Whites Have Long Cheered Black Boxers

Wallace Matthews’s piece on Jack Johnson utilizes selective history to make political points [“Johnson vs. Jeffries, 95 Years Later,” Sports, January 17, 2005]. If we are to believe that the Johnson-Jeffries fight “epitomized race relations in 1910 and continues to do so nearly a century later,” we would have to discard a lot of information. Mr. Matthews omits at least half a century of evidence of whites rooting for black athletes: For example, when Joe Louis fought Rocky Marciano in 1951, many whites openly supported Mr. Louis, wept when he lost, and took a long time afterwards to warm to Mr. Marciano. “They don’t like me because I beat Joe,” Mr. Marciano said. Mr. Matthews makes it sound like whites in 2005 still root from purely racial motivations, when evidence everywhere contradicts his lazy, politically correct assertions.

But the most inexcusable part of Mr. Matthews’s piece is his retailing the mythology of Muhammad Ali as rebel hero and Joe Frazier as the reactionary, “acceptable black man” opponent. This is the worst kind of liberal bias, disparaging an honorable man like Mr. Frazier because he did not represent what liberal whites saw as the only proper political views for a black man. Mr. Frazier has endured these kinds of slights for 30 years, largely because white sportswriters bought Ali’s demagoguery wholesale. If Mr. Matthews wants to do his part to undo the legacy of white racial bias toward black athletes, he could start by giving this tired old tune a rest.

PAUL BESTON
Manhattan

Thanks, Swift Boat Vets

Reading Seth Lipsky’s article on the Swift boat veterans, I couldn’t help but think it was the long-deserved heroes’ parade our Vietnam veterans never got when they came home in the 1970s [“An American Story,” Opinion, January 12, 2005].

They may go back to their careers and businesses, but I have never been prouder of them than when they stood up for their honor. It was never about politics but about right and wrong.

Today we finally honor the heroes who we ignored so long ago. I know my 20-year-old brother-in-law never had a parade; he came home in a box.

Thank you, Swift boat vets. Thank you.

KENNETH PARADY
Grand Rapids, Mich.

Anti-Semitism Has Long Roots

I attended the same advance screening at the Museum of Jewish Heritage that was reviewed in The New York Sun [“Analyzing Auschwitz,” Gary Shapiro, Knickerbocker, January 17, 2005]. I was struck by fact the that not one of the scholars emphasized what may have been the single most important factor that facilitated the participation and/or collaboration of so many “ordinary people” in the Holocaust and prevented so many from actively opposing it: more than 1,000 years of concerted European church and state demonization of the Jews as evil, anti-Christ and inhuman.

RICHARD Z. CHESNOFF
Manhattan
Mr. Chesnoff is the author of “Pack of Thieves: How Hitler & Europe Plundered the Jews & Committed the Greatest Crime in History,” Anchor Books.

Bloomberg Needs Republicans

In a three way race for Mayor, Fernando Ferrer (D) Michael Bloomberg (Independence) and Thomas Ognibene (R), it is conceivable that the two liberal candidates, Mr. Ferrer and Mr. Bloomberg could split the vote and Mr. Ognibene could win [“So Far, Republican Mayor Fails To Garner Support of Council Republicans,” Jill Gardiner, Page 1, January 17, 2005]. This would be the opposite of the 1969 race, when the split was between the conservative candidates, Mario Procaccino and John Marchi, thus allowing Mayor Lindsay to win. Mr. Ognibene, though, must win the Republican primary. Running as a Conservative alone, would be very difficult.

It would not surprise me, either, if the Independence Party would want Mr. Bloomberg to lose a GOP primary, so then he would only have their line to bank on in November.

This way Lenora Fulani would have even more control of his candidacy. Does anyone want the Independence Party and its rag-tag crew having even more access to this mayor?

As a longtime Republican, I am still looking for some reason to stay with the mayor, but he is making it ever so hard. And perhaps Mr. Ognibene’s candidacy could at least make the mayor reach out to his GOP base. Mr. Mayor: you can win without the Independence line; you will lose without the GOP nod.

EVAN EDWARDS
Manhattan

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