Muhammad Ali’s son has said his famous father would have hated the ‘racist’ Black Lives Matter protests, as he claims the movement is ‘pitting black people against everyone else’ and insists George Floyd’s killer ‘was doing his job’.
Muhammad Ali Jr., 47, said his dad believed ‘all lives matter’ and would have branded protesters demanding an end to police brutality and systemic racism as ‘devils’, in an interview with the NY Post on the fourth anniversary of the boxing legend’s death.
‘My father would have said, “They ain’t nothing but devils,” Ali Jr. said.
‘My father said, ‘all lives matter.’ I don’t think he’d agree.’
Ali Jr. insisted his father would have thought the Black Lives Matter movement was ‘racist’ and would have been a Donald Trump supporter if he was alive today.
The shock claims come as Ali was known to be a vocal activist calling for an end to racism throughout his life and after he famously refused to be drafted during the Vietnam War because it went against his religious beliefs.
Muhammad Ali and his son, Muhammad Ali Jr. in an undated image. Ali Jr. has said his famous father would have hated the ‘racist’ Black Lives Matter protests, as he claims the movement is ‘pitting black people against everyone else’ and insists George Floyd’s killer ‘was doing his job’
Ali’s only biological son, who was estranged from the sports star when he died, said Black Lives Matter is just ‘pitting black people against everyone else’.
‘I think it’s racist. It’s not just black lives matter, white lives matter, Chinese lives matter, all lives matter, everybody’s life matters,’ he told The Post.
‘God loves everyone – he never singled anyone out. Killing is wrong no matter who it is.’
Ali Jr., who like is father is a practising Muslim, added that it is ‘a racial statement.’
‘It’s pitting black people against everyone else. It starts racial things to happen; I hate that,’ he said.
Ali Jr. added his dad would have condemned the way some protests have descended into violence if he were still alive today.
‘Don’t bust up s**t, don’t trash the place. You can peacefully protest,’ he told the Post.
Ali Jr. speaks during a forum on the consequences of Trump’s immigration policies in 2017. He has now called Trump a ‘good president’ and insisted his father would have been a Donald Trump supporter if he was alive today
Ali Jr. also defended the actions of Derek Chauvin, the white cop charged with murder after he knelt on black man Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes, saying he was wrong to kill him but that Floyd had ‘resisted arrest’ and the cop simply ‘used the wrong tactic’.
‘The officer was wrong with killing that person, but people don’t realize there was more footage than what they showed,’ he told the Post.
‘The guy resisted arrest, the officer was doing his job, but he used the wrong tactic.’
He insisted that most cops are not ‘crooked’ and that he had ‘never had a bad scene with a cop’.
‘Police don’t wake up and think, “I’m going to kill a n**r today or kill a white man,”‘ he said.
‘They’re just trying to make it back home to their family in one piece.’
He continued: ‘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.’
He also insisted he had never had a negative encounter with a cop because of his race.
‘I never had a bad scene with a cop,’ he said.
‘They’ve always been nice and protect me. I don’t have a problem with them.’
Ali Jr., 47, said his dad believed ‘all lives matter’ and would have branded protesters demanding an end to police brutality and systemic racism as ‘devils’
Former Cleveland Browns Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown presides over a meeting of top African-American athletes in 1967 to show support for Ali’s refusal to fight in Vietnam
Ali Jr. went on to describe Trump as a ‘good president’ and agree with his claims that left-wing radical group Antifa has stoked violence during the ongoing civil unrest, urging that ‘they need to kill everyone in that thing’.
‘They’re no different from Muslim terrorists. They should all get what they deserve,’ he said.
‘They’re f**king up businesses, beating up innocent people in the neighborhood, smashing up police stations and shops. They’re terrorists – they’re terrorizing the community.
‘I agree with the peaceful protests, but the Antifa, they need to kill everyone in that thing.’
He added: ‘Black Lives Matter is not a peaceful protest. Antifa never wanted it peaceful. I would take them all out.’
The 47-year-old father-of-two went as far as to say his boxing legend father would have been a Trump supporter and insisted the president is ‘not a racist’.
‘I think Trump’s a good president. My father would have supported him. Trump’s not a racist, he’s for all the people. Democrats are the ones who are racist and not for everybody,’ he said.
He then slammed Democrats for supporting Black Lives Matter when they’re ‘not even black’.
‘These [Democrat politicians] saying Black Lives Matter, who the hell are you to say that? You’re not even black,’ he said.
‘Democrats don’t give a s**t about anybody. Hillary Clinton doesn’t give a s**t; she’s trying not to get locked up. Trump is much better than Clinton and Obama… The only one to do what he said he would do is Donald Trump.’
Ali Jr. said he agreed with Trump’s claims that left-wing radical group Antifa have stoked violence during the ongoing civil unrest and urged that ‘they need to kill everyone in that thing’. Peaceful protesters in New York pictured above
His show of support for Trump comes despite him speaking during a forum on the consequences of Trump’s immigration policies in 2017 after he was stopped and detained twice by immigration officers at a Florida airport following Trump’s travel ban on Muslim-majority nations.
At the time, he said he was singled out because he is Muslim and considered suing.
Ali Jr. is one of nine children and the fourth eldest the boxing legend fathered by four wives.
His mother is Ali’s first wife Belinda Boyd, who also converted to Islam and now goes by the name Khalilah Ali.
Ali Jr.’s relationship with his father broke down some time after ‘The Greatest’ married his fourth wife Lonnie Williams in 1986 and they were estranged when Ali died from Parkinson’s disease at the age of 74 in 2016.
At the time of his father’s death Ali Jr. had fallen on hard times living in a small two-bed flat in Chicago’s crime-ridden South Side and he split from his wife soon after.
He has since moved to Hallandale Beach, Florida, where he works as a landscape gardener and construction worker.
He has previously said he gets just $1,000 a month in allowance from his father’s estimated $60 million estate.