Broken hands. WARNING A dairy entry, that contains explicit language. .. .

Why boxing?

 

It is a big question, when considering the injuries you get, and the toll it takes. Strangely it was a song, and a deep look into that song, which produced this consideration of the question. In 1982 Midnight Oil released Jimmy Sharman’s Boxers, and over 40 years later, I found some answers. To help put it in a personal perspective, it was produced when I was ten. Here is a link to it on YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4_TxQ-Aarc if you haven’t heard it, or haven’t heard it recently. My recommendation is that you play it with a good dose of volume, through the best audio you can get, it is worth it. It is a brilliant track to listen to, with wonderful audio engineering involved. An exceptional recording, which was meant to highlight the issue of worker exploitation, and for me it does, but probably not in the way, they thought it would affect someone.

 

It is a song, sung about, the reported, and or supposed exploitation of Australian Aboriginal boxers, by an Australian Boxing promoter, and those, that use to be voyeurs of his mobile itinerant boxing tent. But where the band, may have had a heart felt or genuine concern, they had an upper class, modern Christian puritan lack of pragmatism. A lack of pragmatism that was devoid of on the ground options, to solve the problems they raised. This is not a put down of the song, nor of the band, and it should be noted, I do not have solutions, for the issues they raise either. But the song, for me instigates the questions, where does a warrior earn his place in history, except on a battlefield? And how will he live for eternity, if he cannot father a child, or children? The legacy of their song was in part, that the band had metaphorically boxed many Australians regardless of race into intellectual corners. Yes, it is that deft of a song, and because of their music many copped an absolute social hiding. To use a thought generated for me by the song, and to paraphrase a little, what are we the listeners, or the Australian people, “…fighting for…”? I can only speculate on their motives, but most professional fighters fight for recognition and cash. Sharman’s fighters were, professionals, so I do not see them as an exception to the rule. In the process, were some endeavouring for the public, to “…remember their name…,” to paraphrase Brad pit from Achilles. Here is a YouTube link to Brad Pits portrayal of Achilles for you to consider, the motives of a warrior www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-TrC03Aklo

 

Let us have a look.

 

Where they, or are they, fighting for the not so grand but ever so humble, and idealistic, but not so attainable these days white picket fence? Or was it a fight, so that they would live in a double brick, with a special roof insulation, so important, it was worth dying for. Was the only alternative for a life to revolve around pugilism? No! But the unicorn like existence, for physical labourers here in Australia, was one, that only briefly appeared, and it vanished during the eighties. It vanished in the “recession we had to have” to quote Paul Keating, an Australian Labour party prime minister. And unlike the current labouring environment, in the eighties permanent physical injury while working was commonplace.

 

What other choice was there for Sharman’s boxers or any boxers regardless of their race? I personally, would not begrudge a man, for trying to earn a living, or even striving for international success in the ring? And that, is with all due respect, to the brain damage that most certainly happens. How could I be dismissive of brain damage? Well, I am not, as when it happens it is serious. And to qualify my statement, after having suffered brain injuries from being knocked out, on more than one occasion, while ironically being paid less than Jimmy Sharman’s boxers, or if I am honest, being paid nothing at all, I do appreciate what it does to a person, on a very personal level. I have a firsthand appreciation of the effects of being hit hard, but after doing a repeated cost benefit analysis, I still concluded, even after an additional risk analysis, that it might not have stopped me giving it a go, despite being confronted with a recurring conclusion, of permanent injury, as being foreseeable. Why?

 

Being trapped in a job that is going nowhere fast, for an exceptionally long time, and while earning so little that I would never be considered to father children, is not a good thing. In those type of jobs, and I have done them, you can break your body for very little net reward, sometimes none. With little to no chance to father a child or children, where is the incentive to even exist, let alone not take a gamble with your life. In a breakdown of natural, or genetically gifted aptitudes, what happens to the man, a man who his best chance of survival, and having, or fathering children, is aided by skill of his fists? What happens if he has nowhere to legally fight? What happens to the professional fighter without a promoter? Unfortunately, the band may not have had lyrical space to delve into it, but the universal struggle, that of fighting for your life, still occurs. It may not be your chosen battlefield, but it is someone’s. It is a battle where it does not matter if you are white or Black, and Sharman had both in his tent. If the choice were to slowly die, or fight for your life, the choice for me at least, becomes academic. It makes for me, the consideration of getting in the ring, not such a crazy option, although I am too old, slow, and broken for it now. The consideration of being exploited, as we all are at work, one way or another, when considered, or compared, to a childless or near eternal bread line future, is for me at least a no brainer?

