Damien Barling: Black Excellence -The Evolution Of WWE
I write this knowing a lot of people won't get it. Some people see a collective group of black people celebrating their achievements and immediately get on the defensive. Many will use the line, "If white people took this picture and used #WhiteExcellence they'd be considered racists". I know this because that was a direct quote from one of the many social media responses to the photo.
WWE superstar, tag-team champion, and New Day member Big E tweeted a picture of himself, along with with Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods, Rich Swann, and Sasha Banks with the hashtag 'Black Excellence". The response was, as can be expected anytime you post "Black…" anything, divisive and racial charged. Black Panther, Black Pride, Black Lives Matter, and even Black Excellence has been taken away from the original meaning and original purpose and pushed as some sort of reverse racism, or often much worse. Most people don't take the time to understand the significance of those terms, those groups, or, in this case, this photo. For the purpose of this piece, we'll focus on the photo.
Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods, and Big E, collectively make up the New Day, the longest running tag team champions in WWE history. Rich Swann is the current WWE Cruiserweight champion and has established himself as the most charismatic young superstar in that division. Sasha Banks is the WWE women's champion and a massive WWE superstar. She is on par with most men in the company as far as popularity, crowd reaction, and is the highlight of any show with her in ring work.
If you can't tell, they're all black. They're all champions. If you're not familiar with wrestling, particularly the WWE, that's a really big deal.
Wrestling for me started in 1985. I have vague memories of Hulk Hogan and Mr T and very vivid memories of King Kong Bundy attacking Hulk Hogan on Saturday Nights Main Event. I'm 36 now and while I know who Bobo Brazil and The Big Cat Ernie Ladd are, I grew up with a different type of black wrestler. I was too young to understand that the WWF (at the time) was probably the most racist and stereotypical company in entertainment. Lets run down a quick list of black wrestlers I grew up watching…
Junk Yard Dog - a huge star in the Mid-South territory before coming to WWE. Once there, he was relegated to a dog who barked, growled, and danced. Oh - he also wore a collar and chain. Something strikingly similar to that you'd see around the neck of a… never mind.
Koko B Ware- a dancing, singing bird.
Bad News Brown- a loud, militant, angry dude from Harlem
Kamala- a cannibal from Uganda.
Slick- He was a con artist and owner of a horribly offensive music video (sear-sucker suit, gold rings, jeri curl, fried chicken)
(NOTE: Seems WWE was smart enough to remove the unedited version off of You Tube. Its worth seeing if for nothing more then the "WTF" response)
There were others in this time frame; SD Jones, Butch Reed. They were fine but never guys that really mattered.
Oh. There was also this.
Dear Lord!
The 90' s brought a different crop of black wrestlers with similar stereotypes. Men On a Mission were rappers and Papa Shango was a voodoo priest who during the the Attitude Era morphed into a pimp. Complete with a train of hoes (seriously).
We've seen the Nation of Domination (militant), Cryme Time (street thugs), R Truth (rapper), and the original incarnation of the New Day (gospel group)
The company line from WWE will always be something like we're a variety show, we're entertainment, we have characters, blah blah blah.
And then there was this…
With that said, it's often forgotten when discussing this topic that one of the most successful wrestlers in the ring and by far the most famous outside, was a multi-time champion and black; The Rock.
There were others that weren't stereotyped but never maintained a high level of success; Ron Simmons, Mark Henry, Shelton Benjamin, Booker T. All very successful but none were the focal point of the company that The Rock was. In fact, Booker T was involved in a racially charged angle with Triple H leading into a Wrestlemania match. Every piece of the story was leading to Booker T winning - he didn't. He never got back to that level again.
What we see in the photo from Big E is something we have never seen before and it should be celebrated. As uncomfortable is it for some people, racial barriers are still being broken down in this country. For the WWE to have black superstars holding titles and featured in main event spots on a regular basis is extraordinary.
It's amazing, refreshing, and progressive to watch black athletes/entertainers being portrayed as just that - not as a cannibal, a dog, a bird, a southern baptist, a pimp, a preacher, or a militant. They're fun. They're badasses. They're black. They're proud, and so am I.