Who whitewashed Muhammad Ali?

If the Left wants that back, if it wants the proud black man sticking it to the man to replace the graceful and loving image of Ali that was perhaps fabricated, it comes with a price. It comes with the baggage of his self-serving and unfair willingness to throw others under the bus. Great men are complicated; they often do bad things. At the hours of their deaths we forgive them, and cast a generous eye on their lives. Ali deserves nothing less.

But if Ali the radical must replace Ali the celebrity, then it must be done honestly. We must accept that his refusal to serve in Vietnam meant somebody else had to. We must recognize his often separatist rhetoric in denouncing interracial relationships. He can still be a hero to some, but he can no longer be the same hero to all.

We seek perfection in our heroes. We never get it. The flaws, the bad decisions, the arrogance is always there, beneath the veneer of our adulation. Maybe in the case of Muhammad Ali it is best that we ignore his more radical positions. Maybe he helps us more as a smiling and funny great fighter than he does as an activist of black liberation. But if he doesn’t, if the latter must be his legacy, it must be an honest one. It’s not always a legacy that makes the champ look good, but it is who he was.