Wrestling with Racism

I'm a wrestling fan. Have been since I was 12. Surprisingly, this isn't often a cool thing to admit, and right now, it's particularly not.

The recent revelations about the racist remarks by Hulk Hogan have shocked a lot of people. Myself included. While I wasn't the biggest Hulk Hogan fan in the world, I can't deny that I was something of a fan, as anyone who read this piece by me in 2012 after I saw him live at Wembley Arena will remember.

This isn't a photoshop. This is from 1986.

But while the explicit racism that Hogan came out with shocked me, the idea that wrestling has been racist for some time hasn't surprised me at all. By now, a number of news websites have run with some of the more racist gimmicks and storylines that have turned up in WWE over the years.

And there have been a lot of obvious ones. A black man becomes Kamala, the Ugandan Savage. A Samoan becomes Umaga, the Samoan Savage. Two black men become Cryme Tyme, a gangsta team.  Another black man becomes a voodoo high priest, before becoming a pimp, who walks down to the ring with his 'ho train'.

Yokozuna and Mr Fuji

And another Samoan becomes a Polynesian sumo wrestler, who comes down to the ring with a Japanese mananger who plays up to the evil stereotype, often attacking opponents behind the referee's back while the commentators complain about it being "like Pearl Harbour all over again".

This is without even noticing that the list of black WWE champions starts and ends with The Rock (who is African-Samoan). This is after a storyline where black wrestler Booker T was told by evil WWE champion  "Triple H" (standing for Hunter Hearst Helmsley) that "people like you don't get to be champion", before failing to win the championship at WWE's flagship event, proving that people like him really don't get to be champion.

The same Triple H, by the way, in 1998, along with his compatriots in the "D-Generation X" stable of wrestlers, blacked up to make fun of The Rock's stable, the "Nation of Domination", which was a spoof of the Nation of Islam. Triple H and D-Generation X were, by the way, the good guys. This is a scene that WWE proudly replay as one of their funniest ever moments, usually getting a black wrestler to talk about how funny it was. They did this in their recent "Monday Night Wars"
documentary series on their network.

Triple H, second from left, is now WWE's Chief Operations Officer, by the way.

All of this is awkward, to say the least. And, for the most part, in the past.

But there's an incident that was quite minor that stood out to me that happened earlier this year, which showed just how endemically racist WWE and wrestling continues to be.

A wrestler known as Bubba Ray Dudley was a member of a decades-long popular tag team called "The Dudley Boyz" along with his 'brother' D-Von. He's held pretty much the same gimmick since the 90s, with some minor changes along the way, but left WWE years ago. He and D-Von went to a rival company called TNA.

The bandana really doesn't help, does it?

Just quickly, there's a joke here that needs explaining. Bubba Ray and D-Von were brothers despite Bubba being white and D-Von being black. The origin of the team was that they were, along with the rest of the Dudley Clan, the children of "Big Dick" Dudley, who slept around a lot. The two of them had signature 'spots' that they came up with in the year 2000. Usually, they set up a thin table and put their opponent through it. They also have the "wassup" headbutt, where Bubba Ray holds the opponent's legs apart and D-Von screams 'Wassup!" before leaping off the top rope to headbutt the opponent's crotch. They still do the 'Wassup" despite the Budweiser campaign it's based on being over for a very long time.

While I don't think this is immediately relevant to D-Von's choice to do the move, the headbutt has a long and proud racist history in wrestling. You may not be aware that it's been scientifically proven that black people and Samoans have harder skulls than white people, because it obviously hasn't. But in wrestling, it used to be a hilarious spot in a match where a white wrestler would headbutt a black wrestler, but they'd be the ones that were hurt. While I'm not sure of the origin of this, I suspect it's probably got something to do with the long dominance of boxing by black athletes. It was mostly phased out for black wrestlers but remained a traditional spot for Samoan wrestlers until relatively recently.

