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Books By Dave
Zirin
Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and
Promise of Sports (2007)
What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the
United States (2005) /
Muhammad-Ali-Handbook
(2007)
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And Why I Wrote It! Yet Another Book on Muhammad Ali
By Dave Zirin
There are more
books about Muhammad Ali than Abe Lincoln: 300 titles in
the children's section alone. You can also purchase The
Muhammad Ali Reader, the Tao of Muhammad Ali, or the
$10,000 G.O.A.T. - a massive coffee table book about all
things Ali that is slightly larger than a typical coffee
table. His is a history that has been repeatedly
regurgitated for popular consumption. Despite - or maybe
because of - this crisis of Ali overproduction, I felt
compelled to write The Muhammad Ali Handbook.
An informal Ali School of Falsification has been running
full throttle since 1996. That was the year Ali, his
hands trembling, lit the Olympic torch in Atlanta. The
connection between Ali and the global audience crackled
and his Olympic moment sparked a renaissance of
interest.
The way this interest has been sated, however, has been
with books and retrospectives swamped with either sugary
spin or slander. The dominant discourse has come from
the "sell Ali" crowd. They are part of the Champ's inner
circle and last year made a deal with CKX inc. to sell
his image for $50 million. They are the same company
that turned Elvis Presley into a velvet painting. CKX
inc. marked Ali's 65th birthday in January with the
release of a new line of snack foods with names like
"Rumble," "Shuffle" and "Jabs" and flavors such as
"Fruit Fight," "Thrill-A-Dill-A" and "Slammin' Salsa."
This new sanitized Ali can shill for Microsoft or
receive honors at the White House. He is someone George
W. Bush could cuddle next to for the cameras and
comfortably call "a man of peace."
The second strain comes from the "smear Ali" crowd.
There is a new cottage industry of books that attempt to
prove in the words of one particular piece of trash that
"Ali was an unapologetic sexist and unabashed racist"
who "was bad for America." This group takes Ali's
opposition to the war in Vietnam and his Muslim
religion, and crushes him for having the temerity to
speak his mind. They come off as a thinly veiled
exercise in attacking those today that would dare
resist.
These two wings of the Ali School of Falsification share
a common destination: the obliteration his wildly
attractive and all-to-edgy political impact. Sport - and
all popular culture - is the business of perception.
Therefore to understand Ali, we must not only know the
man, but also how he was perceived. Since the 1960s
audience consuming the young Ali were part of some of
the most important social upheavals in the 20th century,
it makes taking this holistic view all the more
important.
My book takes the starting point that Ali was someone
who was both shaped by and a shaper of his times: the
segregation of the 1950s; the revolts of the 1960s; the
sybaritic 1970s; the despair of the 80s and the
commercial culture of the 1990s. His chameleon like
ability to be a man of all seasons, makes him unique in
the history of sports. Many star athletes live in
isolation, their lives defined by bodyguards and gated
communities: the general public a nation of enemies. For
Ali, particularly the young Ali, his ear was to the
street. Having a bodyguard was not his way. As he said,
"I'm an easy target. I'm everywhere; everybody knows me.
I walk the streets daily, and nobody's guarding me. I
have no guns, no police. So if someone's gonna get me,
tell them to come on and get it over with - if they can
get past God, because God is controlling the bullet."
This may be another world from today's athletes, but Ali
could not be more relevant and reclaiming his legacy
could not be more pressing. We live in an era where
sports has become an industry that towers titanically
over the grandest dreams of its founders. It is bigger
than US steel, and counts profits in the hundreds of
billions. The stars of the SportsWorld are given a
platform that dwarves both celebrities and elected
leaders. But that platform comes at a price: it comes
branded with corporate logos and the expectation that
those given the stage will toe the line. Muhammad Ali
represents a different path: the person that would not
be who they wanted him to be. And we are richer not only
for the experience but the example.
To tell this story, I wanted the book to be a part of
the MQ Publications handbook series. They intersperse
almost every other page with rare photos, quotes and
interviews. Comparing most biographies to the MQ series
is like comparing a map to a globe: it's the same story
but told in a radically different way. They deserve the
credit for placing my text in a package that is simply
breathtaking.
I feel like we have created a book that makes a small
contribution toward historical preservation. The goal is
simple: to make sure those who would sell Ali by the
pound or smear his reputation as a freedom fighter,
don't destroy a name that deserves to echo unvarnished
through the struggles of the future.
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posted 21 April 2007
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