SS: Great article, I never knew this even happened or really where the term "Great white hope" came from.....
In a recent monologue, Bill Maher said that the United States has two main political parties: one party on the center-right: the Democrats, and one party in a mental institution: the Republicans. Frankly, his comment insults those who receive care at psychiatric facilities; at least they are looking for help.
The Republicans, however, proudly soak in their own bile, every week dishing out a new dollop of reaction. Last week, their national embarrassment was the Republican Congresswoman from Topeka, Kansas, Lynn Jenkins. At a town meeting, Jenkins called for a "great white hope" to emerge from the Republican Party to defeat Barack Obama’s agenda. Let this sink in: in front of a small crowd of rabid supporters in Topeka, already in full froth about “death panels,” she called for a “great white hope.” Her examples of “great white hopes” were congressmen like Eric Cantor and Steve Ryan, both of whom are, among other things, white. Later, her spokesperson Mary Geiger may have made it worse by saying, "There may be some misunderstanding there when she talked about the great white hope. What she meant by it is they have a bright future. They're bright lights within the party.”
Yes, white is “bright” while Obama brings the “darkness.”
Team Obama, per their usual posture on the nuts of August, refused to stand up to this racist idiocy. His spokesperson Bill Burton said, “We obviously give Congressman Jenkins the benefit of the doubt." This has become the Obama administration m.o.: take a right hook to the face and just smile through your bloodied teeth.
Jenkins has since said she was “unaware of any negative connotation” and is sorry if anyone was offended. One thing is certain: if she did know the actual, unvarnished history of the phrase “great white hope,” Jenkins may have chosen her words carefully. "Great white hopes” tend to get knocked into next week.
The yearning for a “great white hope” emerged when African American boxer, Jack Johnson became the first heavyweight champ with black skin in 1908. The media brayed for a "a great white hope" (a phrase coined by author Jack London) to restore order to the boxing world—and the world in general. Former champion Jim Jeffries, the Eric Cantor of the boxing world, was urged out of retirement to challenge Johnson, saying, "I am going into this fight for the sole purpose of proving that a white man is better than a Negro."
Johnson didn’t give Jeffries, the press, or anyone else the benefit of the doubt. In a July 4th, 1910, Philadelphia Inquirer story titled, "Johnson Believes He's Jeff's Master," he is quoted as saying, "I honestly believe that in pugilism I am Jeffries' master, and it is my purpose to demonstrate this in the most decisive way possible.... The tap of the gong will be music to me." To call himself Jeffries’ master, when people born as slaves and masters still lived throughout the United States, was verbal TNT.
The fight itself was the ugliest public display this side of a Topeka town meeting. As David Remnick wrote in King of the World, the ringside band played a song called, "All coons look alike to me," and crowds of whites chanted "kill the nigger." But Johnson, employing a highly cerebral defensive style, toyed with Jeffries, and made easy work of the winded former champion. In an early incarnation of the information superhighway, young children working as "telegram runners" ran through urban environs after every round, shouting out the progress.
The failure of the "white hope" caused—it is no exaggeration to say—a deep and abiding crisis in the media and white society. "That Mr. Johnson should so lightly and carelessly punch the head of Mr. Jeffries," wrote the New York World, "must come as a shock to every devoted believer in the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race."
Violent race riots exploded around the country when Jeffries finally hit the mat. Their character involved mobs of whites attempting to enter black urban neighborhoods, and being repelled.
After the smoke cleared, 151 African Americans were dead. It was the most national urban uprising that the U.S. would see until the aftermath of Dr. King’s assassination in 1968. The backlash against boxing was immediate and intense. Congress even debating the banning of boxing altogether. All of a sudden, the violent, manly sport was pure sin.
Johnson was implored by Booker T. Washington among others to condemn the rioting. He refused. His defiance led to being prosecuted on Mann Act charges of white slavery (taking a white woman across state lines for immoral purposes.) The charges were so baseless that the US House of Representatives recently voted to exonerate Johnson posthumously. Incidentally, this vote gives lie to Jenkins' claim of being ignorant of the history. Either that or she didn't read the bill. But with every arrow Johnson took, in the eyes of the black community, he was becoming folklore.
In the words of one spiritual:
Amaze an' Grace, how sweet it sounds, Jack Johnson knocked Jim Jeffries down.
Jim Jeffries jumped up an' hit Jack on the chin, An' then Jack knocked him down again.
The Yankees hold the play, The white man pulls the trigger;
But it make no difference what the white man say, The world champion's still a nigger.
The great W.E.B. DuBois wrote the following about Johnson in 1914:
"Why then this thrill of national disgust?...It comes down, then, after all to this unforgivable blackness."
These words could be said about much of the "town hall right's" opposition to Obama today.
If there are disagreements with any part of the Obama agenda, we should shout them from the rooftops.. But for far too many in the confederate confines of the Republican Party—including those in elected office—opposition to Obama begins with the very color of his skin. Perhaps President Obama – and Rep. Lynn Jenkins – should remember: Jack Johnson fought back.
