“Ghost in the House”
“Ghost in the House”
Muhammad Ali and the Rise of the “Green Menace”
This chapter explores the political and cultural history of boxer Muhammad Ali and his status as a national hero in the post-Cold War 1990s, a period when the Muslim International, through hip-hop culture, struggled to rekindle and reinvigorate the legacy of Black Islam. This post-Civil Rights fear of the “Muslim terrorist” gave way to a full-blown ideological paradigm of the “Green Menace” of Islam, replacing the “Red Scare” of communism during the Cold War elaborated in Samuel Huntington’s theory of “Clash of Civilizations.” The chapter draws from Huntington’s theory in examining Muhammad Ali’s recuperation being a symbol for the fear and containment of Black Islam within a narrative of American universalism, stripping Black Islam of its internationalist impulses.
Keywords: Muhammad Ali, Muslim International, Green Menace, Islam, Samuel Huntington, Clash of Civilizations, Black Islam, Red Scare
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