Trump may pardon Jack Johnson

[Cirris]

Trump has always been a big boxing fanboy. So pardoning a former prominent boxer would be right up his alley.

 

[Fluffernutter]

McCain has brought this up year after year since I started paying attention to boxing when I was a kid.

 

[RerouteToRemain]

President Trump is very generous with the black community.

Taqiyya

 

[Trotsky]

This is obviously just symbolic, but it would be in my opinion a very powerful and worthwhile gesture by Trump, who is himself a combat sports fan and patron of the boxing profession.

This is something that I am absolutely sure that President Obama wanted to do, but could not because of the optics of him pardoning a black man so long after his death, and how it might be construed as racially divisive, racial activism, playing the race card, etc.

Meanwhile, for a Trump presidency that clearly wants to properly tailor its message in what former social norms it wants to bring back and what norms it wants to leave in the past, I think this is a powerful nod to the fact that his platform isn't to bring back racial hatred and discrimination.

President Donald Trump is considering a full, posthumous pardon for Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion, who was convicted of racially tinged federal morals charges more than a century ago.

“ Sylvester Stallone called me with the story of heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson,” Trump said Saturday on Twitter. “His trials and tribulations were great, his life complex and controversial. Others have looked at this over the years, most thought it would be done, but yes, I am considering a Full Pardon!”

Stallone, who played Rocky Balboa in the “Rocky” movies, is one of many people over the decades who’ve sought a pardon for Johnson, who died in 1946. Johnson was heavyweight champion from 1908 to 1915, a reign that included his knockout in 1910 of the so-called Great White Hope, former champion James J. Jeffries, which prompted race riots in dozens of U.S. cities.


“Jack Johnson’s reputation was ruined by a racially motivated conviction more than a century ago after he was charged with transporting a white woman across state lines,” McCain said in 2017 as he unsuccessfully urged President Barack Obama to issue a pardon on his way out of office. McCain called Johnson’s conviction “a symbol of racial injustice” and “a shameful stain on our nation’s history.

http://fortune.com/2018/04/22/donald-trump-jack-johnson-sylvester-stallone/

 

[HomerThompson]

Would be a cool thing to do.

 

[Black Helicopters]

Jack Johnson, regardless of how you feel about those laws, broke the law and served his time. He was moving prostitutes across state lines. Obama was a lawyer and probably understood it isn’t about your feelings but about what the law says. No need for a pardon.

 

[AFCrookie]

Well thank goodness.

 

[ultramanhyata]

Johnson was the original black millionaire celebrity from poor beginnings who abandons his people and their struggle and devotes his life to hedonism and status seeking.

And I guess looking at it from that perspective I can see why a guy with Trump's value system would find Johnson worthy of admiration and want to do him a solid.

 

[Trotsky]

Jack Johnson, regardless of how you feel about those laws, broke the law and served his time. He was moving prostitutes across state lines. Obama was a lawyer and probably understood it isn’t about your feelings but about what the law says. No need for a pardon.

You're reductively characterizing the issue. Also, pardons are used all the time even if, by the letter of the law, the conviction was proper. It's not like they are only used for questionable findings of fact: in fact, that's a fairly small portion of pardons.

This was a law that was applied very selectively and was very clearly used as a proxy for punishing a much-maligned black man for being with a white woman. Also, that prostitute later became his wife.

 

[Trotsky]

Johnson was the original black millionaire celebrity from poor beginnings who abandons his people and their struggle and devotes his life to hedonism and status seeking.

And I guess looking at it from that perspective I can see why a guy with Trump's value system would find Johnson worthy of admiration and want to do him a solid.

This is an incredibly scummy post.

Trump, for all his faults, clearly does believe in forging one's own path and maximizing one's worth, celebrity, and enjoyment, and doesn't seem to care about arbitrary mores.

And, it's real funny: you never see people make these "abandons his people and their struggle and devotes his life to hedonism and status seeking" when it's poor white people who become famous. As if somehow black people have a greater moral obligation than whites to not behave selfishly.

 

[VivaRevolution]

This is an incredibly scummy post.

Trump, for all his faults, clearly does believe in forging one's own path and maximizing one's worth, celebrity, and enjoyment, and doesn't seem to care about arbitrary mores.

And, it's real funny: you never see people make these "abandons his people and their struggle and devotes his life to hedonism and status seeking" when it's poor white people who become famous. As if somehow black people have a greater moral obligation than whites to not behave selfishly.

Really sickening post.

You've really jumped the shark recently. You literally just posted in a thread titled don't be snarky, and made the exact same kind of post you criticize here, but your post wasn't nearly as entertaining.

