Some of the Great Moment When Ali Politely Warn The TV Host "Cathal O’Shannon" and Talk about Why called some American "White" Devil
This was originally titled ‘Muhammad Ali V Cathal O’Shannon′ was filmed in RTÉ Television’s Studio 1 on 17 July 1972. It was first broadcast on 18 July 1972.
This was re-edited and re-transmitted as ‘When Ali Met Cathal’ on 5 January 2009.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
You You told a story on one occasion about coming back from
the Olympics with the medal to your own hometown.
Did this make you a very big manin your own hometown?
Did it completely change your life?
Well, you know, like made me popular for a few days, but I
wanted to do something good withit, so I went downtown.
At the time, black people was marching to eat in the white
(00:25):
restaurants and they wanted rights to go where they wanted
to. And it's just so I said I'll
take this medal and I'll go downtown and I'll sit down at a
restaurant. I got them on the spot now and
then I'll order something to eat.
And I went down and have a medalon and the lady was looking and
I said I'd like a cheeseburger. She said we don't serve Negros.
(00:49):
I said I don't eat them either, just give me a cheeseburger.
How was it, Mohammed anyway, to be a a Negro boy in the South?
You say black now all. Right, black.
All right, Did. Is it that the same thing?
What? No Negro?
We are talking All people are named after country.
(01:11):
Chinese are named after China. Cubans are named after Cuba.
Irish people are named after Ireland.
Indonesians named after Indonesia.
Japanese are named after Japan. Australians are named after
Australia. But there's no country named
Negroes. All right, then let me you
understand. I understand.
You look, let me rephrase that. Do I look that down?
(01:35):
What attracted you then to Islamin the first instance?
The. Muslim religion, Yes.
Is the true teachings of Elijah Muhammad right there in America,
in the power structure. Nobody will challenge him.
And the history of ourselves, the history of our true
religion, our nationality, our names.
See, we don't have our names. You know, I noticed how proud
(01:56):
you all are, proud of your names.
See, Chinese have names like Chang, Chong, Lu, Qian.
Listen, Islamic teachings. Russians have names like Kosegen
or Khrushchev. You have names like O'Connor or
Grady or Kennedy. And Africans had names like
Lumumba nor Kruma. And Jews got names like
(02:17):
Weinstein and Goldberg and and Italians got names like Dundee
and Vivanuti and bar Seattle. But we have names like Grady and
Clay and Hawkins and Smith and Jones and Johnson.
But we are black. These are the slave names.
Yeah, So when I heard this, I knew it was the truth.
It's history. So Muhammad Ali is a beautiful
(02:40):
black name, name of our ancestors.
So when I heard this, I just hadto walk out of the church and
Christianity because they never taught us our true knowledge.
Then they told me how we were brainwashed In America, we see
Jesus, he's white with blonde hair and blue eyes.
We see the Lord's Supper, all white people.
We see the angels in heaven, allwhite people.
(03:01):
And we look at Miss Universe, a white woman, Miss America, a
white woman, Miss World, a whitewoman.
Even Tarzan, the king of the jungles in Africa, he was white.
We see, we see a white man swinging in Africa with a
(03:23):
dipole. He beats up all Africans and
break the line's jaw. And then the Africans been in
Africa for centuries, but he can't yet talk to the animals.
But Tarzan, all of a sudden somegoat raised him up and he can
talk to the animals. So I'm just showing you how the
black man in America has been whitewashed his mind.
(03:43):
And then we look at the good Cowboys.
They rode the white horses and the president live in a white
White House. They got TV commercials, White
House cigars, white swan soap, king white soap, white cloth,
tissue paper, white rain, Harriswhite, tornado flow wax white
plus toothpaste. The president live in a White
House and and the Angel food cake was the white cake, but the
(04:03):
devil food cake was the chocolate cake.
Everything good was white. And when I heard this, I said,
boy, this is the truth. So our religion teaches us the
knowledge of ourselves, the knowledge of our culture, the
knowledge of our history makes us want to be with our own,
marry our own live with own, clean up ourselves, do for self
quit forcing ourselves in white neighborhoods, but clean our own
(04:25):
neighborhoods makes us proud, makes us identify with our own
brothers throughout the world. And after I heard this been
intelligent man then like I'm not only a winner in boxing or
my stand on the draft. I'm a one also in the movement
that I follow for my people and onus leaders.
Elijah Muhammad, who we've believe was taught by Allah God
(04:45):
himself to teach the so-called American Ignals the truth that's
been hidden from them for 400 years, which will free them.
Elijah Muhammad has said something which perhaps a lot of
us white people have misunderstood.
Perhaps you can explain it to me.
He said that white men are devils, Yes.
