PLACES AND FORMS OF POWER: ALI

 TO PAY TRIBUTE TO = rendre hommage à

Muhammad Ali and Vietnam

His refusal to be drafted to fight in the war transcended the boxing ring, which he had dominated, at great personal cost.

Jun 4, 2016 – The Atlantic

Muhammad Ali’s stand against the Vietnam War transcended not only the ring, which he had dominated as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, but also the realms of faith and politics.

“His biggest win came not in the ring but in our courts in his fight for his beliefs,” Eric Holder, the former U.S. attorney general, said Saturday.

On March 9, 1966, at the height of the war, Ali’s draft status was revised to make him eligible to fight in Vietnam, leading him to say that as a black Muslim he was a conscientious objector, and would not enter the U.S. military.

“My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America,” he said at the time. “And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father. … Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.”

A little more than a year later, on April 28, 1967, Ali, then 25 years old, appeared in Houston for his scheduled induction into the U.S. military. He repeatedly refused to step forward when his name was called—despite being warned by an officer that he was committing a felony offense that was punishable by five years in prison and a fine of $10,000. His refusal led to Ali’s arrest and eventual conviction—though he stayed out of prison while his case was appealed. His license to box was suspended in New York the same day, and his title stripped. Ali was unable to obtain a boxing license in the U.S. for the next three years.

Ali’s continued refusal to go to Vietnam—despite repeated pressure—coincided with the war’s growing unpopularity in the U.S. And in the three years he didn’t fight, Ali became a prominent speaker at college campuses across the U.S., as the anti-war movement grew in strength

President Obama, in his remarks Saturday on Ali’s death spoke of the personal cost of the champion’s stance during the Vietnam era.
“It would earn him enemies on the left and the right, make him reviled, and nearly send him to jail,” Obama said. “But Ali stood his ground. And his victory helped us get used to the America we recognize today.”  

LEXIQUE:

HE STOOD HIS GROUND
HE DIDN'T BACK DOWN
HE STUCK TO HIS GUNS
HE DIDN'T BUDGE






HE REMAINED ADAMANT


HE SAID HE DIDN'T HAVE A GRUDGE AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF VIETNAM
HE HAD A GRUDGE AGAINST PEOPLE AT HOME WHO INSULTED HIM, CALLEDHIM NAMES, LOOKED DOWN ON HIM

HE STOOD UP TO THOSE WHO HELD POWER OVER HIM/ THE ARMY, THE FBI, THE UNITED-STATES GOVERNEMENT

HE STOOD UP FOR HIS RIGHTS, HIS IDEAS, HIS PRINCIPLES

HE USED THE POWER OF WORDS TO JUSTIFY HIS DECISION TO REFUSE TO BE DRAFTED
A GREAT ORATOR

The Black Power Salute That Rocked the 1968 Olympics

Ben Cosgrove TIME MAGAZINE

Sep 27, 2014

When Olympic sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood atop the medal podium at the 1968 Summer Games in Mexico City, bowed their heads and raised black-gloved fists during the playing of the national anthem, millions of their fellow Americans were outraged. But countless millions more around the globe thrilled to the sight of two men standing before the world, unafraid, expressing disillusionment with a nation that so often fell, and still falls, so short of its promise.

Smith and Carlos  were vilified at home for their stand. They were suspended from the U.S. team. They received death threats. But neither man ever apologized for his raised fist or his bowed head—and neither ever had need to.

"We were just human beings who saw a need to bring attention to the inequality in our country," Smith said years later, in a documentary on the 1968 Mexico City games produced for HBO. "I don't like the idea of people looking at it as negative. There was nothing but a raised fist in the air and a bowed head, acknowledging the American flag—not symbolizing a hatred for it."

FROM BBC NEWS IN 1968

Tommie Smith and John Carlos, gold and bronze medallists in the 200m, stood with their heads bowed and a black-gloved hand raised as the American National Anthem played during the victory ceremony.
The pair both wore black socks and no shoes and Smith wore a black scarf around his neck. They were demonstrating against continuing racial discrimination of black people in the United States.

Colin Kaepernick: Peaceful Protester

 

Why Kaepernick Takes the Knee

By LEE SIEGELSEPT. 25, 2017 The News York Times 

Given the fiery responses to Colin Kaepernick’s protest during the national anthem — taking a knee, a gesture now being adopted by a wave of professional athletes — you would think that it was a militant motion, full of anger and menace, akin to the Black Power salutes raised by Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics. But kneeling during the national anthem is a gesture of humility.

In youth sports, players take a knee when another player is hurt. It is an acknowledgment of the vulnerable humanity that, for the moment, has been obscured by the intense competition of the game. 

Likewise, when black players take a knee during the national anthem to protest police violence against African-Americans, they are making a gesture of pain and distress. They are putting America in a more honest context — It is like flying an American flag upside down in a moment of emergency

fiery = féroce.
akin to = semblable à 
acknowlegement = ici = constat
likewise = similarly = de même 

BLACK LIVES MATTER


Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an international activist movement, originating in the African-American community, that campaigns against violence and systemic racism toward black people. BLM regularly holds protests against police killings of black people and broader issues of racial profiling, police brutality, and perceived racial inequality in the United States criminal justice system.
In 2013, the movement began with the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media, after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin. Black Lives Matter became nationally recognized for its street demonstrations following the 2014 deaths of two African Americans: Michael Brown, resulting in protests and unrest in Ferguson, and Eric Garner in New York City.