R-Truth, looking exactly like D-Von Dudley

Now, one of WWE's biggest annual events is the Royal Rumble, a massive multi-man match where wrestlers enter the ring every two minutes, and get eliminated by being thrown over the top rope. They usually have a few cameos and nostalgic returns, to get the crowd to react. It's usually one of their most popular and fun events.

This year, they brought back Bubba Ray, to a large cheer from the crowd. Since D-Von wasn't in the match, the assumption was that the classic moves wouldn't happen. But they did. Because a wrestler called R-Truth was available to do the moves with.

Can you guess the only thing that R-Truth and D-Von have in common, other than strange initials in their name? Yeah. They're both black.

That's it. That's all there is. That was the thinking in putting R-Truth with Bubba Ray. They didn't have the black guy he normally does the moves with, so they just threw in another black guy, because he'd do.

At the same time, three wrestlers (Kofi Kingston, Big E and Xavier Woods) have been put together in a group with a kind of gospel-soul-self-help gimmick despite having nothing at all in common. Except that they're black.

The New Day. They have so much in common.

That's one of the biggest problems with wrestling. Black wrestlers are put together because they're black. Or they're treated as interchangeable. Everybody else gets characters. Gets defined by something else.

Black wrestlers still regularly get defined by being black.

Strange as it may seem, I'm still a wrestling fan. But I want them to acknowledge the problem. I want them to stop showing wrestlers blacking up as if it's hilarious and not awful. I want them to start treating black wrestlers as individuals and not either grouped or interchangeable.

This can be owned, acknowledged and moved on. But the longer wrestling, and WWE in particular, pretends it's not been an issue, the more of an issue it's going to turn out to be.

On a similar note, if this interested you, I wrote about homophobia in wrestling a while ago. I'll have to complete the trilogy at some point and talk about their attitudes towards women...

The budget, Sky News and the BBC

If you haven't yet seen the advert for Sky's coverage of today's budget, it's unspeakably awful. And not just on the level that it's as creepy as anything I've seen. But because it represents something outright dangerous.

The advert uses the music "I've been thinking about you", as it shows various people of different ages, ethnicities and genders, as they perform all kinds of tasks, from lollipop ladies to parents to factory workers to bankers to... etc. Except all of these people have George Osborne's face superimposed on top of their own.

So far, so terrifying. And don't get me wrong - the advert is terrifying. You kind of get the idea that it's exactly how George Osborne views the world, in an even-more-disturbing Being John Malkovich kind of way.

It then ends with the tagline "He's been thinking about you" and promises live coverage of the budget on Sky News. Obviously, when you see this, your first thought is of a malevolent kind of Santa Claus figure, who is drawing up a naughty and nice list, except everybody on it is naughty unless they're rich, and instead of coal, he just turns up in your bedroom at the stroke of midnight with an axe.

But it's not the strangeness of the advert, the ineptness of the advert, or the sheer hair-raising terror of the advert that's stuck with me. It's something far more insidious.

Look at how this positions the budget and Osborne himself.

"He's been thinking about you."

This is a thoughtful budget. A budget in which our chancellor has put himself into as many people's metaphorical shoes as possible. One in which he's thought about what each person and each job needs.

And this is a chancellor that is thinking about people of different ages, ethnicities and genders. A chancellor that's genuinely tried to understand each person and their struggles.

It positions it as a thoughtful, considered budget. And it also positions it, naturally, as the right budget. Because it's thoughtful. Because it's considered. And because good old George Osborne has worked long and hard to think about the implications for each person.

This is a news advert, and it promises all the hard journalistic challenge and insight of a slow, soft candle-lit massage.

It's attempted propaganda. It positions Osborne in a specific way, and it positions the budget in a specific way, before it's even been published.

And now let's remember Osborne, just this week, outright attacking the BBC, on the basis that it needs to have its budget cut considerably. Why? Because it's online capabilities means that it's in danger of monopolising the competitive space with newspaper websites.

Obviously, some of those newspapers are owned by Rupert Murdoch. In a similar way that Sky News is. And Murdoch has clear motive to want rid of the BBC.