What does he mean? By that he means just what he
said, the deeds in the works of the man he he says the American
(05:07):
devils, the lynching, the killing, cutting the black
people's private out, sticking it in the mouth is what the dead
does. Got a book called 100 Years of
Lynching written by white men taking black women who was four
months pregnant. They took us for years and hung
us up with the feet and stuck a diagonal stomach and ripped it
and pulled unborn baby out just to put fear in other slaves.
(05:29):
They tied up black people to horses and two horses and pulled
his arms out and pulled his legsout.
What lemonade? Trains with white children and
white people of America used to come and watch them top 10 or 15
black men and pull gasoline on them and burn them, watch them
burn alive. They took us and hung us up the
trees and shot us the bullets. They took and cut a hand off and
(05:51):
they gave it to the little boy and they took the leg off.
And this is worse than the devil.
See the devil, the preacher in the church taught us that the
devil was up under the ground and he'll wait till he died
before he burned us up. This white devil in America was
worse because he burned us whilewe was alive.
He didn't wait till we die. So what I'm trying to say is the
(06:11):
deeds and the works and I think this.
If Elijah Muhammad can stand on America for 42 years before my
little black self was born and say that the American white man
is the devil, then the white manshould get up and say you are a
lie and carry him to court and say we are not the devil.
Not one American, not one government of official 1 male 1
(06:33):
Senator. None of them will stand up and
say that they are not devils andthis man is lying.
So what am I to do? I believe it.
Do you? Believe that every white man is
a devil. I mean Angelo Dundee, Harold.
Connor Angelo Dundee is Italian.He's got a lot of, he's got a
lot of black blood in. It.
Harold Conrad. Harold Conrad is Jew.
(06:57):
No, no, listen, listen. What I'm saying to you is this
what I'm saying to you is this. I'm saying that Elijah Muhammad,
our leader, teaches us this and I believe everything he say.
So it's not, it's not for me to prove that.
You must remember you have not lynched me.
(07:18):
It wasn't the Germans that did this to us.
It wasn't the white Canadians who's right on our border.
He put emphasis on the American devil.
He's mission to America by God to preach the truth.
So what I'm saying let's say we got 1 white fella in America who
has proved that he means right. Let's say we got another one.
(07:39):
White people have died in demonstrations for black people.
Now here's the position I'm in. Here's 10,000 whites coming to
kill me and in those 10,000 or let's say here's 10,000
rattlesnakes coming to bite me and in those 10,000 there was
1000. That didn't mean no harm and I
(08:01):
knew there was a good thousand snakes out there, but they all
look alike. Now what should I do?
Should I keep the door open and let the 10,000 in hoping that
the thousand will unite and saveme and one bite of killing me?
I should I just be safe and shutthe door?
So we have white people's, I mean, right.
(08:23):
I have a black husband. All my children are black.
I love everybody. I really believe you.
But I'm sorry, man. There's 10 more thousand behind
you that don't feel that way. I'm just sorry.
But what am I going to do? All right, all right, So I like
say this. I know I'll bet my hand on my
(08:45):
family's life now that there's some whites that mean right and
sorry that they were from this race.
But there's so few until it don't really matter until I I
can't forget all the lynching, all the depriving, all the
murder, everything that's going to happen because they're tooted
me right. See, when America dropped bombs
on Vietnam, she drops them babies, boys.
(09:07):
When she dropped the bomb on Japan, she dropped it.
They don't say some innocent. They just said war.
So when a person in Belfast leave a bomb, they don't say
well, as a kid as innocent in here, there's an old lady, she's
blind. They just boom, drove the bomb.
So what I'm saying not because they do.
We have a problem. It's black and white and maybe
there's a few voices, I mean right, but there's so many that
(09:30):
don't. So we have to look at the
problem as a whole. I want to get that plane.
I know they're whites that mean,right?
OK, you yourself have have some little white blood in you.
Yeah, what are you saying you. You feel you feel totally Negro?
Or do you feel? Black.
Yeah, well, nobody is really totally like Chinese are yellow,
(09:50):
they say, but they're not reallyyellow.
They say you white, Give me something white.
You don't look white. Here's white.
See, this is white. You're not white.
You're kind of pinkish. You're not white.
See, that's white. So I'm not black, but I'm
considered black. But as far as the blood is
concerned, some people say you talk so bad about us in America,
(10:11):
you have white blood in you. How did I get white blood in me?
Way back 100 and something yearsago, the old slave master's wife
used to get tired and he will sneak back in old granny's
shack. And old granny had big hips and
she was pretty and had a big breasts and big legs and she was
(10:31):
strong. She work all day to clean up the
white ladies house, raise the white ladies babies.
