It wasn’t long after legendary wrestler Hulk Hogan’s passing that we heard the condemnations.

Don’t honor him, the nattering ne’er-do-wells insisted — he was a stone cold “racist.”

When evaluating this, too, I want you to consider the following quite telling and damning line:

“A black man should be killed if he’s messin’ with a white woman.”

Now, ESPN's David Dennis Jr., who sparked great controversy by writing a quite condemnatory article about Hogan while the flamboyant star’s body was almost still warm, was clear on how he feels about the man. “When you are a racist that is your legacy above all else. It’s not complicated,” Dennis unequivocally stated.

I’m glad he said that, too, because, you see, the above-quoted line about killing a white-woman-messin’ black man wasn’t actually uttered by Hogan.

No, that remark, which sounds as if it could’ve been disgorged by the murderers of 14-year-old Emmett Till, was instead made by someone else:

Legendary boxer Muhammad Ali.

Yes, really.

Ali made the comment in a 1975 Playboy interview, if incredulous doubters are wondering.

What’s more, when the interviewer then asked, “And what if a Muslim woman wants to go out with non-Muslim blacks — or white men, for that matter?” Ali responded:

“Then she dies. Kill her, too.”

(What Ali said between the two remarks was just as eyebrow-raising, mind you.)

So let’s review the operative principle here, again. “When you are a racist that is your legacy above all else. It’s not complicated,” right?

Right, Mr. Dennis? 

This is where, however, I suspect Dennis might find that it actually is a bit complicated — because people are complicated. Heck, I think Dennis just might find his pen spinning like a dervish and moving like a butterfly.

The Irish Times sure took this tack the year Ali died, 2016. “Muhammad Ali could be all too human at times,” its headline kindly stated. Aww, shucks, the cute little guy just got ahead of his skis on occasion, ya’ know? (Ali was the better part of 34 during the ’75 interview, do note.)

Hogan, though, he’s got to be in Hell (as I’ve heard internet commenters say).

In fact, the Times praised Ali for his “intellectual honesty.” The paper claimed that an “older and more reflective Ali admirably renounced such attitudes [his racist ones],” only, it provides no actual examples. This is for good reason:

None exist that I can find. I even asked Grok AI (which can scour the web like nobody’s business) if Ali had. After dancing around the issue like a young Cassius Clay danced in the ring—you’d think Grok was the man’s agent—it confessed that “there is no documented instance where Muhammad Ali explicitly repudiated his earlier racist beliefs.”

In contrast, Hogan did apologize for the negative remarks he made about black people (for whatever such apologies are worth).

Of course, Ali’s case was different because, you see, it appears that media never even confronted him on his 1975 Playboy remarks. Could you imagine a white man saying such a thing and receiving such deference? Talk about cultural affirmative action.

In reality, had Hogan uttered such a line, he also might not be subject to a cancellation attempt after death.

He likely would’ve been canceled long before.

Now, lest I be misunderstood, I have little to nothing against Ali. In fact, and I say this not to be politically correct, I like him. I’ve watched many boxing retrospectives over the decades, and not only was Ali entertaining, but it appears he generally treated those around him well, notably his longtime white trainer Angelo Dundee. (He often was unfaithful during his marriages, though, and there were four of them.) I’m neither a fan nor critic of Hogan, either, and I don’t care one way or the other about any remarks he made. I realize that some may wonder why I haven’t related his racial comments, which you can read in Dennis’s article if interested, but that’s because they’re irrelevant. The issue here is bigger: the double standard that condemns whites for indiscretions non-whites can commit with impunity.

The truth is that if we’re going to use that r-word I quite detest, then Ali apparently was, applying today’s standards not tendentiously, an unrepentant “racist” his whole life. Yes, he was a great boxer and a Barnum-worthy showman, but he’s about as deserving of being a civil rights icon as George Wallace.

And while we’re on the subject and slaughtering woke sacred cows, it’s not just Ali, either. Just consider comments the much revered Mohandas Gandhi made while in the British army in southern Africa in 1908. “[T]o be placed on the same level as the Natives seemed too much to put up with,” he said. Kaffirs [a derogatory term for blacks] are as a rule uncivilized – the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live like animals.” He also asserted that Indians are “undoubtedly infinitely superior to the Kaffirs.”

(This is just the beginning of the un-Gandhi-like truth on Gandhi, too. For the rest, read my 2011 piece “Gandhi Reconsidered: When Paganism Met Progressivism.”)

Unlike with Ali, I don’t like Gandhi; I believe he was a phony and a man of dubious character. But the real issue is: Why is an Ali or a Gandhi made a hero while Hogan is supposed to be reduced to a zero? Sheesh, we all know why.

Hogan just didn’t possess the requisite epidermal melanin content.

That’s the real “racism” here, too: Seeking to destroy people’s reputations, selectively, based on race. 

I’ll just add that the individuals unashamedly practicing this “racism” are, as a rule, typical leftists: vulgar, lewd, crude, unkind, uncharitable, generally vice-ridden. Why, they even tend to promote child genital mutilation. And, sorry, but I don’t take moral lectures from people who don’t know the difference between boys and girls.

As for Mr. Dennis, I await, sir, your articles on Ali and Gandhi because, as you said, “When you are a racist that is your legacy above all else. It’s not complicated.” If no such critiques are forthcoming, well, then you can stick your indignation in that dark, putrid place whence your pablum comes. And, yes, I’m talking about your soul.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on X (formerly Twitter), MeWe, Gettr, Tumblr, Instagram or Substack or log on to SelwynDuke.com.

Images: DaysofHundr46, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 2.0 Deed