yet to see an active major case of systematic racism.

Yet we were one of the first to abolish slavery while there are STILL countries that employ slavery to this day. Yet, we still hear about our sins. Not a peep about elsewhere. Why is that do you think?

[Boricua181]

Real question here. Where exactly is its revival? Other than a few dumb asses across the country and abuses of power? I can tell you the vast vast majority don’t wake up every morning saying, “how am I going to screw over <insert minority group here> today?” Most don’t give two s h I t s about their own neighbor let alone a group they don’t know. Most go to a job, go home, eat dinner and don’t give it a single thought. So I’m trying really hard to find its “revival.” Now if you mean the stoking of the flames by the lame stream media then yes, absolutely! I’d imagine anyone watching that brain rot and being told what is happening live in a world that has been built upon lie after lie.

Did it exist systematically? Yes absolutely. If it did still exist systematically (I.e. government, business, institutions) everyone would know and the law fare would be ongoing. Yet, I have yet to see an active major case of systematic racism.

Yet we were one of the first to abolish slavery while there are STILL countries that employ slavery to this day. Yet, we still hear about our sins. Not a peep about elsewhere. Why is that do you think?

I'll answer you this once, and if you still come back with the I don't see it statement then that's where you stand.
School shooting, church shootings, mass shootings with military style weapons, the Killing of women, children, and others.
These mass killings all in one place, at the same place using weapons of war, and your saying what?
The world has been built lie upon lie, but this is right in line with those lie's that your trying to perpetuate that racism isn't on the rise.

[Boricua181]

Spoken like the true spirit of revived racism via the m-a-g-a mindset

Exactly! Oldskoolg!