A Boston College history professor has compared the UFC fight recently held at the White House to a 19th-century lynching.
During an interview with former CNN reporter Jim Acosta on his YouTube show, professor Heather Richardson said that the “impulse” to stage the UFC match at the White House stemmed from the same impulse that enslaved black Americans and discriminated against other Americans.
“I mean, it’s not really a stretch to say that the same impulse that created the UFC fight on the White House lawn is the impulse that really pushed lynching in the late 19th century against black Americans overwhelmingly, but also against Italian Americans in Louisiana, for example, or Mexican Americans in the American West, or indigenous Americans,” she said.
She added that the impulse led to racist ideas like how “America is a white nation and anybody who challenges that needs to be purged from the body politic.”
While some critics of the UFC match were intense, none went nearly as far as Richardson.
To stay quiet means to turn a blind eye. And so I am saying this. What happened last night on the lawn of the White House was disgraceful and void of decency,” Grammy Award-winning musician Sheryl Crow wrote in an Instagram Story. “Powerful, rich people filled the lawn to watch a violent sport that ended with a vile and racist comment.”
“All while the average American cannot afford healthcare, gas, and cost of living. Do not be fooled. This administration is corrupt and does not give a damn about the American people,” she continued. “It only cares about making money hand over fist at the expense and in spite of our democracy. If we continue to support this kind of distraction from reality, we are no better than them. Let’s be better, America.”