7 ms·

He is a man who have a heart that bigger than his fists. “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on

He is a man who have a heart that bigger than his fists. “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.”

rubenolivares 10y ago
Don't let that fool you. The real reason Ali didn't go to war was pure fear. He's always been a very egotistical man.
me_and_you 10y ago
Pretty incredible. Made me proud of him when I read that.
c3477372 10y ago
Do leftists love him or hate him? On the one hand there is that quote you just posted, but on the other there is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Y693cSF7E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Y693cSF7E
- braythwayt 10y ago
  Crazy idea, but maybe there are individual people that have a spectrum of political and social beliefs that don’t neatly fit into “left” and “right.” Maybe the world isn’t so starkly bipartisan as you suggest. And maybe such people have a variety of complex feelings about people that don’t neatly fit into “love” and “hate.” Maybe, just maybe, binary thinking is the exact opposite of being a Hacker. Maybe it’s a crutch, an excuse for not seeing the world as it really is, or a rhetorical device for steering discussions away from truth and towards an end someone is trying to socially engineer.
  - raddad 10y ago
    I agree. I consider myself as an independently conservative liberal libertarian with social and anti social leanings.
  - dang 10y ago
    > binary thinking is the exact opposite of being a Hacker Would that were true, but I fear that all those 0s and 1s pattern our brains in even more intensely binary a way.
- rpgmaker 10y ago
  Woah, that's just painful to watch. Thanks for the video.
- burkaman 10y ago
  You can define leftist to mean basically whatever you want, so you can probably answer your own question.
- dang 10y ago
  Please don't create many obscure throwaway accounts on HN. This forum is a community. Anonymity is fine, but users should have some consistent identity that other users can relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community at all, and that would be an entirely different forum.
  - Cpoll 10y ago
    I don't agree with this sentiment. I've seen having a "consistent identity" get in the way of a discussion for a variety of reasons: - Ad hominem attacks - Disclosing hypocrisy (as a logical fallacy) - Celebrity posters distracting from the subject - Appeals to authority Consistent identity is a no-brainer within the context of a single post; beyond that, there are downsides.
    - dang 10y ago
      Yes, if you list only the downsides it sounds like a bad idea.
      - Cpoll 10y ago
        You already listed the upsides. I'm taking the opposite stance, of course I'll list downsides. In any case, HN doesn't feel like it has an individual-driven community, at least compared to Reddit. I'm hard pressed to name any users on this site. That might be more a reflection on me - I come here to read about interesting topics, and I have more interest in the message than the speaker. Incidentally, how many HN users can you name? (I'm genuinely curious)
        dang 10y ago
        I didn't list all the upsides, just the executive summary :) But for sure there are multiple legitimate views about how best to set up an internet forum. Nevertheless HN is set up the way I described and we're not going to change it. Re names: No idea, but more than it would be worth taking the time to try listing. I'm the wrong person to ask, though, since it's my job to monitor HN.
adnam 10y ago
Well he also said that Jews are devils, the mixing of the races is an abomination and that homosexuality is a white man’s disease.
- kelukelugames 10y ago
  Do you have aa citation?
  - Keyframe 10y ago
    It's widely known: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJu8sVWQ-wk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJu8sVWQ-wk
    - kelukelugames 10y ago
      The full quote refers to all whites. I agree it is inappropriate by today's standards, but a black man saying whites are the devil in 1969? I mean...
      - hartpuff 10y ago
        Ali's friend, Malcolm X, hardly an "Uncle Tom" - as Ali disgracefully called another friend he betrayed, Joe Frazier - had turned away from the anti-white racism of the NOI by the early 60s (and been killed by the NOI as a result), so what's so special about 1969 that excuses a supposedly intelligent man continuing to mindlessly parrot their inane racist beliefs?
        EpicEng 10y ago
        He had been treated poorly by whites his entire life. I'm sure you can appreciate how that would affect a person. He was also very young and became more tempered as he grew older.
        pavalercci 10y ago
e40 10y ago
I grew up in Louisville in the 60's and can attest to the poor state of race relations there. My white grandparents had a house in the middle of the black part of town. And when I say "black" I mean except for my grandparents and my family, we never saw another white person anywhere close to their house, when we visited. We'd make the trip from the suburbs to their house every Sunday to take them food and hang out on the porch, in good weather, or the living room in bad weather. They were in their 80's and had lived in that house for 50+ years, and they saw no reason to leave. They and their neighbors were dirt poor. As a kid, the difference between were I lived and this place I visited once a week was striking. It shaped how I felt about poor people and race relations, in general. The weird thing is that when I went there, that neighborhood felt more comfortable and friendly to me than mine in the burbs. I remember when Ali refused to be drafted. There was a lot of anger in our home town. It help me form my feelings toward war and service. I don't think that internal dialog would have happened had he not done what he did.
pavalercci 10y ago
Ali was of little education, easily manipulated, and certainly was not an ideological leader to any degree. Those words are sourced from the concepts of Elijah Muhammed, Louis Farrakhan, Malcolm X and others. Its fine to repeat Ali's words here...but lets not misconstrue them as original ideas or Ali as anything other than a follower and a mouthpiece fueled by his own anger issues.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

rubenolivares 10y ago

Don't let that fool you. The real reason Ali didn't go to war was pure fear. He's always been a very egotistical man.

