Some people seem to get a charge out of calling other people racists

I don't think he is blaming Johnson for racism,

But perhaps I'm alone in thinking that this is a separate question.

Who called YR a racist?

There is no sincere intellectual engagement, no willingness to exchange viewpoints and consider other perspectives, instead simply a diatribe of baseless assertion

it is fair for me to assume that much of what the average participant in this thread knows about Jack Johnson has been shaped NOT by his contemporary accounts but by Ken Burns' documentary and the late-20th century effort to recast Johnson as a benighted and unfairly maligned individual. Some people do seem to be "defending Johnson as a person", but I think part of that is because they know so little about him as a person.

white athletes not much different than johnson were given every benefit of the doubt in pursuit of their careers

I'm not sure if that's true, but it does seem irrelevant. You really can't argue that Johnson's actions *didn't* adversely hinder an entire generation of boxers. Nor could you honestly claim that black prizefighters hadn't been making enormous strides towards equality in the mere decade before Johnson was awarded his title shot. Nor could your credibly argue that Johnson himself wasn't aware that there would be significant repercussions to his actions which might even extend beyond the length of his own nose.

101 was obviously posted before 102.

but his attempt to blame one man for endemic racism in America is absurd

and his comments regarding gay men are beyond belief

I'm happy to call what looks like a dog turd and smells like a dog turd, a dog turd. Let there be no confusion.

I don't think he is blaming Johnson for racism, just saying if he would have handled himself differently it could have made a tremendous amount of difference.

but disgustingly false.

I entirely disagree. I think this poster has presented a systematic series of posts that in their considered entirety make me gag. There is no sincere intellectual engagement, no willingness to exchange viewpoints and consider other perspectives, instead simply a diatribe of baseless assertion, worse yet one steeped in racist idiocy.

Oh fer Pete's sake, his comments about gays were meant to lampoon middle America's worst bigoted steroetypes about homosexual men.

Oddly, this is exactly how Treder comes across in this thread in my eyes. He more or less shouts YR down, and takes his ball and goes home. Shrill, hysterical accusations of bigotry.

And please explain how the thrust of Yankee Redneck's argument in this thread isn't racist.

...they're obviously getting their as$es kicked in an arguement.

And you know this how?

but his attempt to blame one man for endemic racism in America is absurd


That's not was he was doing at all.

Treder is simply morally preening here.

Johnson isn't a saint or anything and is being asked to behave in a manner contrary to his own personality for the greater good. He shouldn't be blamed for being himself, but at the same time people can evaluate how his actions could have hurt the best interest of integration.

actions of one black jerk to justify an overwhelming response

That is a baseless assertion.

racist

That is a baseless assertion.
Which is not the same thing as a
racist
assertion.

Wait a minute. Why shouldn't he be blamed for being himself, if himself was a jerk? We blame Ty Cobb for being himself, don't we?

Every time YR quotes Tex Rickard, it damn sure sounds like a justification.

okay, i'm going to keep trying but really i think you need to go through the thread and see how well you've been p3wned, or whatever the expression is. if you'll bother to actually read what everybody has been writing, instead of getting yourself wrapped around the axle of historical minutiae and timelines.

It's one thing to blame him for being a jerk and another to then blame him for white people not being able to help themselves from justifying systemic racist because they thought he was a jerk.

In this particular case, it's both, actually.

The top contender during Jack Dempsey's reign, Harry Wills, simply couldn't get a title shot because Dempsey's promoter, Tex Rickard, would always point to Jack Johnson's debased behavior as the cautionary tale, even stating that well-connected politicians had openly told him not to make the bout.

Tex Rickard, the most powerful figure in boxing from the early 1900s through the late 1920s (he actually promoter the record-breaking Gans vs Nelson fight in 1906) and the author of Jack Dempsey's "Million Dollar Gates", openly stated that public reception of Jack Johnson had taught him to keep black fighters away from the heavyweight championship.

Bullsh!t. For the gazillionth time in this thread, you decline to address the issue at hand, and instead attempt to sidestep it with the introduction of a new passel of irrelevant historical trivia.

Your fundamental assertion is that Jack Johnson alone, all by himself, caused the segregation of heavyweight boxing for a generation following his career.

That is a baseless assertion.

As many of us have said, none of this matters. It doesn't matter whether Jack Johnson was a devil or an angel. It doesn't matter whether his contemporaries loved him or hated him. None of this amounts to evidence supporting the case that Johnson alone, all by himself, caused the segregation of heavyweight boxing for a generation following his career.

