Welcome to Rastafari Speaks
  Login/Create an Account Homepage | Interactive Home | Weblog | Links | Forums  

Main Menu
· Interactive Home 
· Search 
· Stories Archive 
· Surveys 
· AvantGo 
· Recommend Us 
· Feedback 
· Web Links 
· Private Messages 
· Your Account 
· Amazon Shopping 

Website Links

· AfricaSpeaks Home 
· Rasta Times 
· Articles/Archive 
· News Weblog 
· Rastafari Archive 
· Marcus Garvey 
· Haile Selassie 
· Message Board 
· Reasoning Forum 
· Black Africans 
· Reasoning Archive 
· Sudan Crisis 
· Zimbabwe 
· Haiti's Coup 
· Venezuela/Chavez 

Website Info.

· About Us 
· Terms of Use 
· Fair Use Notice 
· Privacy Policy 

Big Story of Today
There isn't a Biggest Story for Today, yet.

Categories Menu
  • African Diaspora
  • Book Reviews
  • Caribbean
  • Caribbean Views
  • Haile Selassie
  • Israel/Palestine
  • Marcus Garvey
  • Poetry
  • Psychology
  • Racism Watch
  • Rasta Revolution
  • Rastafari
  • South America
  • Spirituality
  • Syria
  • Trinidad and Tobago
  • U.S.A.
  • War and Terror
  • War on Libya
  • War with Russia
  • Women
  • World Focus

  • Old Articles
    Thursday, May 19
    ·
    Monday, April 25
    ·
    Friday, April 22
    · Denying Discrimination: Clintonian Political Calculus and the Culture of Hooey
    Wednesday, December 09
    · The Religious Element of Terrorism
    Sunday, November 29
    ·
    Saturday, November 21
    · The Paris Attacks and the White Lives Matter Movement
    Sunday, September 27
    · Freedom Rider: Ahmed Mohamed and Abdulrahman al-Awlaki
    Monday, August 10
    ·
    Saturday, June 20
    · America Prosecutes the World
    Wednesday, April 29
    · Skip Gates and Sony Exposed by Wikileaks

    Older Articles

    Books
    Buy Books

    Racism Watch: Muhammad Ali: My Name, Not Yours
    Posted on Monday, June 06 @ 14:28:32 UTC by admin

    Muhammad Ali By Abby Zimet
    June 06, 2016 - commondreams.org


    A nod to the great Muhammad Ali, dead at 74, a brave black man at a difficult time who "just wanted to be free," who never knew his place and refused to be afraid when others tried to put him in it, who insisted to the world of power that first honored and then rejected him that "I don't have to be what you want me to be," who at the height of his fame and riches declared "Goddamn the White Man's money" in the name of principle, who refused to join a racist unjust war,  connected the dots of white oppression around the world and proclaimed, "The real enemy of my people is here."

    Though so many remember him for unprecedented grit and grace in the boxing ring, Ali himself chose again and again to measure his own worth in the world beyond his bloody sport. “Boxing is nothing, just satisfying to some bloodthirsty people," he said near the end of his reign. "I’m no longer a Cassius Clay, a Negro from Kentucky. I belong to the world, the black world." The final irony of Ali's political heroism, notes Dave Zirin, is that he was unequivocally hailed as a national icon only after he lost his fearless voice.

    "We haven’t heard Ali speak for himself in more than a generation," Zirin writes, "and it says something damning about this country that he was only truly embraced after he lost his power of speech, stripped of that beautiful voice...His greatest gift was that he gave us quite a simple road map to walk his path. It is not about being a world-class athlete or an impossibly beautiful and charismatic person. It is simply to stand up for what you believe in."

    In 1967, Ali famously connected the civil rights struggle to the injustices of the war in Vietnam: “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 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? No, I'm not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end... I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality...I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I'll go to jail, so what? We've been in jail for 400 years.” May he rest in peace and power.

    Source: www.commondreams.org/further/2016/06/05/my-name-not-yours

    Also Read:

    Don’t Let Muhammad Ali’s Story Get Whitewashed
    June 04, 2016 - Maxwell Strachan - huffingtonpost.com
    History says we'll try and forget the boxing legend's radicalism. We shouldn't.

    Muhammad Ali knew he had a job to do on this planet – inspire people
    June 05, 2016 - Gary Younge - theguardian.com
    In life, there's the beginning and the end,” John Carlos, the black American Olympic medalist who raised his fist in a black power salute from the podium of the 1968 Olympic games, told me. “The beginning don't matter. The end don't matter. All that matters is what you do in between – whether you're prepared to do what it takes to make change.

    Why Muhammad Ali Matters to Everyone
    June 04, 2016 - Sean Gregory - time.com

    Watch Muhammad Ali’s Perfect Response To ‘Not All White People Are Racist’ – In 1971
    November 04, 2015 - Zeba Blay - huffingtonpost.com
    Saying not everyone is racist doesn't make racism go away.


     
    Related Links
    · More about Muhammad Ali
    · News by admin


    Most read story about Muhammad Ali:
    Muhammad Ali: My Name, Not Yours


    Article Rating
    Average Score: 0
    Votes: 0

    Please take a second and vote for this article:

    Excellent
    Very Good
    Good
    Regular
    Bad


    Options

     Printer Friendly Printer Friendly



    Views expressed on our Websites are those of the authors and are not necessarily shared, endorsed, or recommended by the management and staff of RastafariSpeaks.com.

    All logos and trademarks in this site are property of their respective owner. The comments are property of their posters, all the rest © 2004- 2008 RastafariSpeaks.com.
    You can syndicate our news using the file backend.php or ultramode.txt

    PHP-Nuke Copyright © 2005 by Francisco Burzi. This is free software, and you may redistribute it under the GPL. PHP-Nuke comes with absolutely no warranty, for details, see the license.
    Page Generation: 0.10 Seconds
    AfricaSpeaks.com