So, in the same week that Osborne threatens the very existence of the BBC, Sky News puts out an advert for the budget that is more an advert for the thoughtful nature of George Osborne.

This, to me, shows why we need the BBC. Why we need an independent news broadcaster. Because as much as I've sometimes wished that the BBC would be more critical of the government, they've never quite been part of a circle-jerk like this while pretending that it's about independent coverage.

The news and the government should not be quite this chummy.

London Wanderings #8 - Boston wanderings and local pride

I was recently lucky enough to be sent to Boston for a few days with work. It was my first time in America, and I wanted to try to make the most of it. After a long flight and a hectic first day, it was tempting to crash in my hotel, and not go further than the restaurant.

Instead, I took a walk. I just picked a direction and started off for a while. This is something I like to do in a new city. At least once, don’t consult any maps or GPS, but rely on your own sense of direction to see what’s around.

I ended up in a bar – the Beantown Pub, which did good grilled cheese sandwiches and better beer. It was dark, but welcoming, with baseball on the TVs and a nice thick bar, where I sat reading for a while. After a little while, I got chatting to a woman there, and we talked about London and Boston for a while.

I’d been told by a few people when I first got there that Bostonians had a reputation for being… let’s say ‘brusque’. But in my time there, I found everybody I spoke to was pleasant, talkative and polite. As the woman I was speaking to explained it, “If you act like a dick, people will treat you like a dick. But if you’re nice to people, they’ll treat you really well”.

I tend to think it’s a similar story in London. I don’t think it’s that people are intrinsically rude – it’s that there are just more people. Someone close to me was worried about visiting London, due to the occasional seizures she had. “What would happen if I had a seizure on the underground?”

It’s an understandable concern. When you’re around that many people, it can be difficult sometimes to see the good. The unpleasant or uncaring people stand out more. The person who asked me about people on the underground was worried that she would be ignored, or stepped over, or pushed out of the way. As it happens, I’ve been on the tube when people have collapsed before. And every time, someone has helped out.

You get more arseholes in London. Definitely. But you get more of everyone. And you get more of the nice people too. The numbers are just bigger. And, again, if you act like a dick towards people, they’ll act like a dick right back. But if you treat people nicely…

My new friend back in the Boston bar also explained just how big a deal the Boston Marathon is. I mean, I’d heard of it, but I hadn’t realised just how big it was. The entire city stops for the day. It’s practically a holiday. It’s a source of immense pride. She told me about the time her brother ran it, with her eyes welling up with pride.

And she told me just how much the bomb at the Boston Marathon shook the city. How it took something right at the heart of the city and killed people, and made people afraid. And often, when people are afraid, they fall apart. Often when societies are afraid, they turn on each other.

But instead, in Boston, she described seeing people talking and taking care of each other everywhere. They were quiet, but they supported each other. They went to neighbours, or they stayed together at work, or they travelled together and they sat in bars together and took care of each other.

She said it made her proud to be from Boston.

Ten years ago today, bombs went off in London. I wasn’t here at the time – I was living up north for a short while, and working in a call centre in Tadcaster of all places (next door to the Sam Smith’s brewery).

I heard about the bombs through the television in the breakout area, and I watched, numbed for a moment. I contacted people who I knew, and checked in online to make sure my friends back in London were okay.

A colleague made comments to the others in the breakout area about it only being Londoners, and hoping they’d hurt a few of them, obviously in the hope of general laughter. But instead, everyone ignored them. Some of us were angry. But after some awkward and angry silence, she just left quietly.

Along with general human empathy, she misunderstood something about London. And something about Londoners (and I’m sorry to those who think otherwise, but I’m of the opinion that if you live here and you love the place, you count). And  it’s a similar thing to  the Boston pride.

We’re a busy city, and spend so much time looking at pavements and travelling in packed tube carriages, face-first in someone else’s armpit, that it can sometimes seem that empathy is in short supply in London.

But if you look online, you’ll read many people’s stories about how they came together with neighbours and colleagues and friends. In work and in pubs and in the streets and at home. You’ll hear about how they looked out for each other and how they came together. Just like they did other times they were attacked or made frightened, by bombs or riots or threats.