Nope, no justification going on here. No, sir. Uh-uh.

I can find no similar assignation of blame from the black boxing community towards Tex Rickard, not any other promoter or journalist. If I, a humble amateur boxing historian, am some sort of racist turd for what I have written, I tremble to think of the harsh words that would be directed at Johnson's own black colleagues for expressing the same sentiments in real-time.

What sort of "evidence" do you require to stop calling me a "turd", or at least curtail your shrill hysteria?

I can find no similar assignation of blame from the black boxing community towards Tex Rickard, not any other promoter or journalist. If I, a humble amateur boxing historian, am some sort of racist turd for what I have written, I tremble to think of the harsh words that would be directed at Johnson's own black colleagues for expressing the same sentiments in real-time.

Was Rickey a racist for insisting that Jackie be on his best behavior?

You're wasting your time. The guy's a nitwit, and a rather closed-minded one at that.

Ali is flawed, but awesome. That is all. At the heart of it, Ruth and Ali will be the American sportsmen the world may remember in 400 years.

why isn't he allowed to punch someone in the face if he's called n---er? because he might be lynched and it'll be years before another black player gets to play?

But YR has been dancing away from every reasoned argument undermining his dubious assertion that it was somehow johnson's fault black fighters couldn't break into the bigtime for however many years after he fought. his 'evidence' is just reams of boxing trivia that show johnson in a bad light.

I'll put that belief in bold, to make it precisely clear what I'm arguing against: Jack Johnson is at fault for the racist backlash which prevented black fighters from competing for the title from 1915 until 1935. (Tell me if I'm misconstruing your beliefs and tilting at windmills, of course.)

The problem with this line of argument is that it is not Jack Johnson's fault that white America was racist.

And this is not a Jackie Robinson-type situation. Even if I one accepts that color-line breakers should be held to a higher standard of behavior, that argument doesn't apply to Johnson, because according to you, white America was already aware that black fighters could be well behaved and popular.

The real victims here, and the only figures worth of any sympathy, are the black fighters Johnson intentionally froze out of contention during his reign - Sam McVey, Joe Jeanette, Sam Langford - and the handful of top black contenders in the decade that followed (Harry Wills, perhaps Kid Norfolk and George Godfrey, thought I don't see any of them beating a prime Dempsey) who were denied the sort of big paydays Tex Rickard routinely delivered to black fighters before Johnson undermined their two decades of constant progress towards equality.

the cold pragmatism of people like Rikard.

Johnson's ring work always has presented the highest in the artisanship of his craft. Always a past master of defensive work and positively uncanny in his judgment of what the other fellow is about to do, Jack presents ability that is impossible to rate too highly and next to impossible to match, then, now, and possibly ever.

Of this quartet of colored Goliaths, the slaying of which by any of the puny Davids of this decade of fighting men has been accomplished only at decidedly rare intervals, Johnson was by long odds the most masterful of the lot. And when it is considered there were in his company at various times and striving always for leadership, such men as Sam McVey, Sam Langford and the incomparable game and willing Joe Jeanette, one is saying much in classifying Johnson as the master mind.

There may have been many times when Jack Johnson came in for sharp reproach and often absolute reproof, especially by those of his own race. I know Jack to be possessed of one of the kindliest minds of any great athlete I ever came into contact with. Money never meant a great deal to this mighty man of brawn and ring brains. As far as the financial end of his dealings was concerned, Jack often displayed a childish simplicity. He wanted to do for others and always went the limit---sometimes, unfortunately for himself, beyond that. But many of Jack's predicaments came about, I happen to know, through a too-trusting faith in the white brethren, be that to the everlasting discredit of the Caucasians with whom he dealt so confidently, almost implicitly.

...Johnson met and defeated EVERY COLORED HEAVYWEIGHT of any note boxing at that time. His wins included fights with Langford, Griffin, Jeanette, McVey, Childs, Jim Johnson, Black Bill, Denver Ed Martin, Peter Felix, Joe Butler and others. Without any doubt Johnson was the greatest colored heavyweight....

After he was crowned champion of the world, Jeanette, Langford and other colored men put up howls for a return match, but Johnson never would give them a chance. As he told Dan McKetrick in Paris:

"I won't box any of these colored boys now, Dan. I am champion of the world. I have had a hard time to get a chance and I really think I am the only colored fellow who ever was given the chance to win the title. I gave Langford, Jeanette and those boys a chance before I was champ. I'll retire still the only colored heavy weight champ," and he did.

Jack Johnson was the greatest heavyweight of all times.

But how does this logic run? What is Tex Rickard's logic, on this score?

