The scene was meant to show Ali was just as boxed in and trapped by Black people and Black identity politics as he was by White people and White identity politics. (Remember he was told by the Nation of Islam to not communicate with and stay away from Malcolm.)
He divorced himself from his "white slave name" to liberate himself spiritually, psychologically, historically, culturally, socially, politically, etc, from all association with African-American slavery and the Black experience, in order to assert and advance himself as a free, individual, postcolonial, postracial man in control of his own identity and spirit, but then he married himself to an Islamic name that not only mirrored his own interiour and exteriour transformation but fused his identity to a religious prophet and a religion that enslaved Africa, fused his identity to the history and culture of Islam, fused his identity to the continents of Africa and Asia, fusing his African-American identity into an Islamic Arab identity, he married himself to a pseudo-Islamic militant resistance civil rights organization that enslaved and exploited him spiritually and financially and socially and manipulated him through and through, and he realized he was trapped by the identity imposed by himself onto himself while he was listening to Malcolm X recount his own genuinely religious, spiritual, emotional, humanistic, free, unfettered, pure, individual pilgrimages to Africa and Mecca. (and remember, he was told to avoid Malcolm.) In those moments, Ali realized he knew nothing about the real historical Islam or its cultural scope or its spiritual depth or philosophical foundation (he thinks Islam is only about not drinking and not eating meat and having his wives dress like nuns). In those moments, Ali realized Black man, just like White man, exploited and enslaved and beat down and abused Black man. (and he knew the Nation of Islam was a sham.) In those moments, Ali realized he replaced one trapping for another, and the another would be harder to escape from. The veil was lifted for him, he saw the truth.
The entire film is a heavy meditation on Black people enslaving Black people. Black people are beating up Black people for money, backstabbing each other, killing their own civil rights leaders (Malcolm X), mistreating their own family, cheating on wives, oppressing their wives, committing mass atrocities against each other (Idi Amin), politically-socially-religiously-culturally persecuting and oppressing each other, etc. Same as what White man did to Black man. And questioning just how much of that is the result of African-American slavery (remembering that African slavery predated the Atlantic slave trade) and how much is the result of man's inborn encoded nature.
And my dungeon shook - the boxing scene lights are straight out of Jeff Wall's Invisible Man photo:
https://hammer.ucla.edu/legacy/image/04/49.jpg
Which is Wall's homage to Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, the themes of which this film heavily incorporates....
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jnericsonx
8 years ago
Just would have been nice if he'd said something like, "I wish you aren't fighting." Something neutral, not taking sides, just basically saying that he wished both sides would stop fighting.
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TemporaryOne-1
8 years ago
From The Autobiography of Malcolm X:
The next morning, a Saturday, I heard that Cassius Clay and his entourage had arrived. There was a huge reception for him at the airport. I thought that if Cassius and I happened to meet, it would likely prove embarrassing for Cassius, since he had elected to remain with Elijah Muhammad's version of Islam. I would not have been embarrassed, but I knew that Cassius would have been forbidden to associate with me. I knew that Cassius knew I had been with him, and for him, and believed in him, when those who later embraced him felt that he had no chance. I decided to avoid Cassius so as not to put him on the spot.
My final Ghanaian social event was a beautiful party in my honor given by HisExcellency Mr. Armando Entralgo Gonzalez, the Cuban Ambassador to Ghana. The next morning - it was Sunday - the "Malcolm X Committee" was waiting at my hotel, to accompany me to the airport. As we left the hotel, we met Cassius Clay with some of his entourage, returning from his morning walk. Cassius momentarily seemed uncertain - then he spoke, something almost monosyllabic, like "How are you?" It flashed through my mind how close we had been before the fight that had changed the course of his life. I replied that I was fine - something like that - and that I hoped he was, which I sincerely meant. Later on, I sent Cassius a message by wire, saying that I hoped that he would realize how much he was loved by Muslims wherever they were; and that he would not let anyone use him and maneuver him into saying and doing things to tarnish his image.
From the epilogue of the book, written by Alex Haley:
He hinted about Cassius Clay a couple of times, and when I responded only with anecdotes about my interview with Clay, he finally asked what Clay had said of him. I dug out the index card on which the question was typed in advance and Clay's response was beneath in longhand. Malcolm X stared at the card, then out of the window, and he got up and walked around; one of the few times I ever heard his voice betray his hurt was when he said, "I felt like a blood big-brother to him." He paused. "I'm not against him now. He's a fine young man. Smart. He's just let himself be used, led astray."
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