It’s something I love about cities like London and Boston, and one of the things that I generally love about people.

When you attack people, they come together and support each other and look out for each other and even love each other.

That’s what makes cities like this feel like home.

Love wins. Humanity wins. People win. Even in loss, even in fear and even in grief.

London Wanderings #7 - I know this great little place

"I know this great little place..."

A night in London can lead to anything. That's one of the best things about it. It can do it anywhere, but the sheer variety and packed-in nature of what London offers means that it can offer an unexpected layer sometimes.

It's one of my favourite things to do with friends. Have a few of us meet up late in the afternoon, and then see where the evening and the night takes us.

I've talked before about London being a city that you interpret. A relationship that you build over experiences. And a lot of that is forged in moments and unexpected evenings. And when you get friends together, each one brings their own relationship with London to the table.

So, asking "where next" can lead to places that you wouldn't think of on your own. It's how I found some of my favourite bars, pubs and restaurants in London.

The Angel, Holborn

Sometimes, it's the ones that are so much more interesting inside than they look on the outside - the small looking pubs that somehow fold space and time inside, like you've just wandered into the TARDIS.

Other times, it's the places down a side street, that involve walking down an alley that you'd just never noticed before (and other times, those alleys lead into the back way into a pub that everybody knows about, but means that you can come and go even after the pub's officially closed the doors and drawn the curtains).

And other times, it's a cool little cocktail place underneath a Mexican restaurant that has booths wallpapered with 1930s and 1940s pinups, or in a converted former sex-shop.

And when you're out with friends, you find out about these places from each other. You share your narratives of the city, and you find something new or you get to show them, for a short amount of time, your personal interpretation of the place. And it's usually the one that started with someone else telling you that they know this great place, and it's just down the road...

Sometimes, it can be exactly the right place. Having the right friends in the right place is what socialising is all about.

A good few years ago now, I came out of a long-term relationship with my entire sense of self shattered. One of my closest friends, on finding this out, called me up and told me that we were going out.

"I appreciate it, but I really don't feel like -"

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. I'll pick you up in twenty minutes."

And less than an hour later, I was in a place that had a dirty, vibrant atmosphere, that was partly lit by candles rammed into Jack Daniels bottles, had the perfect mixture of noise and space for pool games and booths to sit and chat in, stayed open until three in the morning and the greatest jukeboxes in London.

I met people and I talked to people, and over the next few months, it became a regular haunt for me. It was a place where I worked out who I was again, and what my life was now.

The ability to stop, spend time with friends and remind yourself who you are, and even why you are, is an important one. You take yourself out of your comfort zone and willingly try out the London that they know, or you share the London you know with them.

It's not just a London thing, but if you've ever done one of these nights in London, where you end up comfortably out until the early morning in places you've never been before, then you know that there's a magic there. The way London has so many different areas, tightly packed in, means that you can truly end up somewhere that you didn't even know about, that's just round the corner from somewhere you know well.

And it's easy to start. In fact, I know this great place, and it's not far from here...

London Wanderings #6 - Secrets and Green Sheds

In 'From Hell', Alan Moore writes about landmarks in London drawing unseen patterns across the city, providing power that goes unseen by most people. In that, the landmarks are phallic spires, like Cleopatra's needle, that formed a pentacle.

For me, it's not so much the sinister implications of 'From Hell' that I'm interested in (as much as I love that book) - it's the idea of secret patterns across London.

There are networks across London that are old and mysterious. Not necessarily secretive as such, but ones that serve a specific function, and don't serve much other function. And if you're not part of that function, they're almost like gated communities. But ones that you don't see.

In Terry Pratchett's discworld series, Death makes the observation that people simply don't see things that don't make sense to them. And there's certainly an element of truth in that. I know this because of how long it took me to consciously notice the green huts.

