{"id":76531,"date":"2019-03-15T13:50:12","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T18:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=76531"},"modified":"2019-03-18T15:35:16","modified_gmt":"2019-03-18T20:35:16","slug":"editorial-the-ballad-of-kofi-kingston-who-does-kofi-kingston-sing-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2019\/03\/15\/editorial-the-ballad-of-kofi-kingston-who-does-kofi-kingston-sing-for\/","title":{"rendered":"EDITORIAL: The Ballad of Kofi Kingston &#8211; Who does Kofi Kingston sing for?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-1464215172\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p>Who does Kofi Kingston sing for? On the first episode of Smackdown Live after Fastlane, Kofi and Vince McMahon had a heated conversation about chances, belonging, and opportunity. Specifically, Kofi told Vince, \u201cI have never complained about the fact that you have never allowed someone like me to compete or contend for the WWE Title.\u201d I think if you aren\u2019t from the space he\u2019s speaking from, you can\u2019t understand who he\u2019s talking about outright.<\/p>\n<p>The same week this promo aired, it was announced that Harlem Heat, the tag team comprised of current WWE Hall of Famer Booker T and his brother Stevie Ray, would be inducted into the same space as a unit. Even with the WWE HOF\u2019s \u201cDuck, Duck, Goose!\u201d selection process, longtime fans would look at their longevity, victories, and title reigns as strong enough to justify induction. On social media, I noted the humor of Booker T going into the HOF for the second time, in New York, being that both him and his brother have zero New York ties outside of their team name. On a popular Facebook wrestling group, someone innocently asked, \u201cWhy are they called Harlem Heat if they\u2019re from Houston?\u201d The responses help to explain how a Kofi Kingston can be appreciated and passed over at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHarlem sounds tougher than Houston.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This is true&#8230; to a segment of the population. 3rd Ward, 5th Ward, Acres Homes&#8230; Houston is every bit as \u201ctough\u201d as any spot in New York. But people who don\u2019t frequent places with people of color use the information they don\u2019t have to reach for to explain things. So when someone says \u201cHarlem sounds tougher,\u201d what they\u2019re saying is \u201cI\u2019ve been exposed to Black people for the most part through media, and I associate &#8216;tough&#8217; Black people with this area of the country. So (insert WCW booker) wasn\u2019t WRONG naming a team \u201cHarlem Heat,\u201d he was building off of expectations people would ride with.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s any of this got to do with Kofi Kingston, budding main eventer? It would be intellectually dishonest to say there\u2019s never been a Black WWE Champion (I don\u2019t need any more grey hairs, so \u201chow Black is The Rock?\u201d won\u2019t be the focus of any of this). It would be just as dishonest to say there haven\u2019t been contenders. But look at that list. Ahmed Johnson, Ron Simmons, Bobby Lashley, and Mark Henry jump out. What do these men have in common? Johnson played professional football for the Dallas Cowboys. Simmons finished 9th in the Heisman Trophy race, and was drafted by the Cleveland Browns. Lashley was a D2 wrestling champion, and Mark Henry was an Olympian. When Kofi Kingston says \u201csomeone like me,\u201d he\u2019s not talking about the Black WRESTLER, he\u2019s talking about the Black EVERYMAN.<\/p>\n<p>If you examine the presentation of Black champions and contenders, their initial listing, or introduction, stresses their athletic background. The Rock was the \u201cblue chipper,\u201d Bobby Lashley \u201carmed forces champion,\u201d Mark Henry \u201cthe Olympian.\u201d Outside of MVP, a clear take on the \u201cdiva wide receiver\u201d template, the Black WWE contender has had a John Henry quality to him, \u201cpure\u201d and \u201call-American\u201d and \u201chard working\u201d and the like. Kofi, who does have a martial arts background, wasn\u2019t a \u201crelate-able\u201d collegiate athlete, so even without a heavy foreign accent, was saddled with a \u201cJamaican\u201d gimmick out the gate.<\/p>\n<p>Is there something WRONG with a guy with dreads being given a Jamaican gimmick? That depends; if Dolph Ziggler was given Sheamus\u2019 gimmick, how would that have played? If Randy Orton donned a mask and henna tattooed \u201cMexican\u201d across his stomach, would it wave been accepted? At the time, to Vince McMahon, a new Black character needed a gimmick people would \u201cget,\u201d and throughout WWE, you just won\u2019t find a lot of Black character\u2019s whose gimmick wasn\u2019t either \u201csuper athlete\u201d or deeply rooted in a \u201cBlack that\u2019s familiar to white people.