MISOGYNIST IN THE WOODPILE

Mick Hume says that Mike Tyson is the one black man that liberals feel free to despise

NAME one black man whom you can call an animal without being prosecuted for inciting racial hatred; or one Muslim whom you can call mad without being had up before the religious-intolerance inquisition; and how about one New Yorker whom you can call a cowardly, violent thug without being branded anti-American? Answers: Mike Tyson, Mike Tyson and Mike Tyson.

Even before the latest fracas at the press conference with Lennox Lewis, Tyson had been turned into a caricature bogeyman for our times, a pantomime villain who seems to embody the unacceptable. In the ring he has a record for biting and trying to break arms; outside it he has convictions for rape and road rage, and is now facing the prospect of further rape charges that could put him away for life. He is macho and aggro, flashy and trashy, everything that our non-penetrative culture rejects. As a headline in the liberal press surely ought to have said by now, 'It's political incorrectness gone mad!'

After he bit Lewis, Tyson was described as America's number two hate figure. Osama bin Laden is, of course, the undisputed number one, but at least he can feel wanted by Americans. Tyson is such a pariah that even Las Vegas, that amoral golddigging whore, no longer wants to entertain him.

What is all the fuss about? Yes, Tyson is a freak show, and the Lewis fight, if it ever takes place, will undoubtedly be a circus. But this is professional boxing we are talking about, not ballet. The head of boxing at the American television company HBO says, We don't want to be tied to any event that tarnishes the image of boxing.' Tarnishes the image of boxing? That could happen only if Tyson bit Lewis's head clean off on live television, and then ate his brains with a spoon. In truth, as somebody else remarked last week, the reputation of boxing is so low that it could only find itself in the gutter if the sewers started backing up.

Boxing is a bloodsport; licensed violence for the benefit of civilised voyeurs who get their kicks (and punches, butts and the odd bite) vicariously. So why all the 'Boxer is violent man' shock headlines? After all, our champion Lennox Lewis, the good guy in this panto, has brawled with his opponents before the last two championship fights, and threw the first punch at Tyson. Yet nobody is calling for him to be banned Or to have his head examined. Instead Lewis has just been photographed playing chess and exchanging mock blows with the editor of the Sunday Telegraph, Dominic Lawson (who apparently whupped his black ass twice on the chessboard).

Tyson may not look much like a punchbag, but that's what he has become. People who could not care less about what boxers do to one another have jumped on to the anti-Tyson bandwagon, projecting their own fear and loathing on to him. Just as in Iron Mike's jailhouse morality any con can prove that they are decent by dumping on paedophiles and other lowlife, so it seems that anybody can demonstrate that they are an upright citizen by knocking down Tyson (figuratively speaking, of course). Even the pimps of Vegas fancy that they can creep nearer the moral high ground by banning him.

Tyson is hardly the first black American boxer to fill the role of hate figure. When Jack Johnson became the first black heavyweight champion in 1908, Jack London wrote in the New York Herald that 'the White Man must be rescued'. Johnson defended his title in front of 40.000 white Americans who were singing 'All Coons Look Alike to Me'. As recently as the 1980s, the black American middleweight Marvellous Marvin Hagler sparked a race riot in east London by humiliating the union flag-waving Alan Minter.

But the hatred directed at Tyson is something new. Old-fashioned racism is no longer publicly acceptable. Today, polite society expresses its distaste differently. Tyson is not called a nigger, but a misogynist, a homophobe, even a racist. He has also been accused of animal abuse (cruelty to pet ferrets). If they could catch him doing a Jonathan King, the composite photo-fit for fashionable offences would be complete. The consequence of all this is to resurrect the spectre of the rapacious, brutish black male but in language deemed respectable in a university seminar, never mind a public bar.

It was telling that most of Tyson's critics (including the Nevada officials who refused him a licence) objected less to him biting Lewis than to the language he used against journalists during that little riot. One reporter shouted that he was a psycho who should be in a 'fucking straitjacket'. Tyson replied — readers from a sheltered background might like to look away now — 'I'll put your mother in a straitjacket, you punk-ass white boy. I'll fuck you in the ass until you love me, faggot. You're a little white pussy scared of a real man. You wouldn't last two minutes in my world, bitch.'

Admittedly, Tyson's message was not very socially inclusive. But why was he denied a licence to box because of these words? Because he is deemed too aggressive to beat up people for a living? Are the authorities afraid that an innocent man might get hurt in a, er, boxing ring?

The notion that words are worse than violence is a hallmark of today's social code, where being offensive — especially using what is politely called racial and sexual abuse — often seems to be the worst offence of all. Many journalists later claimed that Tyson was talking directly to them. In their thin-skinned self-absorption, they took his words as an affront to their personal etiquette, as if the incident had occurred at a dinner party rather than during the feeding frenzy surrounding a heavyweight championship fight.

The Guardian published a bizarre piece by a female photographer who was convinced that Tyson had sexually propositioned her from the other side of the chaotic press conference. 'I certainly don't fancy Tyson,' she concluded damningly, after twice asserting that 'he is not very bright'. In the same edition, the paper's boxing correspondent reported that, on the contrary, Tyson 'has considerable intelligence', but — wait, you

know its coming — self-esteem'.

With every pundit imposing their personal agenda on events, F was disappointed not to hear from my friend Peter Tatchell, who last November issued a press release hailing Lewis's defeat of Hasim Raman as a sensational victory over homophobia (Raman had taunted Lewis with allegations about his sexuality). No doubt Lennox was delighted to have Peter's support.

This story is not about boxing, and, in the end. it's not just about Tyson either. He has become the latest excuse for an assault on what one headline calls 'The dark side of masculinity'. Writing about the furore surrounding Tyson's visit to Britain a couple of years ago, I joked about living in a society where testosterone is put on a par with depleted uranium. Now serious newspapers publish articles about how Tyson embodies the dangers posed by 'testosterone poisoning'. The message that all men are potential rapists has spread from the feminist fringe to the media mainstream. Perhaps they should tag electronically everybody who buys a ticket for Tyson v. Lewis, and set up a government register of those who sign up to watch it on pay-per-view?

It appears that even the Tyson camp is belatedly learning to speak the language of the victim culture. 'Mike has to fight, but people forget that he, too, is the victim here,' says a spokesman; just like all those pit-bull terriers that were named after Tyson in his prime, and then fell foul of the Dangerous Dogs Act.

Mick Hume is a Times columnist and editor of spiked-online. corn.