 

After long discussions with labourers, and old men with broken bodies, black and white, friends and family. We concluded that those that were meant to be, or where historically represented by Garrets political associates here in Australia, the Australian Labour Party, where always hit with the same wall. A wall, constructed with logic. It stopped us in our philosophical tracks. While we hit a wall, Garret, his band, and ideological associates seemed to hit the slippery slope instead. The law here in Australia, Garret’s first calling, nearly made Garret’s song utterly redundant, in any form of social commentary. At one time, the law here in Australia was trying to ban any, and every, physical sporting endeavour that involved injury that did not politically Aline with them, who every they were. In the process, they were neglecting the beautiful mathematics, done by John Nash, on the path of least resistance, (for lack of a better analogy, an analogy still easier to digest, than invoking the mental visual of Russel Crow staring at pigeons at least, but I will anyway). : ) Here is a link to the movies seen on YouTube if you haven’t seen it www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmlSSSN7C78

They the band, and their sympathetic critics, missed the beauty of the existence of biological distributions in human populations, a beauty that exists regardless of race. Despite the plasticity of the brain and its extraordinary adaptabilities, they neglected Darwin and his survival of the fittest, and its applications to warriors. They did not see the remarkable variation that exist in all races, and the potential of how Darwin’s theory would play out, on any group, they were trying to exclude from its best, or strongest natural aptitude. Not all people are cut out to do white collar jobs, and not all people can box. To miss quote Nash’s work to the extreme, find your niche. The wall we hit every time when it came to discussions on boxing, was why not? Why wouldn’t you take a big risk with your life in a gamble? The non-existent conundrum for me, or those I spoke to, was if you are going to end up with a broken body of a labourer, why would you begrudge the man who risks it all, to escape poverty in the ring? If the broken body is inevitable, why not try to escape poverty in the ring with the certain knowledge of permanent injury, while you are at it? Why feel pity for someone, who may, or may not, even want it? The Australian Aboriginal politician Jacinta Price said, and to quote, “the problem with the idea that there are two classes of people is that it doesn’t recognise people’s true capabilities as human beings,” “When you say I am a victim, you are effectively handing your power to somebody else.” She did not say it in relation to boxing, or anything closely, or even indirectly related, she was talking about colonialism. To me, it seemed that what she had said, was profoundly universal to not just her people, the Australian people, but everyone. It was applicable not to just her nation, but to all. It worked on multiple issues, and for me it seemed applicable to men entering Sharman’s tent and its ring.

 

Is it that victim hood sells albums? Is it that victimhood is an industry for some Australian Labour Party members, academics, and its political associates? The Australian Labour Party is no longer a nationalistic semi socialist group that they once were. A political party formed in 1890 to represent pastoral workers, or the working class of Australia. It has been argued that it has morphed into a mouthpiece, for groups absolutely opposed to the needs of the true working class, and especially lower income males. They failed, and fail, on many fronts, especially when it came to self-determination for blue-collar males, regardless of race. Ironically, the boxers of Sharmen’s tent were applying Nash’s rules on economics in Sharman’s tent, even if they didn’t know it. I personally find it condescending to the struggle of the men involved, and a reduction of their perceived intellect, for anyone to suggest otherwise. Yes, they did not have a beautiful algorithm as per Nash to explain what they were doing, they just knew instinctively that it was the thing to do.

 

When it came to men’s rights, and their capacity to earn a respectable living while labouring, they, Garrett’s old political party, the Australian Labour Party, did not publicly concede defeat on this topic. They replaced it with a fairy tale, and the idealist assumption that all blue-collar individuals will or could be all retrained into metaphorical non-back breaking jobs. It was, and has, turned out to be a fallacy. There have been workplace and safety advancements for sure, and they were welcome, but it is by the nature of the physical repetition where most injuries are unavoidable, and or unreported. If injury for some is unavoidable, isn’t it a process of self-determination by the men involved, to decide for themselves, where, and how, that injury occurs? Or if they want to box or not?

 

How far, they, the Australian labour party moved from its working-class mantras! And the song Jimmy Sharman’s boxers, was in part responsible for that shift. One labour politician went as far as to publicly lament, or question, who would make his café lat’e, and cook his meal for him, if it were not for mass migration! How very working class of him. His personal plight was epitomized by his self-perceived right, to be served like a historical aristocrat once was. His right to be served by those that he saw as should serve him, was more important, than trying to not dilute the ability of the working class, to use market forces to get a higher wage. And his insistence on educating foreigners on mass, before locals, made it essentially impossible for blue collar males, regardless of colour, to break the Australian glass ceiling of many, when it came to getting a higher education. His simple statement was ugly and revealing. He was either complicit, or blind, to a process of demographic social cleansing of people who no longer vote for his party. Social cleansing, is like ethnic cleansing, done along demographic lines, not along ethnic lines, and you cleans workplaces, and areas of employment with it. Potentially you take the cleansed group’s land. Not only had the Australian Labour Party, which was part of Garrett’s cohort, banned self-determination, for some socioeconomically poorer Australian males, regardless of race, some of his political group, had deemed it, that they should be waited on, by those that they saw as unfit to make up their own minds.

