Muhammad Ali

I have started to come home with more energy after work, this is both good and bad, good because I am getting used to the whole thing, bad because apparently I need the motivation of exhaustion to do my writing and go to bed before three in the morning. It isn't all bad though, I only stay up this late when I can sleep in the next day, but it isn't a habit I should get into regardless.

Muhammad Ali was buried today, he had very little influence on my life, I never really cared for his sport of choice, and while I had gathered that he was a pretty cool dude, his later life never impacted me either, but I do read the news headlines, and even read some articles occasionally and just because he didn't really impact me very much doesn't mean he wasn't important to a lot of people.

When an influential figure dies, there seems to be a lot of scrambling to "own" them from various groups, it's related to how an individual might suddenly show an unheard of love for a musicians work after they pass away after having shown no signs of caring about them beforehand, we saw this a lot with David Bowie and Prince earlier, and while I am sure some of them were simply inspired to pay more attention to their music, many people wanted to feel important and involved with their reactions to the tragedy.

Our culture tends to do that a lot too in a more general, and more troublesome fashion. Especially if the person in question is a minority, as is the case with Ali, see our society doesn't actually like it when a black man criticizes white culture, and it might like it even less when he speaks directly to black people rather than sanitizing his message so we can hear it without feeling threatened, yet Ali managed to become a very well loved figure even with that obstacle, so the mechanism to "own" him kicked in as usual when he died, hence the articles about how he "transcended race" and so on. These articles are lies, he made no attempt to transcend race, if that phrase even has meaning, he talked about race, sure, but he spoke directly to the black population and wasn't really interested in moderating his message to avoid scaring whitey.

You can think of transcending race as a sort of code, when it shows up you can translate it as "it is okay to like this minority as he is safely dead and cannot threaten us any longer" and the process of co-opting and diluting his message can now begin.

You may think I am talking pretty negatively here, and you are right, but don't get me wrong, I do not believe this practice has active direction, there isn't someone shaping the narrative from behind the scenes, hell Ali and those like him shaped the narrative to an extent. I talk a lot about our society being a living creature in many ways, and this is another example of that, digesting a message and diluting it as a body would do to say, a meal. The good stuff gets turned into energy and growth,while the unwanted get pooped out.

This process isn't wholly a bad thing, the message filters out a little bit late, a lot weaker, and without the same person behind it, it will not have the same impact as the man himself did, but in time, and as the culture absorbs more of these types, then change does happen, or at least it can.

So you know, sort of a good thing in general and for a little bit of reason, but in specific, and by specific I mean exclusively with regards to civil rights movements now, it's a not so subtle way of erasing the man who has been part of the conversation for a long while.

I am not sure I am making myself clear enough here, but it is late enough that I am going to have to leave it at that for now, I will keep it in my thoughts and attempt to revisit the topic if I have enough interest.

RIP Muhammad Ali, you deserve better, but you knew that and fought anyway.