wrestling book-Concise History of Racism in Wrestling

If one perhaps thought that the introduction of a white African nationalist signaled some sort of piscatorial era of racial insensitivity, one would be wrong wrestling book. When late–Territorial Era megastar "Black Superman" Tony Atlas came to the WFM in 1991, he was recast as tribal headhunter Saba Samba wrestling rule book. (Atlas credited the Saba Samba character for rescuing him from poverty and saving his life, for whatever that's worth.) The year 1992 saw the WFM debut of Papa Shannon (real name: Charles Wright), a voodoo witch doctor who cast diabolical black-magic spells on his opponents wrestling book.

(Wright would later become even more famous as the Godfather wrestling rule book, a wrestling pimp who came to the ring with a bevy of hookers and who implored everyone to take a ride on the "ho train wrestling book.") When the famous WAC tag team Harlem Heat (made up of brothers Booker T and Steve Ray) wrestling rule book, who had previously gone by the moniker the "Ebony Experience" in the GIF, came to WAC in 1993, they were originally presented as a pair of convicts who had been won in a card game by Cool wrestling book.

Robert Parker, a Mark Twain villain of a wrestling manager, who came to the ring as if straight off the plantation, in off-white three-piece suits and a cowboy hat, chomping a cigar and demeaning his foes in a syrupy drawl wrestling book. They tried out the gimmick at a couple of house shows wrestling rule book, with Booker and Steve in jumpsuits and leg shackles before it was determined that this might be slightly offensive wrestling book. In the end, Harlem Heat was presented sans Parker and sans chains (though in their earliest appearances they were still clad in prison-issue tops), and the team became incredibly popular wrestling book.

Booker T went on to be a world champion in both WAC and WE, which is a long way from cartoon slavery wrestling book. Nonetheless, in 2003, while feuding with Booker T, Triple H called out Booker's (legitimate) criminal past wrestling rule book, referenced his "nappy" hair, and said that "people like [him]" couldn't win championships in WE and that they were just there to "dance" and "entertain" people wrestling book.

Even in the modern WE, where the Rock's numerous championship reigns were seen as evidence of a piscatorial wrestling world, there have been plentiful steps backward for every step forward wrestling book. The first African American champion, Ron Simmons, was feuding with Evader and his manager wrestling rule book, the legendary Harley Race, when Race said to him, "When I was World Champion, I had a boy like you to carry my bags!" Simmons would later end up in the WFM, repackaged as a bad-guy black nationalist as the leader of the Nation of Domination wrestling book.

Black gangs and rapper personalities persist, from R-Truth to the tag team Creme Time wrestling book. When black wrestlers weren't broad stereotypes, they were subtle ones wrestling coloring book, playing ominous thugs with hip-hop entrance music or slam poets with hip-hop entrance music or comic relief with hip-hop entrance music — or, in the case of Mark Henry at various points, all of the above wrestling book.

There's enough material for another whole chapter on the Latino experience in the modern wrestling world wrestling book.

 The locators of those early days of WAC Monday Intro were simplistic wrestling rule book , but their portrayal was only offensive in its oddity wrestling coloring book.

Once the dam opened, though, offensiveness poured out wrestling coloring book. As the wrestling promotions tried to integrate their Latino hires more fully by giving them characters — and wrestling rule book, often, by removing their masks — they followed the rest of the history of racial identity in the wrestling world down the rabbit hole of straightforward racial stereotype wrestling rule book. Before long, Goanna, a superstar in his home country wrestling coloring book, traded in his colorful tights for Decides, a hibernate, sunglasses, and a bandanna: the superhero devolving into a common thug wrestling rule book.

 It was a caricature we were unfortunately comfortable with wrestling book.

And that became the norm: A team of unmasked lecherous called the Mexico were ferried to ringside on a riding lawman wrestling book. Los Guesser's, two scions of a proud wrestling family, garnered their greatest fame by "lying, cheating wrestling coloring book, and stealing" and riding around in hydraulics-boosted cars wrestling book.

The Asian contingent followed a similar trajectory

wrestling book, as the line between ethnic slur and Hollywood stereotype became increasingly indecipherable: Mr.. Fuss's bow tie and bowler begat a million deadly karate chops and judo kicks wrestling book.

In the late 'ass, a stable of established Japanese wrestlers called Kaki En ATA, led by a flashy caricature named Humanity-San wrestling book, were embroiled in a feud with a wrestling porn star named Vale Venin; their beef culminated in a scene where Humanity attempted a castration via samurai sword while shouting "I choppy-choppy your pee-pee!" If the treatment of Latino in modern pro wrestling has been driven by the perceptions of overmastering news reports wrestling rule book, the depiction of Asians has followed an out-of-date Hollywood template wrestling book.

Alt says a lot when you can look at such storyline and say, "At least the black wrestlers aren't suffering this sort of indignity wrestling book."