Cabmens Shelter Wellington Place 2" by oyxman .
Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons

I work near Victoria, and when I walk to work, there's a small green hut that I pass. I used to work in St John's Wood, and there's one there too. You can't see into them - they're basically like sheds. But they have little serving hatches, and they usually have prices as well for teas, coffees and hot food.

This is because they're little cafes, designed for use by cabbies. And not just the kind of cabbies that drive around in black cabs either - they date back a hundred and forty years. And were designed for use by cabbies back in the days of hansom cabs. Inside, they have small benches and long tables, so a few of the drivers can have a break, a sit-down and a coffee. And so they've remained, many decades later.

There aren't many around these days. Just thirteen now. A small handful still dotted around and in use. I'd become aware about their function, but only understood their history a bit more due to this notice on the one in Embankment. They're run by the Cabmen's Shelter Fund, and still serve the same function they always have.

While you can buy teas and coffees from some of them (and fried egg sandwiches and ice creams in the summer), the insides remain secretive outside of heritage open days. Even in the days of sat-navs, they're the exclusive domain of those that have mastered the knowledge. That know the maps and streets of London in a way none of the rest of us ever do.

The people that know this city's routes, streets and roads, that meet people and connect them from one place to another, have their own beacons lit across the city. Their own secret maps, with safety and warmth dotted across London. A series of green huts, making sense of the city.

They're out in the open, and you can pass them by and interact with them a little bit.

But they're not for you.

London Wanderings #5 - Small Memories

London changes incredibly quickly. It's not just in terms of buildings and stone being replaced with glass. It's in terms of feelings as well. When I walk around London, as I do fairly regularly, I see areas that I have specific memories attached to, changed forever.

This is the case everywhere, of course. I grew up in the countryside in Ireland and moved away at 17. I visit around once a year, and it has definitely changed, partly damaged by the recession and partly rebuilt by local fundraising. But the change is slow for the most part.

With London, things change rapidly. You walk from Oxford Street to Goodge Street, or around Soho or Charing Cross Road, for the first time in a couple of months and you see entire blocks suddenly demolished. And where there was stone, there are now wooden walls, protecting the empty space, like stitches after an operation. And then, slowly, something new starts to form.

We all have our own relationship with the city, because we've all formed our own memories. They're not all important or life-forming or necessarily something that anyone else would find relevant. But they're how we navigate London - memory by memory, sense-remembering our way through. A kiss here, a drunken night there, a hideous social embarrassment to the left and a phone call you'll never forget there.

One that I miss is a small one at Piccadilly Circus.

I love Christmas, on a personal and cultural level. I love pretty much everything about it. During the darkest time of the year, we get together and drink and sing and blaze fires and lights, and we tell the long nights that we are not afraid.

I usually go back to Ireland for Christmas and spend time with my parents. I like to take the train and ferry if I have the time (not least because it may be a long trip, but it's a long trip without much hassle, during which I can spend time reading and listening to things and not have anyone expecting me to do anything for a change). It also means that carrying Christmas presents the entire way.

For years, I had something of a tradition. At some point in the week before I left, I'd head to town and buy presents. Usually, I'd look for something in the realm of music or movies or videos or DVDs. Piccadilly Circus used to have a Virgin Megastores and a HMV fairly close to each other. So, with coat, scarf and gloves, I'd search for gifts.

I've always liked shops like that. I'm a movie buff, so I've always liked browsing video and DVD stores in the same way I browse bookshops. And they were open late, so it was always a destination. And with multiple floors, I could happily wander around for a while, searching for the perfect items.

That's a memory that's very strong for me. I could wander the layout of those shops blindfolded. Of course, between iTunes, Amazon and Netflix, there's less need for shops like that, and they were early victims of the recession. Now, the Virgin Megastore is a clothing shop and the HMV sells 'London' and 'Britain' tourist tat like mobile phone covers and selfie-sticks.

I'm almost embarrassed by the way I can have such strong attachments to chain stores, but I do. For me, they were rows and rows of movies and shows I had yet to see, and a way of entering other worlds.

