Don King Looks Black, Lives White and Thinks Green – Larry Holms – Former Heavy Weight Champion of the World

 

One of the complaints that have been about me by the online crowd is that I always sound “pro-Indian” or as someone else so eloquently put it “always s***ing Indian c***k” and that I am “anti-Chinese.” I am, without a doubt, sympathetic to many Indian people and I am often critical of my “own people.”

My reasons are very simple. In the decade of freelancing, it was inevitably the Indian expats who gave me work and kept me alive. Two of the three things I’m proudest of doing in my entire working life came from this community and just as the Indian Expats were willing to give me a shot at things, “my people” inevitably were not because of a host of reasons. It remains buried in my mind that when I got a chance to pitch for a high-level conference, the Singaporean born and bred chairman of the board dismissed me as “THAT BLOGGER,” and it took the Indian born member of the board to get the point across that “HE DELIVERS.” In the end, they gave the job to a multinational agency based out of New York.

So, life has taught me that people the harsh reality that people who are “like me,” are not necessarily interested in helping me. In a way, I’m something of an odd ball, because human nature inevitably draws us to people who are “like us” in so many ways. If you study migrant communities throughout world history, you will notice that migrants inevitably seek out pockets of their own community for assistance. Makes sense in that you are most likely to look to something familiar for protection such as people who look like you and speak the same language.

I understand this feeling. I am not immune from this feeling. I grew up in the UK and English to all intents and purposes is “my language.” However, there was a sense of “liberation” of walking into London’s Chinatown and speaking Cantonese (something which I speak atrociously).

However, whilst I understand where this feeling comes from, there’s a dark side to it, which is inevitably the rise of ideologues who have risen to power of the fear of “others” (anyone who does not look like me, speak like me, pray like me etc). Think of “America First” ideology, which has inevitably meant White America First. America First has been followed by a host of copycats in Europe. Think about it, the name “Le Penn” in France was once associated with the crazy. These days its associated with a serious contender for the presidency. Race isn’t the only thing that people get excited by. In India, its inevitably about religion.

I like to think that we’re fairly immune to it in Singapore. Unfortunately, that’s a fantasy of mine. Talk about how awful any of these characters are in any given conversation and you may actually find someone you assumed had been to primary school telling you that “so and so is just standing up for the rights of his or her people.”

Are any of the people preaching about how they’ll fight for the rights of “their people” really interested in the welfare of “their people?” Well, if anyone really believes this, they could do well to remember that amidst the renewal of interest in boxing thanks to the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight, that there was another character who made boxing so interesting.

That character is Don King, who was once the most powerful man in the sport. Mr. King is genius at drumming up hype and to his credit, brought us some of the most memorable fights such as “Rumble in the Jungle” and “Thrilla in Manila.” Mr. King was the promoter for many of the greatest boxers around like Mohammad Ali, Larry Holms and Mike Tyson.

How did Mr. King do it? I guess there are many aspects to what made Mr. King so dominant, however, the one aspect that made Mr. King so good, was that he was genius at playing the “race card.” Look at how he hooked his first big fish – Mohammad Ali (Ali). As well as being a great boxer, Mohmmad Ali was an iconic figure of his era. He is held up for his passion for the “Civil Rights” movement, which included his refusal to serve in the Vietnam War and the beating he gave someone who called him by his “slave name” of “Cassius Clay.”

Don King exploited this. He promoted himself to Ali as a fellow “black” man trying to save black athletes from exploitation by greedy white promoters. He signed on Ali and repeated the same spiel with those who followed him. He knew what young black guys in the Ghettos wanted to aspire to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TuJJ3J08C4

However, as shown in the video clip, the fighters he signed on found that the person exploiting them the most was Mr. King himself. One of the best examples is when he signed on Tim Witherspoon who was the former World Heavy Weight Champion in the early 1980s. Mr. Witherspoon found that his pay checks were inevitably significantly smaller than promised because Mr. King had tied him in a series of contracts, which allowed Mr. King to take most of Mr. Witherspoon’s purse through all sorts of “management fees.” In his defense against Frank Bruno, Mr. Witherspoon found that he was paid $90,000 whereas the non-Don King Frank Bruno earned $900,000.

His prominent fighters like Mohammad Ali, Larry Holms and Mike Tyson, all sued him. Somehow, Mr. King managed to settle out of court at very discounted rates.

Mr. King was best described by Larry Holms who said that he “talks black, lives white and thinks green.” This is the perfect analogy for every demagogue out there. So, the next time someone starts telling you that people who look like you, speak like you, pray like you etc should stick together against people who are not like you, have a look at how they live. They are inevitably only thinking of their own money and power.