me_and_you 10y ago

Pretty incredible. Made me proud of him when I read that.

c3477372 10y ago

Do leftists love him or hate him? On the one hand there is that quote you just posted, but on the other there is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Y693cSF7E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Y693cSF7E

braythwayt 10y ago
Crazy idea, but maybe there are individual people that have a spectrum of political and social beliefs that don’t neatly fit into “left” and “right.” Maybe the world isn’t so starkly bipartisan as you suggest. And maybe such people have a variety of complex feelings about people that don’t neatly fit into “love” and “hate.” Maybe, just maybe, binary thinking is the exact opposite of being a Hacker. Maybe it’s a crutch, an excuse for not seeing the world as it really is, or a rhetorical device for steering discussions away from truth and towards an end someone is trying to socially engineer.
- raddad 10y ago
  I agree. I consider myself as an independently conservative liberal libertarian with social and anti social leanings.
- dang 10y ago
  > binary thinking is the exact opposite of being a Hacker Would that were true, but I fear that all those 0s and 1s pattern our brains in even more intensely binary a way.
rpgmaker 10y ago
Woah, that's just painful to watch. Thanks for the video.
burkaman 10y ago
You can define leftist to mean basically whatever you want, so you can probably answer your own question.
dang 10y ago
Please don't create many obscure throwaway accounts on HN. This forum is a community. Anonymity is fine, but users should have some consistent identity that other users can relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community at all, and that would be an entirely different forum.
- Cpoll 10y ago
  I don't agree with this sentiment. I've seen having a "consistent identity" get in the way of a discussion for a variety of reasons: - Ad hominem attacks - Disclosing hypocrisy (as a logical fallacy) - Celebrity posters distracting from the subject - Appeals to authority Consistent identity is a no-brainer within the context of a single post; beyond that, there are downsides.
  - dang 10y ago
    Yes, if you list only the downsides it sounds like a bad idea.
    - Cpoll 10y ago
      You already listed the upsides. I'm taking the opposite stance, of course I'll list downsides. In any case, HN doesn't feel like it has an individual-driven community, at least compared to Reddit. I'm hard pressed to name any users on this site. That might be more a reflection on me - I come here to read about interesting topics, and I have more interest in the message than the speaker. Incidentally, how many HN users can you name? (I'm genuinely curious)
      - dang 10y ago
        I didn't list all the upsides, just the executive summary :) But for sure there are multiple legitimate views about how best to set up an internet forum. Nevertheless HN is set up the way I described and we're not going to change it. Re names: No idea, but more than it would be worth taking the time to try listing. I'm the wrong person to ask, though, since it's my job to monitor HN.

adnam 10y ago

Well he also said that Jews are devils, the mixing of the races is an abomination and that homosexuality is a white man’s disease.

kelukelugames 10y ago
Do you have aa citation?
- Keyframe 10y ago
  It's widely known: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJu8sVWQ-wk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJu8sVWQ-wk
  - kelukelugames 10y ago
    The full quote refers to all whites. I agree it is inappropriate by today's standards, but a black man saying whites are the devil in 1969? I mean...
    - hartpuff 10y ago
      Ali's friend, Malcolm X, hardly an "Uncle Tom" - as Ali disgracefully called another friend he betrayed, Joe Frazier - had turned away from the anti-white racism of the NOI by the early 60s (and been killed by the NOI as a result), so what's so special about 1969 that excuses a supposedly intelligent man continuing to mindlessly parrot their inane racist beliefs?
      - EpicEng 10y ago
        He had been treated poorly by whites his entire life. I'm sure you can appreciate how that would affect a person. He was also very young and became more tempered as he grew older.
        pavalercci 10y ago

e40 10y ago

I grew up in Louisville in the 60's and can attest to the poor state of race relations there. My white grandparents had a house in the middle of the black part of town. And when I say "black" I mean except for my grandparents and my family, we never saw another white person anywhere close to their house, when we visited. We'd make the trip from the suburbs to their house every Sunday to take them food and hang out on the porch, in good weather, or the living room in bad weather. They were in their 80's and had lived in that house for 50+ years, and they saw no reason to leave. They and their neighbors were dirt poor. As a kid, the difference between were I lived and this place I visited once a week was striking. It shaped how I felt about poor people and race relations, in general. The weird thing is that when I went there, that neighborhood felt more comfortable and friendly to me than mine in the burbs. I remember when Ali refused to be drafted. There was a lot of anger in our home town. It help me form my feelings toward war and service. I don't think that internal dialog would have happened had he not done what he did.

pavalercci 10y ago

Ali was of little education, easily manipulated, and certainly was not an ideological leader to any degree. Those words are sourced from the concepts of Elijah Muhammed, Louis Farrakhan, Malcolm X and others. Its fine to repeat Ali's words here...but lets not misconstrue them as original ideas or Ali as anything other than a follower and a mouthpiece fueled by his own anger issues.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]