Under the current political climate that we’re living in, protests are not only being held around the country for black people like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor being murdered in cold blood by the police, but protest are also happening because of the long standing history of racial injustices in America.
I have been watching professional wrestling as a black wrestling fan since 1998 and I have seen racial injustices on wrestling television and have heard stories of black wrestlers talking about the racial injustices that they faced throughout their careers whether it be the 1980s or pre-current pandemic era of wrestling.
The reason why I am writing this article talking about the racial injustices that are currently happening in wrestling because most white male wrestling podcasters out there deliberately avoid talking about “sensitive issues” like racial injustice in wrestling because they don’t want to alienate most of the predominantly white male audience that listens to them.
Racial injustices don’t just happen outside of wrestling, but they’re currently happening inside of wrestling. Even though I do like AEW (unlike AEW haters), but they’re clearly racial injustices going on right now in AEW as well. I do have my numerous personal issues with them from their poor handling of their women’s division, bringing in too many ex-WWE guys like WCW and TNA did back in the day, extreme nepotism in The Elite currently having most of the AEW titles, to the severe lack of true diversity on their current roster.
I wrote an article last year talking about the lack of true diversity in AEW because also they preach to the choir that they are “an alternative to WWE” and “progressive”, but if you look at AEW with a much critical mindset, you realize that they’ve subconsciously become a bit too much like WWE in the sense of bringing in one too many ex-WWE wrestlers which was one of the major factors behind the downfalls of WCW and TNA.
Even though AEW banning notorious racist Hulk Hogan & his ex-wife Linda after the latter made racist comments about black people in Minnesota being “looters” and “needs to be taught decency” was commendable on their part, but it’s just nothing more but a front to not look themselves in the mirror and actually fix their diversity issues not only among their roster, but also producers, cameramen, and even bookers.
Even former WWE Diva Tammy Lynn Sytch made very racist remarks about black women recently on her Facebook page saying “2 days in a row on hold with Lowe’s customer service for two hours. 2 different female black operators. 2 times got no help, got attitudes, and got hung up on. WAY TO REPRESENT YOUR RACE! And y’all wonder why…” & even called black protestors “animals” on her social media page. And racist like Tammy Sytch are poisonous cancers in wrestling that represent the racial injustices outside of wrestling who are clearly on that MAGA bullshit.
AEW isn’t the only wrestling promotion that has a huge diversity problem because there are many indie promotions that also have huge diversity problems stemming from the fact that like AEW, ROH, etc, many indie wrestling promoters go out of their way to sign these vanilla midget white dudes who are only good in getting cheap pops and “this is awesome” chants by basically doing flippy shit, but have deliberately refused to sign black wrestlers who are just as good if not better than these flippy vanilla migdet white wrestlers that only get cheap pops from the casual predominantly white male audiences.
WWE is certainly not immune from racial injustices because they have a very long history of racial injustices in that company that still happen today. For example, it took a black man named Kofi Kingston 11 years to become WWE champion last year which is absolutely egregious if you ask me. But in Vince’s eyes, if he’s a big strong muscular white guy like Brock Lesnar, he’s gonna get a rapid push to the moon and I remember 4 months after Lesnar debuted on Raw in April 2002, he went on to beat The Rock at SummerSlam 2002 which took him absolutely 4 months to become WWE champion. If that’s not racial injustice then I don’t know what is. Let’s not forget the racial insensitive promo HHH cut on Raw telling Booker T in early 2003 calling him a “nappy headed entertainer who’s only job is to entertain people” and burying Booker T at WM19 that year which angered me so much that I will never ever truly get over it. I can go on and on about the long history of racial injustices in WWE, but if you wanna know more then check out my article entitled “Top 5 Of The Most Racially Offensive Moments In WWE History."
I have seen numerous black wrestler interviews and listened to numerous black wrestling podcasts in which black wrestlers on the indie scene in particular talk about how racist white promoters would ask them to do some “hot n***a shit” which basically means do flippy shit for cheap pops from predominantly white male audiences. Other black wrestlers also talked about having to feel like they have to work “twice as hard” as white wrestlers to get opportunities and then racist white promoters refusing to promote let alone push them to the top of the card just because they’re black. Hell even black female indie wrestler Faye Jackson has talked about how she’s been discriminated against by racist white male promoters not only because of her curvy thick size body, but because she’s also black. She also talked about how The Women Of Honor had so-called meetings on “diversity” in which she was never invited to attend until she forced herself into one of the meetings and those at the meeting were looking all dumbfounded.
The Conclusion - In order to achieve true diversity in wrestling, we must also protest against the racial injustices that are currently going on in wrestling because it’s not only just limited to outside wrestling.
By Kwame Shakir
utter shit
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