Being Sugar Ray

Being Sugar Ray; The Life of Sugar Ray Robinson, America's Greatest Boxer and The First Celebrity Athlete, Kenneth Shropshire, New York, 2007

Shropshire has a vast knowledge of the first Sugar Ray...as he points out late in his book, today when people hear the name "Sugar Ray" many of them think of Sugar Ray Leonard, not Sugar Ray Robinson. This book is clearly a labor of love and a homage to the life and legacy of Sugar Ray Robinson, a man so famous and popular at one point that another Ray dropped the Robinson from his name to simply be known as Ray Charles.

Shropshire points a portrait of a man who created his own rules. Robinson was a talented boxer who developed his own sense of style, becoming famous for his flamingo pink Cadillac...and don't dare to call it just pink...his Harlem business interests, and his willingness to forgo fights if "the money wasn't right" in an era where too many people thought any fight was great.

This is partly a Cliff's Notes version of Robinson's fights. Shropshire gives brief descriptions of key fights and why Sugar Ray won or lost as well as how the form Sugar Ray displayed was later copied by other boxers.

But it is much more. It is also an analysis of how Sugar Ray became popular enough to transcend his sport and gain fame as a middleweight boxer as opposed to the heavyweight division that represents glamor in the boxing world.

He studies and relates Robinson's life and analyzes his rise and fall. It is sometimes exhilarating and other times sad...and at some points, downright tragic. He powerfully argues that Sugar Ray boxed too long because he had to have money after bad investments and outright graft on the part of some of his entourage...and how the entourage itself can be traced directly back to Sugar Ray as a cultural phenomenon.

Shropshire also demonstrates his own hatred of all things white. He makes clear throughout that all white people are intrinsically racist. He makes it clear that any adulation the public holds for any athlete is despite his blackness. To Shropshire, no white person can enjoy an athletic performance without constantly thinking of that man's blackness and therefore withholding a certain level of adulation.

A fine example comes when Shropshire writes, "O.J. made white people happy for a long while. That was until his entry into the criminal justice system reminded them, and him, that he was black. He was not true to who he was..." (p. 213)

For Shropshire, the guilt or innocence of O.J. for killing two people has no relevance. Simply being accused removes his "whiteness" and changes him into a black, and therefore discardable celebrity. There can be no allowance that perhaps some of us enjoyed O.J.'s talent for football and yes, for comedic acting and his race was never a factor, but once he became an alleged and likely murderer, his callousness towards those he had killed turned us off to enjoying his exploits, much as the alleged murder of a woman causes us to no longer wish to see or hear from Spector outside a jail cell.

It is people such as Shropshire who push racism today, finding it where it isn't and insisting that people cannot and will not accept someone because of color. Sadly, this overriding theme turns Being Sugar Ray from an excellent look at celebrity into a racist tome that has questionable value.