Six years ago, ESPN's NFL Countdown crew sat silent as a new addition to its show, the bombastic right-wing commentator Rush Limbaugh, suggested Eagles black quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated by a sports media concerned about looking politically correct. ESPN pulled the plug on Limbaugh a few days later and the Countdown crew the next weekend apologized for having abdicated its responsibility to address Limbaugh's outrageousness. On Tuesday, it was reported that Limbaugh was part of St. Louis Blues owner Dave Checketts' group that wants to buy the city's NFL team, the Rams. I can't sit idly by like the Countdown crew did so regrettably. The NFL indirectly dismissed Limbaugh before. It shouldn't accept him back unless he wants to buy a ticket. After all, this is a man who said: -- Of President Obama: "Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, ruled by dictate." -- Of Michael J. Fox's struggle with Parkinson's disease: "He is exaggerating the effects of the disease. He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act... This is really shameless of Michael J Fox." -- Of a black caller to his radio show: "Take that bone out of your nose and call me back." -- Of the NAACP: "The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies." -- Of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal: "This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation, and we're going to ruin people's lives over it, and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time." -- And how could I forget, of the NFL: "Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons." It is true that freedom of speech in the country is a protected right. Limbaugh can say whatever he likes and so can you and I. Indeed, he hasn't been taken to court and convicted for any of his repugnant statements and repulsive viewpoints. But that doesn't mean a potential business partner or employer can't refuse him like a restaurant does of diners who refuse to don shirts and shoes. They can and the NFL should. If the league accepted whatever bid the group including Limbaugh puts up, it would be a slap in the face to at least two-thirds of its players, and that is selling short the other third. If the league accepted whatever bid the group including Limbaugh puts up, it would be a slap in the face to at least two-thirds of its players, and that is selling short the other third. The two-thirds I am referring to are the NFL players who are black. The other third are players of every other hue, including white players who are likely to be far more enlightened and accepting of people of color -- people they've lined up next to and counted on -- than Limbaugh. I'd hope that if the NFL did make such a foolishly unnecessary move to accept the Limbaugh group that black and white players would do as Limbaugh seems to threaten and turn the clock back to, oh, let's say, 1964, the period when black folks were marching in the streets and standing up to goons to demand our full inclusion in this country. That year, at the AFL All-Star Game in New Orleans, black players threatened a boycott -- and their white teammates joined them -- after many of them were refused service because of their race at several New Orleans hotels and eateries. Buffalo Bills black star Cookie Gilchrist organized the effort and it forced the game to be moved to Houston. That was the first boycott of an entire city by a professional sports event. Black NFL players would do themselves a disservice not to pick up and walk away from a Limbaugh infested NFL ownership. Imagine how powerful a denouncement of intolerance that would be? This is a league that couldn't find a way to integrate its ownership with a group that included one of its most-beloved superstars, the late Walter Payton. How could it justify making room for Limbaugh? That is yet another reason it would be public relation's suicide for the NFL to vote Limbaugh into its ranks and, I would hope, commercial suicide for it as well. At the very least it could be suicide for the Rams. What black player would want to toil for someone like Limbaugh if he didn't have to? I'm hard-pressed to imagine any current owners wanting Limbaugh in their boardroom, either. They make appearances to be an apolitical lot, donating money to both sides of the political line of scrimmage. After all, when they want to build new stadiums they tend to want political support and taxpayers' dollars and that is more difficult to come by when your political bent is well-defined and it is, as Limbaugh would make it, to the extreme. It is one thing for our pro sports leagues to inherit despicable social louts like one-time Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott and current Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. Among other affronts, Schott, who took over the Reds from her husband following his death, infamously once called her black players "million dollar n***ers." Sterling bought the Clippers almost 30 years ago, long before court cases revealed him to be a racist landlord. Baseball eventually removed Schott. I wish basketball would do the same with Sterling. The NFL can slam its door shut to Limbaugh right now. Anything less would be wholly unwise. After all, football has become America's pastime and it is embraced even more so now because it has finally come to be the meritocracy it long purported to be. Black general managers finally dot the league. Black coaches have won and lost Super Bowls and been retreaded like their white counterparts. The black quarterback controversy that once enveloped the NFL was over and done with when Limbaugh foolishly tried to reignite it. The only thing that needs to be torched now is the idea of Limbaugh as an NFL owner. It alone is an incendiary thought.
Joe Wilson, 
On 
Note that the first Joe Wilson was dead wrong, but that the Obama administration responded in a gentlemanly way to his charge.The Bush-Cheney administration, in contrast, attempted to besmirch the reputation and the life of a dedicated lifetime civil servant because he spoke the truth to the president.The story of the two Joe Wilsons and how they were treated is the story of two visions of America. The Bush-Cheney vision is a nightmarish landscape of blighted lives and cruel indifference to basic human decency. The Obama vision is just the Golden Rule, with which the people who vote for the evil Joe Wilson typically profess acquaintance.The evil Joe Wilson (R-SC) is the remnant of Cheneyism in this new America, painfully being born from the rubble made by the old. He needn't remain in office, defiling the halls of the Congress of the United States of America. He has an opponent in the next election, Rob Miller, an Iraq War veteran. An honorable man. 
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