In the interview, which was conducted on the fourth anniversary of his father’s death, Muhammad Ali Jr. said that he believed his father would have called the movement racist and referred to the protestors in the movement as “devils.”
Muhammad Ali Jr. further stated that though his father stood up against racism, he would have been disappointed to see people resort to violence and looting following the death George Floyd, NY Post reported.
According to Muhammad Ali Jr., it is fine to protest peacefully, but it isn’t right to use violence and destroy property.
As indicated by the news outlet, Muhammad Ali Jr., who following in his father’s footsteps is a Muslim, said that he thought the movement was racist.
“It’s not just black lives matter, white lives matter, Chinese lives matter. All lives matter. Everyone’s life matters. God loves everyone—he never singled anyone out. Killing is wrong no matter who it is,” Muhammad Ali Jr. said.
Muhammad Ali Jr. also said during the interview with NY Post that the movement stood to cause a rift between black people and everyone else, saying, “it’s putting black people against everyone else. It starts racial things to happen; I hate that.”
He also said that the actions of these violent protestors were no different than Islamist terrorists, and should be seen and labelled as such.
“They’re terrorists—they’re terrorizing the community. I agree with the peaceful protests ... Black Lives Matter is not a peaceful protest. Antifa never wanted it to be peaceful. I would take them all out,” Muhammad Ali Jr. said in the interview.
The son of the late boxer said that he believed the police officer, who was charged with murder over George Floyd’s death, didn’t go about dealing with the incident in the right way, but defended the law enforcement officers in general, saying that they were only doing their jobs.
“The officer was wrong with killing that person, but people don’t realize that there was more footage than what they showed. That guy resisted arrest, the officer was doing his job, but he used the wrong tactic,” Muhammad Ali Jr. said during the interview.
Furthermore, Muhammad Ali Jr. said he doesn’t believe law enforcement police officers wake up every morning thinking that they are going on the job to kill someone.
“They’re just trying to make it back to home to their family in one piece,” Muhammad Ali Jr. said.
However, after defending law enforcement officers in general, he did acknowledge the existence of officers within law enforcement who might not be as honourable as the rest.
“Not all the police are bad, there’s just a few. There’s a handful of police that are crooked, they should be locked up,” Muhammad Ali Jr. said.
He went further to say that he had never had a bad experience with police officers—this despite being locked up and released twice by TSA officers who had questioned him under the new travel ban rules on Muslim-majority nations.
Muhammad Ali Jr. was released both times, and said that he had been treated nicely and had always felt that the officers were just doing their jobs to protect him.