\u201d Look at NXT-era Sasha Banks: Sasha Banks doesn\u2019t talk in heavy slang, doesn\u2019t dress cheap, isn\u2019t promiscuous, and isn&#8217;t even overly flirty. But a mostly-white crowd started chanting \u201cSasha\u2019s ratchet!\u201d which didn\u2019t fit anything on how she was presented or how she carried herself in real life. Something they weren\u2019t familiar with was given, and they used an unrelated buzzword to try to explain what they were seeing.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t an anti-white fans story. If anything, I\u2019m saying that it\u2019s the responsibility of the promotion to present three-dimensional characters of every background so that every Black team doesn\u2019t have to be \u201cfrom the hood.\u201d I tried explaining to a group of friends in 2015 that Xavier Woods represented what \u201ccool\u201d is now, and it fell of deaf ears, because the Black nerd that doesn\u2019t skip leg day isn\u2019t something they\u2019d really experienced, and look at what he\u2019s done for himself in multiple spaces in 2019. I\u2019ll never forget Konnan of all people saying once on his podcast that Woods was \u201cThe whitest Black guy in (WWE).\u201d That\u2019s who a Kofi Kingston sings for: The people of color that don\u2019t fit into boxes. He\u2019s a great athlete&#8230; just wasn\u2019t an amateur one. He\u2019s got a fire about him&#8230; it\u2019s just not rooted in him pulling himself up from his bootstraps.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-802837171\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>So when you look at Booker T, five-time WCW Champion, who immediately feuded with the Rock and Stone Cold upon entering WCW, it took him five years to win his next world title. WrestleMania 19 is noted for his title match loss the Triple H, in a feud based on the idea that \u201cpeople like him\u201d didn\u2019t get to be champion; in fact, he had to become an English King to finally accomplish that. Triple H, who I don\u2019t consider to be racist at all, was able to appeal to Vince\u2019s mindset towards the Black athlete to make this true in the moment.<\/p>\n<p>Kofi Kingston\u2019s story, whether he wins the WWE Title, loses his WWE Title match, or just gets more TV time for awhile, is special and difficult and scary because it\u2019s unfamiliar territory, and because they won\u2019t say outright what I\u2019m trying to say. The \u201cevery man\u201d of color &#8211; the one who&#8217;s middle class, the one who doesn\u2019t have muscles coming out of his ears, the one who doesn\u2019t start dancing or rapping at the drop of a dime &#8211; is rarely one presented in WWE, especially at the very top of the card. But the more WE get to see NEW in wrestling, the better understanding you have of the world around you, and the better the world will be as a whole.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>(Cameron Hawkins (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CeeHawk\">@ceehawk<\/a> on Twitter) cohosts the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blogtalkradio.com\/eastcoastcast\">PWTorch East Coast Cast<\/a> every Wednesday night with Travis Bryant. He is a regular cohost of the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Post-show.)<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Send guest editorials for consideration to <a href=\"mailto:pwtorch@pwtorch.com\">pwtorch@pwtorch.com<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-848281084\"><div id=\"pwtor-3097378250\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Who does Kofi Kingston sing for? On the first episode of Smackdown Live after Fastlane, Kofi and Vince McMahon had a heated conversation about chances, belonging, and opportunity. Specifically, Kofi told Vince, \u201cI have never <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2019\/03\/15\/editorial-the-ballad-of-kofi-kingston-who-does-kofi-kingston-sing-for\/\" title=\"EDITORIAL: The Ballad of Kofi Kingston &#8211; Who does Kofi Kingston sing for?\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,52,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlightarticles","category-opnionandanalysis","category-guesteditorials"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/KingstonKofiGG_3x2_600.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76531"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76674,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76531\/revisions\/76674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}