 

Regarding maiming yourself with physical labour for the profit of others, with little to no reward, the discussions I had, or have, range around what are the options? Everyone cannot be an academic, not everyone can be an international music star. Marriage until death, was essentially made obsolete by the political policies of the Australian Labour Party when they pork barrelled individuals instead of electorates, here in Australia. The result was, it was very possible, to have a broken body, no money, no woman, no shelter, and be denied the ability to father a child. So why wouldn’t you give anything a go? Why wouldn’t you even give boxing a go?

 

The challengers of Sharman’s tent risked public humiliation, brain damage, and broken bones for a little bit of local fame. In response so did Sharman’s men. So why wouldn’t Sharman’s men risk lifelong injury just to break the drip feed, of perpetual labouring or forever social welfare, in a system that has no reward here in Australia? Yes, it is, a near life and death competition, of man against man. To summarise the reward of the endeavour as they did to just revolve around a potential a racial exploitation for grog or dollars, as Garret and his band were speculated by some critics to have done, is to position them as academic social economic minimalists, ones that neglected the social rewards of boxing, that go beyond the publicly promoted, or visible. Strangely a member of what used to be a semisocialist group, made a song insinuating that the boxing ring of Sharman revolved around only the dollar and exploitation involving grog, physical, and alcohol abuse. Not a propaganda peace for the once Nationalist labour party, and their longest serving prime minister Bob Hawk, who had had a world record for the consumption of a yard glass of beer. They did not make a propaganda piece about the struggle of the proletariat to leave his station, or break his class barriers, or social constraints. A strange position for Garrett and his band, given his, and their political stance.

 

Why not risk it all? Why not try to break the cycle? A cycle that would have and see many drink themselves to death, or later in history turn to drugs in an in vain attempt to alleviate a life, which is wrongly characterised as having no meaning. Ironically while Garrett sang about alcohol abuse of Sharman’s Boxers, his political party ensured through legalisation of its legal sale, that whole communities would be exploited by the grog shops. The Labour policy would have maximum effect, on a scale that would literally leave Sharman’s men’s drinking for dead, to use and Australian euphemism. It the policy would go on, to decimate, person, after person, and child after child with the social effects. Garretts political associates would leave actual Aboriginal politicians like Jacinta Price, at wits end, trying to deal with the fall out, in her and their extended families.

 

Garrett sung and to paraphrase “Their days are darker than your nights, they will not be the first to fall,” but he was wrong, as sometimes they did, if you ask my dad, who went along to watch as a child. Sharman himself, had lifted the side wall of his iconic tent, to let his friends and him in. Why would Sharman have surrendered money if he were such a financial abuser? Why would he grant them entry, albeit through the metaphoric back door. Probably to make sure no one saw the non-paying underage members of the crowd enter. He let the local boys in, so that dad and his penniless mates, (and if you do not know, pennies where a coin, or pre 1966 currency, here in Australia), could see the spectacle.

 

For sure, Sharman’s men were not big money prize fighters, but that I presume, was not all they were striving for, they were fighting for their little piece of immortality.

 

Although it must be said that the drudgery of fighting so many fights would have been weathering. It should be noted that having personally lived in a tin shed, as a child during a mouse plague, and having done a lot of jobs well below that of the station of a janitor, or cleaner, does not make me bitter. I did jobs no one else wanted to do, jobs that broke my body, but that is ok as in the end I do not blame others for my choices. Correspondingly I do not blame those that chose to box in Sharman’s tent. I do not blame them for what they did, and I do not feel sorry for them either. And when it comes to fathering or having kids, both for Sharman’s men and their challengers, might just have given themselves a chance. A chance that was, and is not, available to all. Most men are unable to fight their way out of their childless and or fatherless poverty, as they cannot, or do not have that chance, and or, the natural ability! Sometimes you get, “one shot,” as M&M sung in his biographical take on his personal escape from poverty. Here is a link to M&M’s song www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YuAzR2XVAM

And sometimes that shot for some, is in a boxing ring!

 

Regardless, of if the efforts of Sharman’s boxers were seen as insignificant, or not. Even, if it was viewed that they were not suitably rewarded, by those that did not value their skill. Despite the fighters most visible physical sacrifice, that of public corporal suffering. And without any concern, of if, it had been seen as a waisted misery, by some. It, there endeavour, was not observed for what it really was. It was a life and death fight, for life itself. A fight for an existence, and an escape from a death that many Aboriginal men would suffer, outside of those who plied their trade in Sharman’s tent. They may not have achieved the historical magnitude or status of the warrior Achillies. But by utterance of their very names, and or their families’ names, regardless of what instigated that utterance; and despite being held up for public display in a song, and branded as victims, they had hit their mark. And just like Achilles, one way or another, they would live on, forever. Somewhere, part of them would exist for eternity. They would live, not because they were victims, but because, they had deliberately fought to exist.

 

 

Done