 

[ultramanhyata]

This is an incredibly scummy post.

Trump, for all his faults, clearly does believe in forging one's own path and maximizing one's worth, celebrity, and enjoyment, and doesn't seem to care about arbitrary mores.

And, it's real funny: you never see people make these "abandons his people and their struggle and devotes his life to hedonism and status seeking" when it's poor white people who become famous. As if somehow black people have a greater moral obligation than whites to not behave selfishly.

Really sickening post.

Take it up with the civil rights pioneers who were contemporaries of Johnson and leveled the same criticisms at him. In fact, I wouldn't even know what I know about Johnson today if it hadn't been for the voices of those courageous and selfless individuals.

What's sickening is your pathetic tribalism.

 

[aunshi189]

I'm not really a fan of posthumous pardons for dubious crimes.

Are you saying that the guy broke the law but we're letting him off for being famous?
Are you saying the law was bullshit but we only care about pardoning in this famous case?

I get that it can be symbolic for a community, just the whole concept of forgiveness and special treatment sits poorly with me in these cases.

 

[Steve-French]

This is an incredibly scummy post.

Trump, for all his faults, clearly does believe in forging one's own path and maximizing one's worth, celebrity, and enjoyment, and doesn't seem to care about arbitrary mores.

And, it's real funny: you never see people make these "abandons his people and their struggle and devotes his life to hedonism and status seeking" when it's poor white people who become famous. As if somehow black people have a greater moral obligation than whites to not behave selfishly.

Really sickening post.

This was a way different time he could have used his status to help with civil rights, but I agree that he doesn't owe anybody shit. I don't really see the whole abandoning your people argument being brought up anymore.

 

[Jesus H. Sherdog]

I'm not really a fan of posthumous pardons for dubious crimes.

Are you saying that the guy broke the law but we're letting him off for being famous?
Are you saying the law was bullshit but we only care about pardoning in this famous case?

I get that it can be symbolic for a community, just the whole concept of forgiveness and special treatment sits poorly with me in these cases.

You consider being a black man with a white woman a “dubious crime?”

 

[Trotsky]

Take it up with the civil rights pioneers who were contemporaries of Johnson and leveled the same criticisms at him. In fact, I wouldn't even know what I know about Johnson today if it hadn't been for the voices of those courageous and selfless individuals.

What's sickening is your pathetic tribalism.

Are you a black civil rights activist of the early 1900s? No? You're demonizing a black man for being individualistic and therefore "hedonistic," somehow saying that Trump would only pardon him for being a fellow hedonist. You're deriding a black man in a racist society for wanting to earn the respect and acceptance of white elites, instead of blaming racism in the first place. And, again, I somehow doubt you would say the same about rich guys from poor white communities like Mark Cuban.

Also, LOL @ me being a tribalist, while I praise a member of the other side for doing something decent, and you spew out racist talking points.

This was a way different time he could have used his status to help with civil rights, but I agree that he doesn't owe anybody shit. I don't really see the whole abandoning your people argument being brought up anymore.

If there is one single argument (there are very few, but still some) that is okay for minorities to say to each other, but is not okay for members of the majority to use to defame them it's the "abandoning your people" type of arguments. Especially when they are basically used to insist on cultural/economic segregation.

Same with people like Lil Wayne or Lebron James today. I understand members of the black community theoretically saying "hey, you understand the issues we face and we helped support you, so you shouldn't be turning your back on us, or buying into the machine that keeps us in the dirt." But white folks telling those guys "hey, you shouldn't be wearing those nice clothes or driving those nice cars: you need to be giving your money to poor black people" is really, really insulting, patronizing, and gross.

 

[Trotsky]

You've really jumped the shark recently. You literally just posted in a thread titled don't be snarky, and made the exact same kind of post you criticize here, but your post wasn't nearly as entertaining.

I did not make a post positing a racist stereotype about "hedonistic" black celebrities being Uncle Toms to try a malign the correction of a famous racially motivated crime.

Also, I do not care about your appraisals.

 

[VivaRevolution]

I did not make a post positing a racist stereotype about "hedonistic" black celebrities being Uncle Toms to try a malign the correction of a famous racially motivated crime.

Also, I do not care about your appraisals.

Lol, enjoy substituting your own personal fiction for reality.

 

[M3t4tr0n]

If Trump pardons him I'll buy a MAGA hat and donate to Breitbart.

 

[irish_thug]

If Trump pardons him I'll buy a MAGA hat and donate to Breitbart.

Quoted