And the old white lady was tiredand weak, and old black slave
was back to all strong. And he will snip back at night
and close the door. And you know what he would do?
I. Can you can guess what he would
do? And then, and then here come me,
(10:52):
half black.
You You told a story on one occasion about coming back from
the Olympics with the medal to your own hometown.
Did this make you a very big manin your own hometown?
Did it completely change your life?
Well, you know, like made me popular for a few days, but I
wanted to do something good withit, so I went downtown.
At the time, black people was marching to eat in the white
(00:25):
restaurants and they wanted rights to go where they wanted
to. And it's just so I said I'll
take this medal and I'll go downtown and I'll sit down at a
restaurant. I got them on the spot now and
then I'll order something to eat.
And I went down and have a medalon and the lady was looking and
I said I'd like a cheeseburger. She said we don't serve Negros.
(00:49):
I said I don't eat them either, just give me a cheeseburger.
How was it, Mohammed anyway, to be a a Negro boy in the South?
You say black now all. Right, black.
All right, Did. Is it that the same thing?
What? No Negro?
We are talking All people are named after country.
(01:11):
Chinese are named after China. Cubans are named after Cuba.
Irish people are named after Ireland.
Indonesians named after Indonesia.
Japanese are named after Japan. Australians are named after
Australia. But there's no country named
Negroes. All right, then let me you
understand. I understand.
You look, let me rephrase that. Do I look that down?
(01:35):
What attracted you then to Islamin the first instance?
The. Muslim religion, Yes.
Is the true teachings of Elijah Muhammad right there in America,
in the power structure. Nobody will challenge him.
And the history of ourselves, the history of our true
religion, our nationality, our names.
See, we don't have our names. You know, I noticed how proud
(01:56):
you all are, proud of your names.
See, Chinese have names like Chang, Chong, Lu, Qian.
Listen, Islamic teachings. Russians have names like Kosegen
or Khrushchev. You have names like O'Connor or
Grady or Kennedy. And Africans had names like
Lumumba nor Kruma. And Jews got names like
(02:17):
Weinstein and Goldberg and and Italians got names like Dundee
and Vivanuti and bar Seattle. But we have names like Grady and
Clay and Hawkins and Smith and Jones and Johnson.
But we are black. These are the slave names.
Yeah, So when I heard this, I knew it was the truth.
It's history. So Muhammad Ali is a beautiful
(02:40):
black name, name of our ancestors.
So when I heard this, I just hadto walk out of the church and
Christianity because they never taught us our true knowledge.
Then they told me how we were brainwashed In America, we see
Jesus, he's white with blonde hair and blue eyes.
We see the Lord's Supper, all white people.
We see the angels in heaven, allwhite people.
(03:01):
And we look at Miss Universe, a white woman, Miss America, a
white woman, Miss World, a whitewoman.
Even Tarzan, the king of the jungles in Africa, he was white.
We see, we see a white man swinging in Africa with a
(03:23):
dipole. He beats up all Africans and
break the line's jaw. And then the Africans been in
Africa for centuries, but he can't yet talk to the animals.
But Tarzan, all of a sudden somegoat raised him up and he can
talk to the animals. So I'm just showing you how the
black man in America has been whitewashed his mind.
(03:43):
And then we look at the good Cowboys.
They rode the white horses and the president live in a white
White House. They got TV commercials, White
House cigars, white swan soap, king white soap, white cloth,
tissue paper, white rain, Harriswhite, tornado flow wax white
plus toothpaste. The president live in a White
House and and the Angel food cake was the white cake, but the
(04:03):
devil food cake was the chocolate cake.
Everything good was white. And when I heard this, I said,
boy, this is the truth. So our religion teaches us the
knowledge of ourselves, the knowledge of our culture, the
knowledge of our history makes us want to be with our own,
marry our own live with own, clean up ourselves, do for self
quit forcing ourselves in white neighborhoods, but clean our own
(04:25):
neighborhoods makes us proud, makes us identify with our own
brothers throughout the world. And after I heard this been
intelligent man then like I'm not only a winner in boxing or
my stand on the draft. I'm a one also in the movement
that I follow for my people and onus leaders.
Elijah Muhammad, who we've believe was taught by Allah God
(04:45):
himself to teach the so-called American Ignals the truth that's
been hidden from them for 400 years, which will free them.
Elijah Muhammad has said something which perhaps a lot of
us white people have misunderstood.
Perhaps you can explain it to me.
He said that white men are devils, Yes.
