Читать книгу When Boxing Was, Like, Ridiculously Racist - Ian Carey - Страница 3

Boxing today doesn’t have the cultural significance that it used to. While still enthusiastically followed in much of the world, the sport has faded from the spotlight in the current popular cultures of much of North America and Europe. Some of this can be attributed to the rise in popularity of the UFC and Mixed Martial Arts. The top boxer in the world now does not have an undisputed claim to being the toughest fighter on the planet as he did in the pre-UFC and MMA days. But for a long time the Heavyweight Boxing Championship was the title that declared who was the best of the best, and that meant a lot culturally. In the days of John L. Sullivan, when boxing began to take shape and the first World Title was created, slavery in the United States was a fresh memory. It was only slightly after slavery was abolished that the real history of the sport started to take shape. The United States during this period was very divided by race. While now free, black Americans were treated as second class citizens by government and much of the rest of white Americans, and a belief in white Anglo-Saxon superiority was present and institutionalized.

Before boxing in the 1880s, there was no such thing as a national or international sports celebrity, really. So when boxing began to crown World Champions, with their pictures published in the media all across the world, the Heavyweight Boxing Championship became more than just an award for an athlete; it became an iconic position that transcended sport.

The World Heavyweight Champion was the toughest man in the world, a symbol of strength and dominance not limited by weight sizes. Whoever that person was, he would be held on a pedestal of athletic dominance and superiority, and many in that period believed that this person had to be white, or this would directly challenge the belief of racial superiority that many in white America were clinging to at the time.

The belief that the Heavyweight champion had to be white was so strong that the early boxing champions would refuse to defend their title against black challengers. Black challengers could fight against white fighters in non-title bouts against non-champions, but the champions and their titles were off limits. This was referred to as a champion “Drawing the Color Line”.

The story ahead is the complete lineage of the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship from 1882-1915 and how it explains a cultural attitude toward race and identity in that era. It is the story of the symbol of the World Champion during that period and what it meant in society. It’s also a story about a bunch of tough, bad-ass guys from over a hundred years ago that used to beat each other up.