July 10th, 2014
Over at the Reparations Atlantic Monthly there’s a piece up about how racist the WWE is because they’ve never had a black WWE world champion. Which is slightly problematic because of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. But the point here isn’t just another example for the “media ignorance” tackboard. It’s that the actual history of race and wrestling is pretty interesting.
For example, in David Shoemaker’s excellent history of pro wrestling, The Squared Circle, he talks about how, for decades, promoters would only cast black wrestlers as babyfaces. That’s because they knew audiences would accept them as faces. But they worried that if a black heel made too much heat–that is to say, was too good as a villain–then audiences might riot.
As a consequence, a sign of real racial progress in wrestling was when promoters felt comfortable enough with audiences to cast black wrestlers as heels.
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In the ’50s and ’60s, huge Bobo Brazil (larger than anyone wrestling at that time except for Haystack Calhoun) was the quintessence of sweet–except for his signature “coco butt”, a vicious head butt that would pretty much end each bout. He even had a gentle voice that, to this day, I can imitate. When “Mr. Whoa Nellie Dick Lane” would interview him afterwards, he always talked about how his mom had come in from Fontana (to the Olympic Auditorium, in downtown L.A.) to see him wrestle. Without question, Bobo was the most popular champion of my childhood.
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I do notice we went from “if we present the high yellow as a success, white people will be enraged/uncomfortable/whipped into lynching madness” to “well, 80% black is really a white guy with a tan” quite fast. And I’m not that old.
It seems to me this is another episodic “concept that is no longer useful” area. Or maybe it’s the reverse: the one drop rule for whites.
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Have you seen the “update”? It is awesome:
“The only person of African descent ever named world champion was Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a special case. Half Samoan and half African-Canadian, Johnson identifies as Samoan and comes from a line of famous wrestlers. As WWE’s first third-generation fighter, he was allowed a narrative that reflected his specific family history, not the mere fact of his race.* …”
Johnson identifies as Samoan, so you can understand The Atlantic’s mistake 🙂
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Premise of the article is completely wrong, as Rom Simmons and Booker T were both World Champions.
Mr. Saturn July 11, 2014 at 1:01 am
And if The Rock is too fair skinned for you, there have also been Booker T and Mark Henry not to mention many other ethnicities as champion.