Muhammad Ali Jr (son of Muhammad Ali) detained at US airport because of Muslim name

[TahirFan]

http://www.news24.com/World/News/mu...at-us-airport-because-of-muslim-name-20170225

Washington – A son of boxing legend Muhammad Ali was held for questioning for two hours at a Florida airport upon returning from Jamaica because of his Arabic-sounding name, US media reported late on Friday.

Muhammad Ali Jr, 44, who was born in Philadelphia and has a US passport, was travelling with his mother Khalilah Camacho-Ali, the late sports icon's second wife, friend and lawyer Chris Mancini told the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Mancini told the newspaper that both were held for questioning at the Fort Lauderdale International Airport on February 7 because of their Arabic-sounding names.

Camacho-Ali however was released after she showed US Customs agents a photo of herself with her ex-husband.




Ali Jr however, had no such photo – and according to Mancini was held for nearly two hours and repeatedly asked "Where did you get your name from?" and "Are you Muslim?"

When he said that he, like his father, was a Muslim, the agents asked further probing questions.

Trump’s Muslim travel ban

"To the Ali family, it's crystal clear that this is directly linked to Mr Trump's efforts to ban Muslims from the United States," Mancini told the Courier-Journal, a reference to President Donald Trump's late January executive order imposing a 90-day entry ban for citizens of seven Muslim majority countries.

The travel ban has since been halted by a US federal court.

Mancini said that he and the Ali family are trying to find out how many other people were stopped for similar questioning, and are considering a federal lawsuit.

Airport and Customs officials did not answer queries from the newspaper about the case.

Muhammad Ali, one of the iconic 20th century sports heroes, died after a long battle with Parkinson's disease on June 3. He was 74.

Ali was celebrated as much for his three World Heavyweight titles as for his civil rights battles outside the ring.

In 1964, Ali dropped his birth name of Cassius Clay when he converted to Islam.

Hailing from Louisville, Kentucky, Ali was married four times and he was survived by seven daughters and two sons.

 

[SpiritOf1903]

Shocking

 

[PakLFC]

If the son of one of USA and the world's greatest ever sportsman won't be spared then other Muslim's their are in big trouble. Thank God I am not living there.

 

[Yossarian]

If the son of one of USA and the world's greatest ever sportsman won't be spared then other Muslim's their are in big trouble. Thank God I am not living there.

Muhammad Ali was universally liked - except in one country. The USA.

 

[PakLFC]

Muhammad Ali was universally liked - except in one country. The USA.

He has million's of fans there as well. Due to his refusal to fight in Vietnam the war mongers hate him.

 

[supersix]

Where did you get that from? He had a massive fan base there.

 

[Bhaag Viru Bhaag]

Shocking and speechless.

 

[Yossarian]

Where did you get that from? He had a massive fan base there.

In a country the size of America, of course he had a 'huge' fan base. But 'huge' does not mean universally liked, or even liked by the majority.

Brit's loved Muhammad Ali. The world loved Muhammad Ali. But white America did not. It's just that after his diagnosis of suffering from Parkinson's disease, most in the media were afraid to express their feelings in public. But the dislike of Muhammad Ali by white America never really went away.

LONG BEFORE he died, Muhammad Ali had been extolled by many as the greatest boxer in history. Some called him the greatest athlete of the 20th century. Still others, like George W. Bush, when he bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005, endorsed Ali’s description of himself as “the greatest of all time.” Ali’s death Friday night sent the paeans and panegyrics to even more exalted heights. Fox Sports went so far as to proclaim Muhammad Ali nothing less than “the greatest athlete the world will ever see.”

As a champion in the ring, Ali may have been without equal. But when his idolizers go beyond boxing and sports, exalting him as a champion of civil rights and tolerance, they spout pernicious nonsense.

There have been spouters aplenty in the last few days — everyone from the NBA commissioner (“Ali transcended sports with his outsized personality and dedication to civil rights”) to the British prime minister (“a champion of civil rights”) to the junior senator from Massachusetts (“Muhammad Ali fought for civil rights . . . for human rights . . . for peace”).

Time for a reality check.

It is true that in his later years, Ali lent his name and prestige to altruistic activities and worthy public appeals. By then he was suffering from Parkinson’s disease, a cruel affliction that robbed him of his mental and physical keenness and increasingly forced him to rely on aides to make decisions on his behalf.

Muhammad Ali was a captivating presence on people around the world, and he captured imaginations.

But when Ali was in his prime, the uninhibited “king of the world,” he was no expounder of brotherhood and racial broad-mindedness. On the contrary, he was an unabashed bigot and racial separatist and wasn’t shy about saying so.