1) Jack Johnson was a poorly behaved champion
2) Jack Johnson was black
3) Harry Wills is black
4) Harry Wills doesn't get a title shot, because he would be poorly behaved, or at least it's a risk not worth taking.

That is racism.

There are jerks of every race (assuming arguendo Johnson's jerkiness), and to make assumptions about Harry Wills' character on the basis of Jack Johnson's character is precisely and baldly racist.

Just as Americans were racist in the 1940s, but gave Robinson a shot in spite thereof, but if Robinson had behaved badly, it would have cost other players a shot. That wouldn't mean that Americans weren't racist; it would have meant that Robinson's behavior was a factor.

Well, I agree with the argument against affirmative action you're presenting, but I don't think anybody, including Y_R, is denying that Americans were racist in the era, by modern standards. What he's saying is that they would have given Wills (or whomever) a shot in spite of their racism, if not for Johnson.

Just as Americans were racist in the 1940s, but gave Robinson a shot in spite thereof, but if Robinson had behaved badly, it would have cost other players a shot. That wouldn't mean that Americans weren't racist; it would have meant that Robinson's behavior was a factor.

And once again, despite it just about the worst insult that can be leveled at someone these days, a reckless nitwit like Treder will casually toss the lable of "racist" at others at the drop of his Giants cap.

Well, we can't know, DMN, but I think the societal effects would have been minimal. In retrospect, we see Jackie Robinson as a world-historically pivotal actor, but imagine it's actually 1946-48 again. Jackie Robinson, for some reason, goes all Jimmy Piersall on the National League. Does Bill Veeck figure that Larry Doby is a bad risk? Bill Veeck is not an idiot. He figures that the color line is dead, whatever Robinson's demons have done to him. He signs Doby. He signs Satchel Paige. Maybe he signs Roy Campanella too, because the Dodgers get cold feet. The Indians win at least the 1948 pennant and maybe 1949 in the bargain. The Braves sign Sam Jethroe, the Giants sign Monte Irvin and Willie Mays. And so forth ...

The implication of what you're saying here is that Jackie Robinson really doesn't deserve all the praise and admiration he gets. He happened to be first, but so what? He didn't pave the way for other black players; it would have happened regardless. Big whoop. So he's just a very good ballplayer who deserves a little sympathy for losing part of his career to the color line, but other than that, nothing special about him.

What he's saying is that they would have given Wills (or whomever) a shot in spite of their racism, if not for Johnson.

Showing incredible strength of character in a situation for more difficult than you or I have one through, deserves great, great praise.

History always happens around us. That the actions deserving of such great praise may not have held quite world-historical import in no way drains them of praiseworthiness.

Jack Johnson's behavior, and his alone, scuttled an entire generation of black fighters

I'll put that belief in bold, to make it precisely clear what I'm arguing against: Jack Johnson is at fault for the racist backlash which prevented black fighters from competing for the title from 1915 until 1935. (Tell me if I'm misconstruing your beliefs and tilting at windmills, of course.)

No, I think you've essentially described my line of argument

Eh. If it's meaningless, then why?

Are you being willfully obtuse, or do you actually believe that ethical action under astoundingly difficult circumstances is not worthy of praise if it is of less than world-historical import?

No one else thinks this.

Andy, Geoffrey Ward's book Unforgivable Blackness suggests that the color line itself kept Johnson from making many title defenses, particularly against black contenders. Also, Ward asserts that Johnson had fought and defeated all the top black contenders by 1910, so there was no doubt that he was the best black heavyweight.

I 'm saying something a little different. You said "if Robinson had behaved badly, it would have cost other players a shot." That doesn't seem realistic to me. White owners and GMs knew that black guys could play baseball. They were scared to take that first step. Once taken, though, was every other GM in baseball going to pass up such a flood of talent because one individual couldn't handle the stress?

When Rickard stated, "If a n!gger wins the heavyweight championship, then the championship isn't worth a nickel," he was speaking as an businessman relying on firsthand experience, not as some cartoonish "racist" to be slurred by 21st century magpies unfamiliar with his accomplishments.

So how would Jackie Robinson's failed debut make them less willing to pass up said talent?

So how would Jackie Robinson's failed debut make them less willing to pass up said talent?

I liked pretty much all your posts on this thread, but this is not a remotely similar situation. Racism existed and was gaining momentum at the time Johnson had the title. People were looking for a reason to justify exclusions of black in any walks of white society. Johnson made it easy to give them a reason. (he isn't responsible, but he helped hurt the cause)