tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post4686189723375264040..comments2024-03-24T19:55:32.537-05:00Comments on The View from This Seat: Remembering Cassius ClayLKSeathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-41921226414697780092017-01-30T08:52:55.310-06:002017-01-30T08:52:55.310-06:00Very articulate and witty, the Will Rogers of our ...Very articulate and witty, the Will Rogers of our time. I miss him.Kathyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18325255778858806022noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-55448562143599377382014-02-27T12:43:48.562-06:002014-02-27T12:43:48.562-06:00Anton, thanks for sharing this about your rage ove...Anton, thanks for sharing this about your rage over white racism. I am glad you were a pacifist evangelical Christian then. (And that is not a bad thing for a person to be now!)<br /><br />I will be posting more explicitly about racism tomorrow.LKSeathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-47431311622169722882014-02-24T17:29:57.133-06:002014-02-24T17:29:57.133-06:00John Bush, my 91-year-old Thinking Friend and fell...John Bush, my 91-year-old Thinking Friend and fellow church member, wrote (by email): "Great post, Leroy. His daughter is quite a boxer, too."<br /><br />I have not seen her box (I am far less a fan of female boxers than male boxers), but Ali's daughter Laila (b. 1977) retired in 2007 after eight years as a professional boxer. Her record was 24-0. <br /><br />As John said, she was "quite a boxer, too"!LKSeathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-32090878399125085292014-02-23T16:50:15.927-06:002014-02-23T16:50:15.927-06:00One of the regular readers of this blog asked, &qu...One of the regular readers of this blog asked, "Wasn’t his name/religion change part of trying to avoid military service as a conscientious objector?"<br /><br />No, that doesn't seem to be the case at all. Clay failed the mental aptitude part of the military qualifying examination in January 1964, the month before his announced conversion to Islam, and failed it again in March 1964, the month of his name change.<br /><br />In February 1966, though, after the standards were changed he was declared eligible for military service. The following month, two years after his conversion/name change, for the first time he claimed CO status based on his Islamic beliefs. <br />LKSeathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-25000125639542453512014-02-23T09:20:29.242-06:002014-02-23T09:20:29.242-06:00I never followed him very closely outside media re...I never followed him very closely outside media reports, but I admired Muhammad Ali’s courageous stands against the domination of our culture and to the suppression of minority voices by white Christians (mostly Protestant), as well as to the paranoid anti-communism that were so evident back in the 1950s and 60s.<br /><br />Because of age and class, I came to the game late, but in the late 1960s I became an avid student of African-American history. I suppose I read every major history and biography I could find at the time, and would spend hours combing through bookstores in St. Louis, sometimes without success, looking for more books in black studies.<br /><br />Those studies put me in a kind of rage about white racism. My stepfather at that time (I experienced several stepfathers) was very racist, and sometimes he would storm out of the house during dinner and in the middle of an argument with me over black history and race relations. It upset mother terribly. It scared the bejesus out of her when I brought my African-American date home one evening, and mother tried to isolate her and me in the living room while keeping stepdad unawares in the back bedroom.<br /><br />I sometimes wonder what I would have done had I not been a pacifist evangelical Christian. Were there any white-skinned Black Panthers? ☺<br /><br />I know we’ve come a long way in race relations, but I think we still see the destructive consequences of centuries of slavery and discrimination. I agree with those who argue for reparative policies.<br />Antonkjacobshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01734526091623931154noreply@blogger.com