Vibe.com, January 28th, 2005
I still don't know why I wanted him to win, but I did. Despite the fact that I wouldn't trust him alone with any woman I know, I felt for him.
There's something America loves about watching creatures fight. Dogs, cocks, niggas. With Tyson-Lewis, people wanted to see a pair of Herculean bucks beat each other 'til blood flew, like plantation entertainment. While some venues refused to sanction the Tyson match, others bid strenuously to host the spectacle, like a slave auction for the husky African who was strong and a good breeder. At 35, Tyson isn't the strapping young titan of 15 years ago. There are still two rape charges pending against him. He bit Lennox Lewis at that pained ruckus of a press conference. Yet I still wanted him to win.
It seems like the weirder and meaner black people act, the more press we get. But America doesn't like to admit that it drives niggas crazy with all that it demands and withholds. Black anger and black sexuality are the sacred mysteries of racism. In America, these phantom threats give credence to the white majority's fear of us, which is baffling. The great misfortune for black people is that we perceive ourselves through white people's eyes and then become what they see, as is evident with Tyson.
Like Bigger Thomas, the undereducated, 20-year-old protagonist of Native Son, Tyson understands that white folks will never accept him as a peer. "You guys would rather be with someone else who's equal to your status in life, Tiger Woods or somebody," he told sportswriters during an interview at his training camp in Hawaii before the fight. "I come across as crass, a Neanderthal, a babbling idiot sometimes. I like to show you that person. I like that person. He makes you want to come and listen to me." Tyson's spirit has been ravaged and parodied, and even with the $17.5 million he made just for showing up, he hasn't earned the respect he hungers for.
The verbal violence of rappers is one step up from Bigger and Mike. At least they articulate their wrath. Many black folks still harbor moments of unexpressed rage, over which we exert nuanced control. Tyson's fists talk for him, and when they don't work, I feel for him. He knows that white folks are comfortable with bestial niggas, a caricature long embedded in the American psyche. "I wish that you guys had children, so I could kick them in the fucking head or stomp on their testicles so you could feel my pain," he told the reporters. Yet the anger Tyson feels is made impotent, like a bull that is teased, taunted, and finally killed to shouts of "Olé!"
In Memphis, against Lewis, Tyson didn't give the crowd the animal spectacle it was dying to see. He fought with his arms held close to his body. He got knocked down twice, and his eyes were bloodied. He seemed helpless, medicated. He looked more like a woman protecting herself than the most threatening black man on earth. I think he was trying to be good, not to lose control, not to bite. I felt sorry for him. He tried to redeem himself and didn't know how.