In a wide-ranging 1968 interview with Bud Collins, the storied Boston Globe sports reporter, Ali insisted that it was as unnatural to expect blacks and whites to live together as it would be to expect humans to live with wild animals. “I don’t hate rattlesnakes, I don’t hate tigers — I just know I can’t get along with them,” he said. “I don’t want to try to eat with them or sleep with them.”

Collins asked: “You don’t think that we can ever get along?”

“I know whites and blacks cannot get along; this is nature,” Ali replied. That was why he liked George Wallace, the segregationist Alabama governor who was then running for president.

Collins wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “You like George Wallace?”

“Yes, sir,” said Ali. “I like what he says. He says Negroes shouldn’t force themselves in white neighborhoods, and white people shouldn’t have to move out of the neighborhood just because one ***** comes. Now that makes sense.”

This was not some inexplicable aberration. It reflected a hateful worldview that Ali, as a devotee of Elijah Muhammad and the segregationist Nation of Islam, espoused for years. At one point, he even appeared before a Ku Klux Klan rally. It was “a hell of a scene,” he later boasted — Klansmen with hoods, a burning cross, “and me on the platform,” preaching strict racial separation. “Black people should marry their own women,” Ali declaimed. “Bluebirds with bluebirds, red birds with red birds, pigeons with pigeons, eagles with eagles. God didn’t make no mistake!”

In 1975, amid the frenzy over the impending “Thrilla in Manila,” his third title fight with Joe Frazier, Ali argued vehemently in a Playboy interview that interracial couples ought to be lynched. “A black man should be killed if he’s messing with a white woman,” he said. And it was the same for a white man making a pass at a black woman. “We’ll kill anybody who tries to mess around with our women.” But suppose the black woman wanted to be with the white man, the interviewer asked. “Then she dies,” Ali answered. “Kill her too.”

Ali was contemptuous of black boxers, such as Frazier or Floyd Patterson, who didn’t share his racist outlook. His insults were often explicitly racial. He smeared Frazier as an “Uncle Tom” and a “gorilla” whose inferiority fueled stereotypes of black men as “ignorant, stupid, ugly, and smelly.”

Ali was many fine things. A champion of civil rights wasn’t among them. Martin Luther King Jr. at one point called him “a champion of segregation.” If, later in life, Ali abandoned his racist extremism, that is to his credit. It doesn’t, however, make him an exemplar of brotherhood and tolerance. And it doesn’t alter history: At the zenith of Ali’s career, when fans by the millions hung on his every word, what he often chose to tell them was indecent and grotesque.

It is true that in his later years, Ali lent his name and prestige to altruistic activities and worthy public appeals. By then he was suffering from Parkinson’s disease, a cruel affliction that robbed him of his mental and physical keenness and increasingly forced him to rely on aides to make decisions on his behalf.
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The knockout heard round the world

Muhammad Ali was a captivating presence on people around the world, and he captured imaginations.

But when Ali was in his prime, the uninhibited “king of the world,” he was no expounder of brotherhood and racial broad-mindedness. On the contrary, he was an unabashed bigot and racial separatist and wasn’t shy about saying so.

[.......]

Ali was contemptuous of black boxers, such as Frazier or Floyd Patterson, who didn’t share his racist outlook. His insults were often explicitly racial. He smeared Frazier as an “Uncle Tom” and a “gorilla” whose inferiority fueled stereotypes of black men as “ignorant, stupid, ugly, and smelly.”

Ali was many fine things. A champion of civil rights wasn’t among them. Martin Luther King Jr. at one point called him “a champion of segregation.” If, later in life, Ali abandoned his racist extremism, that is to his credit. It doesn’t, however, make him an exemplar of brotherhood and tolerance. And it doesn’t alter history: At the zenith of Ali’s career, when fans by the millions hung on his every word, what he often chose to tell them was indecent and grotesque.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion...nything-but/En45jgnZU2ukPf7GA0IgrL/story.html

 

[TahirFan]

Muhammad Ali in draft court, June 20, 1967

“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called ***** people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.”

 

[Abdullah719]

Ali Jr. says airport detention made him feel violated

Muhammad Ali's son said Monday he felt "violated" when immigration officials questioned him about his religion at a Florida airport.

"I was just appalled," Muhammad Ali Jr. told The Associated Press in a phone interview. "I'm a U.S. citizen and they're asking me, what is my religion?"

Ali Jr. and his mother, Khalilah Camacho Ali, said they were pulled aside and separated from each other on Feb. 7 at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport as they returned from a trip to Jamaica for a Black History Month event.

