Bruce Mitchell on Mark Henry being referred to as a "silverback"

[Loss]

Comments on this would be interesting.

 

By Bruce Mitchell, Torch columnist

Originally Published: June 16, 2007

From Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter #972

 

"...the Silverback of the WWE, Mark Henry!"

 

 

-Vince McMahon, CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment introducing WWE

Superstar Mark Henry on NBC's Saturday Night's Main Event, June 3rd, 2007.

 

 

What does Vince McMahon see when he looks at former Olympic weight-lifter

and longtime WWE Superstar Mark Henry, a large, dark-skinned

African-American man?

 

 

A gorilla.

 

 

Not just any gorilla, either. McMahon sees Henry as a silverback gorilla,

the alpha male of gorillas. Henry has been booked his entire pro wrestling

career as a big, mean heel. What's bigger than a gorilla?

 

 

Just as the media furor over radio and MSNBC talk show host Don Imus calling

members of the Rutgers' women's basketball team "nappy headed hos" finally

died down, McMahon, the Chief Executive Officer of World Wrestling

Entertainment - the top pro wrestling promotion in the world, and the man

who makes the major creative decisions for his corporation, decided to

market Henry as not just The Strongest Man In The World but as a

"silverback" gorilla, who is "the king of the jungle." McMahon is smart

enough to know that it isn't a compliment.

Imus lost his two jobs that paid him millions of dollar and 15 hours of

cable network time each week when he and producer Bernard McGurk improvised

the now infamous "hos" and "jiggabos vs. wanna-bes" line on their MSNBC

morning show. I read and listened to a lot of the debate about what they

said and I never got the idea that anyone on any side of it would have

thought it appropriate to call a black man a gorilla over and over again on

national television.

 

 

It's different for WWE. For one, their decades' long descent into vulgarity

and racial and ethnic stereotyping means no one except their loyal fan base

pays much attention to them. It took just a few hours for someone to post

Imus's comments on You Tube and things snowballed from there into a national

debate on the appropriateness of different types of racial language.

 

 

WWE has been broadcasting this "silverback" slur for weeks now with no

consequence even from a national media sensitized by the Imus fiasco. WWE's

odious racial slur wasn't the result of an old rich white male speaking

without thinking about the consequences like Imus and McGurk did.

 

 

It was the result of an old rich man, (much richer than Imus if much less

politically powerful) deliberately deciding that one of his African-American

contracted employees looked like a gorilla and that was the standout quality

his creative and marketing department would use to market him and the

company.

 

 

Never mind Henry had been hired and marketed to play a World's Strongest Man

type. McMahon deliberately decided that Henry looked like a gorilla, then

ordered his all-white WWE writing team to script references throughout

Henry's segments on WWE Smackdown, which airs Friday night on the CW

network, and NBC's Saturday Night's Main Event.

 

 

So what was McMahon thinking? According to Wikpedia, gorillas move around by

knuckle-walking. Adult males range in height from 165-175 cm. (5-5 to 5-9

inches), and in weight from 140-200 kg. (310-440 lbs.). Adult females are

often half the size of a silverback, averaging about 140 cm (4-7) tall and

100 kg. (220 lbs.). Occasionally, a silverback of over 183 cm (6 feet) and

225 kg (500 lbs.) has been recorded in the wild. However, obese gorillas in

captivity have reached a weight of 270 kg (600 lbs.).

 

 

Mark Henry, on the other hand, walks upright. True, he's an adult male, just

not an adult male gorilla. According to his biography on WWE.com, he's too

tall, at 6-1, to be a silverback even if at 380 pounds he falls into the

adult gorilla weight range. Even though his weight has been a concern for

management and perhaps lead to some of his injuries over his decade-long

career in WWE, Henry doesn't qualify as "obese" for a gorilla. Maybe that's

too much information. Perhaps McMahon was just thinking simply and visually,

since his company markets much of their product to children.

 

 

WWE announcers, specifically the announcers for the Smackdown brand, know

the minefield they're walking through with these silverback references.

Play-by-play announcer Michael Cole sneaks in his Silverback with no

emphasis at the beginning of Henry's segments, usually throwing in the

phrase "self-proclaimed" because, hell, if it's okay with the black guy...

(more on that later).

 

 

The Smackdown color commentator John Bradshaw Layfield also seems nervous.

He's a part-time commentator on the Fox News network and has his own

syndicated talk show, so he's got a lot to lose in today's broadcast

atmosphere. He's usually up for anything, in that it's his job to add life

to the sometimes dull Smackdown broadcast. He doesn't shy away from ripping

guys on Smackdown he doesn't like in real life, such as former reality TV

star The Miz, or from sneaking in some conservative political cheerleading

for the president or the late Ronald Reagan, either.

 

 

Veteran Raw announcer Jim Ross, given a chance to call a battle royal with

Henry, conspicuously avoided the opportunity to call him a silverback.

 

 

The silverback stuff clearly makes Layfield jumpy. Layfield has been reduced

to impotent damage control, trying to convince viewers somehow that while

Henry is "the king of the jungle," he's actually a smart guy. On a recent

Smackdown broadcast, Layfield praised Henry for his intelligence in

performing the most elemental of bad guy moves - leaving the ring to stall.

Layfield never mentioned much before about Henry's smarts. He's clearly

trying to lay down some plausible deniability. "Hey, I never said he was a

sub-human gorilla. I praised the guy for his intelligence, for God's sakes!

What is this, Nazi Germany?"