What does he mean? By that he means just what he
said, the deeds in the works of the man he he says the American
(05:07):
devils, the lynching, the killing, cutting the black
people's private out, sticking it in the mouth is what the dead
does. Got a book called 100 Years of
Lynching written by white men taking black women who was four
months pregnant. They took us for years and hung
us up with the feet and stuck a diagonal stomach and ripped it
and pulled unborn baby out just to put fear in other slaves.
(05:29):
They tied up black people to horses and two horses and pulled
his arms out and pulled his legsout.
What lemonade? Trains with white children and
white people of America used to come and watch them top 10 or 15
black men and pull gasoline on them and burn them, watch them
burn alive. They took us and hung us up the
trees and shot us the bullets. They took and cut a hand off and
(05:51):
they gave it to the little boy and they took the leg off.
And this is worse than the devil.
See the devil, the preacher in the church taught us that the
devil was up under the ground and he'll wait till he died
before he burned us up. This white devil in America was
worse because he burned us whilewe was alive.
He didn't wait till we die. So what I'm trying to say is the
(06:11):
deeds and the works and I think this.
If Elijah Muhammad can stand on America for 42 years before my
little black self was born and say that the American white man
is the devil, then the white manshould get up and say you are a
lie and carry him to court and say we are not the devil.
Not one American, not one government of official 1 male 1
(06:33):
Senator. None of them will stand up and
say that they are not devils andthis man is lying.
So what am I to do? I believe it.
Do you? Believe that every white man is
a devil. I mean Angelo Dundee, Harold.
Connor Angelo Dundee is Italian.He's got a lot of, he's got a
lot of black blood in. It.
Harold Conrad. Harold Conrad is Jew.
(06:57):
No, no, listen, listen. What I'm saying to you is this
what I'm saying to you is this. I'm saying that Elijah Muhammad,
our leader, teaches us this and I believe everything he say.
So it's not, it's not for me to prove that.
You must remember you have not lynched me.
(07:18):
It wasn't the Germans that did this to us.
It wasn't the white Canadians who's right on our border.
He put emphasis on the American devil.
He's mission to America by God to preach the truth.
So what I'm saying let's say we got 1 white fella in America who
has proved that he means right. Let's say we got another one.
(07:39):
White people have died in demonstrations for black people.
Now here's the position I'm in. Here's 10,000 whites coming to
kill me and in those 10,000 or let's say here's 10,000
rattlesnakes coming to bite me and in those 10,000 there was
1000. That didn't mean no harm and I
(08:01):
knew there was a good thousand snakes out there, but they all
look alike. Now what should I do?
Should I keep the door open and let the 10,000 in hoping that
the thousand will unite and saveme and one bite of killing me?
I should I just be safe and shutthe door?
So we have white people's, I mean, right.
(08:23):
I have a black husband. All my children are black.
I love everybody. I really believe you.
But I'm sorry, man. There's 10 more thousand behind
you that don't feel that way. I'm just sorry.
But what am I going to do? All right, all right, So I like
say this. I know I'll bet my hand on my
(08:45):
family's life now that there's some whites that mean right and
sorry that they were from this race.
But there's so few until it don't really matter until I I
can't forget all the lynching, all the depriving, all the
murder, everything that's going to happen because they're tooted
me right. See, when America dropped bombs
on Vietnam, she drops them babies, boys.
(09:07):
When she dropped the bomb on Japan, she dropped it.
They don't say some innocent. They just said war.
So when a person in Belfast leave a bomb, they don't say
well, as a kid as innocent in here, there's an old lady, she's
blind. They just boom, drove the bomb.
So what I'm saying not because they do.
We have a problem. It's black and white and maybe
there's a few voices, I mean right, but there's so many that
(09:30):
don't. So we have to look at the
problem as a whole. I want to get that plane.
I know they're whites that mean,right?
OK, you yourself have have some little white blood in you.
Yeah, what are you saying you. You feel you feel totally Negro?
Or do you feel? Black.
Yeah, well, nobody is really totally like Chinese are yellow,
(09:50):
they say, but they're not reallyyellow.
They say you white, Give me something white.
You don't look white. Here's white.
See, this is white. You're not white.
You're kind of pinkish. You're not white.
See, that's white. So I'm not black, but I'm
considered black. But as far as the blood is
concerned, some people say you talk so bad about us in America,
(10:11):
you have white blood in you. How did I get white blood in me?
Way back 100 and something yearsago, the old slave master's wife
used to get tired and he will sneak back in old granny's
shack. And old granny had big hips and
she was pretty and had a big breasts and big legs and she was
(10:31):
strong. She work all day to clean up the
white ladies house, raise the white ladies babies.
And the old white lady was tiredand weak, and old black slave
was back to all strong. And he will snip back at night
and close the door. And you know what he would do?
I. Can you can guess what he would
do? And then, and then here come me,
(10:52):
half black.
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