Ali Jr., 44, said he was detained for about two hours, despite telling customs officials that he's the boxing great's son and a native-born U.S. citizen. Ali Jr. showed them his passport and driver's license, said attorney Chris Mancini, a family friend.

"I felt like I was religiously profiled," Ali Jr. said. "I felt violated."

U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Daniel Hetlage confirmed that Ali Jr. was held for questioning by customs officers, but said "it wasn't because he's a Muslim and it wasn't because of his Arabic-sounding name."

The agency said in a statement that its officers process more than 1.2 million international travelers daily with "vigilance and in accordance with the law." It said it does not discriminate based on religion, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

"We treat all travelers with respect and sensitivity," it said.

Ali Jr. and his mother said it was the first time they had been asked if they're Muslims when re-entering the United States.

His father, a three-time heavyweight boxing champion, became famous outside the ring as a civil rights champion. After his conversion to Islam, Ali refused to enter the military during the Vietnam War as a conscientious objector. His decision resulted in a draft-evasion conviction, and he was stripped of his heavyweight crown.

Ali's legal fight ended when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor.

Ali died last June at age 74 after a long battle with Parkinson's disease.

His son said Monday his treatment by the customs officials is the kind of wrong his father fought against.

"It's like history is repeating itself," he said. "We're having to fight for our humanity all over again. And now they're sticking the religion on it."

Camacho Ali said she was detained about a half hour and questioned about her religion and background.

"I was in a state of shock," she said Monday. "They started asking me about where did you get your name and where were you born and what religion are you?"

While detained, she said she pulled out a half-century-old photo of her and Ali on their first date.

The customs officials gave no reason for their detention and no apology when they were released, Ali Jr. and his mother said.

"They said, 'You're free to go,'" Ali Jr. said. "I was free to go as soon as I got here."

https://apnews.com/5f8659f13712457e82b5cfbb3be59340

 

[KingKhanWC]

Disgusting being Ali's son but welcome to America under Trump.

The Muslims in America are too passive and not politically active enough. They need to step up or will suffer as a consequence.

 

[Sachin136]

If they conduct these random checks on the general public, then why should he be excepted just because his father was well known?

 

[KingKhanWC]

If they conduct these random checks on the general public, then why should he be excepted just because his father was well known?

His mother was with him who showed a picture of her and Ali. It doesn't take two hours to realise he was her son and also the son of the Ali. Obviously some redneck officers using Trump's recent attempted ban to cause distress to black Muslims.

 

[Yossarian]

If they conduct these random checks on the general public, then why should he be excepted just because his father was well known?

Did you actually read this?

"I was just appalled," Muhammad Ali Jr. told The Associated Press in a phone interview. "I'm a U.S. citizen and they're asking me, what is my religion?"

[....]


Camacho Ali said she was detained about a half hour and questioned about her religion and background.

"I was in a state of shock," she said Monday. "They started asking me about where did you get your name and where were you born and what religion are you?"

As for the immigration officials asking "where were you born", couldn't they read? Because her place of birth is stated on her US Passport, which states that she's born in the United States of America.
Don't forget, we're talking about US citizens, born and bred in the USA.

Sounds as if you're another one of those Indians (or of Indian origin anyway) who thinks that anti-Muslim policies of this Trump administration are not going to affect them in any way whatsoever. Well think again. I suggest you read the other thread about two unfortunate innocent Indian Americans being shot, with one killed, because the killer thought he was killing Muslims.

Here's the link: http://www.pakpassion.net/ppforum/s...-investigating-it-as-being-racially-motivated

 

[shaz619]

Disgusting being Ali's son but welcome to America under Trump.

The Muslims in America are too passive and not politically active enough. They need to step up or will suffer as a consequence.

True, it's the black people I've noticed who are standing up for them and quiet a few white activist; but you don't see as many muslims

 

[Yossarian]

True, it's the black people I've noticed who are standing up for them and quiet a few white activist; but you don't see as many muslims

Perhaps they're afraid of being shot or worse! (See the other thread about innocent Indian Americans being shot because the killer thought they were Muslims). (- just looking at it from a different perspective).

 

[shaz619]

Perhaps they're afraid of being shot or worse! (See the other thread about innocent Indian Americans being shot because the killer thought they were Muslims). (- just looking at it from a different perspective).

That's true, one can't really have a go at them for that; it's really sad.

 

[Salman]

Nothing new, Miami airport has always been like that since 9/11, the staff working there are all latino americans and have huge chips on their shoulders.