 

 

That is, until he slipped when Henry confronted another large black man,

Viscera, on a recent broadcast. "King just met Kong!'

 

 

There's no getting around what calling an African-American man a gorilla

means, how that deeply that insult resonates in our national history. When

Africans were originally brought to the North American continent 400 years

ago in chains, when their families were ripped apart, when they were beaten,

tortured, raped, and lynched all to ensure their subjection into slavery,

their Caucasian captors had to justify these crimes to themselves in terms

beyond the geed and avarice involved in economic exploitation.

 

 

That justification started as soon as the first boat landed. The

slave-masters took one look at their captors' dark skin and decided they

were closer to monkeys than human beings and, if that were true, then it was

righteous, not murderous, to treat them as beasts of burden. It gave a dirty

excuse to their hateful actions and allowed them to delude themselves about

the blood on their own hands as they lifted their Bibles in prayer.

 

 

That delusion, though, had to be fed. For hundreds of years, even after

slavery was legally abolished, black people were portrayed as monkey, and

apes and denigrated for their supposed lack of intelligence in stories,

pictures, and song.

 

 

Because of that history, for a black man there is no more hateful, degrading

insult than being called a gorilla.

 

 

WWE, whose CEO Vince McMahon pays a yearly on-air tribute to Martin Luther

King...

[Tim Evans]

Bruce Mitchell is still around? I had no idea. He shouldn't worry because it's only a matter of time before Henry gets injured.

[Jingus]

I could tell it was Mitchell from his aggressive self-righteousness and random jumping from topic to topic, but the overall quality of his work definitely seems to have gone downhill since the 90s. Yes, wrestling is incredibly racist, we knew that already, what's your point? The only interesting part was where he microanalyzed the announcers' comments.

[anarchistxx]

Is this guy a complete idiot?

 

According to Wikpedia, gorillas move around by

knuckle-walking.

 

Mark Henry, on the other hand, walks upright.

Well, shit, what an insult!

 

But wait a minute...does Ricky Steamboat walk like a Dragon? Does Chris Benoit walk like a Wolverine? Does Batista show any physical characteristics of an animal?

 

It's a gimmick, presumably to show Henry's strength and dominance, rather than any racial prejudices.

 

And when they used to talk about Big Show's 'Gorilla like paw' or whatever, nobody complained. It seems to me it is Bruce Mitchell with the prejudices here, I'm sure many never even thought about Henry's creed when they referred to him as such, I personally thought it was a good nickname, and I would have thought they same were it given to Rikishi, Big Show, Albert or any dominant member of the roster.

[kjh]

Oh dear, here we go again. Why, dear anarchistxx, are we supposed to believe that it is a mere coincidence that the animal chosen as a nickname for Mark Henry is also black? Moreover, why choose an animal that has been used in the past as a racial slur for black people? Or is it OK just because they didn't choose the more common slurs of ape and monkey? When a promoter like Vince McMahon has a long track record of using negative racial stereotypes in his storylines, he doesn't ever deserve the benefit of the doubt in situations like this.

 

I'm pretty numb now to WWE's brand of bad taste, as I expect the worst of them, but it does incense me when people won't call a spade, a spade. Be apathetic to it all you want, but don't call it unprejudiced, when it so blatantly and overtly is.

[anarchistxx]

Well, whatever, it just seems to me that they're just trying to portray him as violent and powerful. I'm sure if he found it completely racially innapropriate he would have asked them not to bring it up.

 

It was a racial stereotype, but not really anymore. Fat people have generally been mocked with words like 'giant' and 'big bastard', yet nobody said that fat people may be offended when Big Show was called a 'big nasty bastard' or a 'big angry giant'.

 

Certainly this is not the smartest move for the WWE, especially at a time when they're trying to gain mainstream attention, but I don't believe it's intentionally offensive.

[sek69]

Man, any point Mitchell ever tries to make is immediately canceled out by him being such an insufferable douchebag. Saying he has to consult Wikipedia for info on gorillas? Come the fuck on. Yeah, it's pretty close to the border for racism, but Vince could have a Klan rally on RAW next week and most of the media will ignore it just like they ignore anything wrestling does outside of WrestleMania.

 

Also, is the term "Silverback" racist now? Is the IFL team with that name racist, or do they get a pass for being all white dudes? Or are they double-secret-probation racist for comparing the team to big black dudes?

 

Hell, I always thought Mark Henry looked more like Predator than a gorilla anyway.

[pantherwagner]

Have you ever seen his picture? Every point he ever tries to make is immediately canceled out by his looks.

[sek69]

Have you ever seen his picture? Every point he ever tries to make is immediately canceled out by his looks.

 

 

I HAVE OPINIONZ 4U!!!

 

 

 

(he's on the left, Dave "It's Still Real To Me" Wills on the right)

[Guest FatGuyMac]

What's odd about this situation for me is that years ago I was in the 3rd row at a house show, and some rednecks in the 1st row were screaming racist insults at Henry the whole match. "Silverback" was one of their favorite slurs. Henry was visibly pissed, and I remember thinking that he probably heard that shit on a regular basis and it had to be incredibly hard to refrain from hurting someone. Obviously wrestlers have had every insult in the book yelled at them, but I would imagine the racist stuff still stings. It was a random house show, and I barely remember anything else about it, but that stuck with me.

 

Now it's a part of his gimmick. Weird.

[Dylan Waco]

I love Mitchell in that picture wearing the shirt of known racial antagonist Brian Pillman