Now, I'm a Netflix addict, and in a lot of ways, it's better. These shops weren't cheap, by any means. But they're my memories, and my Christmas shopping. Small details that I doubt I'll ever forget, because they started off an important period to me each year.

Small, but unimportant. And now gone forever. And, realistically, that entire kind of shopping is gone, more or less.

It'd be nice to have all my memories in the small independent shops, or the beautiful tiny shops that are unique. And I have plenty of those memories too. But they don't feel gone in quite the same way.

The world changed around my memories. And the world changed around the London that I knew. The London that I know now is different, and will be different again.

Small memories. That make up a city and make up a life. What are yours?

London Wanderings #4 - Whitechapel murders and "bad boys"

I was in WH Smiths the other day, and saw their new Jack the Ripper magazine/bookazine thing (which still feels more comfortable to say than just using the term 'bookazine', which feels completely unnatural). It had a sticker on the front making it clear this was a 125th Commemorative publication.

That's stuck with me a little bit. I suspect it was the 'least bad' wording choice, if anyone had second thoughts about it. It maybe lacked the obviously disrespectful connotations of 'celebration' and added at least an element of memorial over 'anniversary'. But it was still clumsy and still stuck with me.

My feelings about it are partially influenced by the amount of media that does celebrate crime. Especially London crime.

I've seen two trailers recently that made me think about this particularly. One of them was a trailer for the new Krays movie with Tom Hardy playing both of the twins. And the other was for London Live's "Bad Boys" real crime season.

They're very different propositions. Almost purely based on the fact that Tom Hardy's involved, I expect the Krays film to be a bit more thoughtful and interesting. Whereas, based on the way it was sold, I expected the London Live series to be a bit more Danny-Dyer-style "proper naughty", and primarily looking at just how cool various gangsters were.

This glorification irritates me. I get it, to an extent. With Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper being such culturally defining points to Victorian London, it's difficult not to think about crime with London. And it's difficult, any time you discuss crime, to do so in a way that's not glorifying in any way. It's interesting, it's fascinating.

It's a fascination that I understand as well. I've been fascinated with the Jack the Ripper murders from a very young age (as a natural consequence of my childhood fascination with Sherlock Holmes). But as I've grown up, I've become more interested with the society of the time, and the lives led by the murdered women than in the mystery behind the case. If you have interest in this area, I strongly recommend Philip Sugden's book, the Casebook of Jack The Ripper, which is an in-depth and utterly fascinating look at the murders, victims and London at the time (see below).

If you've ever seen the League of Gentlemen (and if you haven't, you absolutely should), you may remember the two young film fans, judging films by how many killings there are. When crime is glorified, and the victims glossed over, I think we lose something. We create a myth that is seductive and cool, but misses the deeper understanding. Rather more than the gangsters of the 50s and 60s, I find the society of the time interesting and why they gained such power.

I don't particularly believe in honour amongst thieves and murderers. I don't particularly care whether the Crays "may have been bad boys, but they loved their mum". These things make simple stories, and London is more fascinating when you look at the complexities.

Crime used as a way to explore London can be fascinating. The Whitechapel murders as a filter to view London of the time can be fascinating. The Krays and the like as a way to look at London in decades past, and understand how these things worked, is fascinating. And the psychology behind the murderers is fascinating.

Reducing it down to hard men, bad boys and cloaked men in top hats and knives isn't fascinating. It's fetishistic and simplistic. And I think there's more to the people involved, more to the city involved and more to all of us than that.

Recommended:

If you're interested in learning more about the Whitechapel murders, I'd recommend reading the following - and while I'm linking to Amazon, if you can pick these up at your local bookshop, it's always worth doing so.

The Complete History of Jack the Ripper by Philip Sugden. This isn't just the best book out there on Jack the Ripper. It's also one of the best books about Victorian London. Its very in-depth, but Sugden makes it relatively easy to read. A great book.


From Hell by Alan Moore. This graphic novel is astonishing, and a completely different beast to the movie (although I enjoy the movie). It's an exploration of the murders, the victims, the nature of murder itself and an occult take on London.