A Quote by Amir Khan
I know for a fact if I were a white English fighter, maybe I would have been a superstar in Britain - and the world.
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During the Battle of Britain the question "fighter or fighter-bomber?" had been decided once and for all: The fighter can only be used as a bomb carrier with lasting effect when sufficient air superiority has been won.
James Joyce's English was based on the rhythm of the Irish language. He wrote things that shocked English language speakers but he was thinking in Gaelic. I've sung songs that if they were in English, would have been banned too. The psyche of the Irish language is completely different to the English-speaking world.
One thing I see in a lot of coaches is they try to live through the fighter. You can't live through the fighter. You gotta allow the fighter to be the fighter, and do what he do, and you just try to guide him. Why should I have to live through a fighter, when I went from eating out of a trashcan to being eight-time world champion? I stood in the limelight and did what I had to do as a fighter. I've been where that fighter is trying to go.
I know I'm a good fighter, probably a great fighter. I've fought the best in the world since I was a kid, and I've been fortunate to come out on top.
My mother had been an English teacher in India before she came to the U.K., and she taught me to read early on - not only in English, but in Hindi, too. My teachers didn't like the fact that I was reading more quickly than they were teaching, and as a consequence, I would sometimes get bored in class.
If I could be that guy to help that young superstar to emerge into that superstar superstar, I would love to do that.
In 1965, when great young white artists in the English-speaking world were successfully re-channeling hillbilly and black music - you know Bob Dylan, Ray Davies, Pete Townsend, Keith Richards - they didn't get any money at first. They were all broke.
If I had been a different sort of person, maybe less impressionable, less intense, less fearful, less utterly dependent upon the perceptions of others - maybe then I would not have bought the cultural party line that thinness is the be-all and end-all of goals. Maybe if my family had not been in utter chaos most of the time, maybe if my parents were a little better at dealing with their own lives maybe if I'd gotten help sooner, or if I'd gotten different help, maybe if I didn't so fiercely cherish my secret, or if I were not such a good liar, or were not quite so empty inside... maybe.
People sometimes ask me if I would not give anything to be white, I answer, in the words of the song, most emphatically, 'No.' How do I know what I might be if I were a white man? I might be a sand-hog, burrowing away and losing my health for $8 a day. I might be a street-car conductor at $12 or $15 a week. There is many a white man less fortunate and less well equipped than I am. In fact, I have never been able to discover that there was anything disgraceful in being a colored man. But I have often found it inconvenient - in America.
Britain is not homogenous; it was never a society without conflict. The English fought tooth and nail over everything we know of as English political virtues - rule of law, free speech, the franchise.
If Britain becomes a member of the Community, it will be healthier for Britain, advantageous for Europe, and a gain for the whole world. I do not know of many economic or political problems in the world which will be easier to solve if Britain is outside rather than inside the Community.
Boxing is a business. I have been in the professional game for five years now - I'm not doing it for nothing. I am doing it so I can provide for my future family, so I can have a future. I am here to make money. And at the same time I'm the most exciting fighter in Britain, if not the world, in my opinion. I don't know anybody else in the game that does the things I do in the ring.
When it came to hip-hop... I don't know. Maybe I was insecure. You know, this is the early '90s. If you were a white guy, and you were rapping, that wasn't as accepted yet. I was scared of the quiet Northeast suburbs, so I couldn't embrace my full rapper self.
I am an American. I adore Britain and have a strong English half, but my roots are here in the U.S. - it is not a matter of choice; it is simply fact.
I wasn't born to be a fighter. The causes I have fought for have invariably been causes that should have been gained by a delicate suggestion. Since they never were, I made myself into a fighter.
Being born white in South Africa or anywhere in the empire and Commonwealth automatically conferred this special status. You had no problem finding a place to live, a job, trade union membership, access to social services. Being white, speaking English, you were accepted as English, entitled to all the rights of citizenship.
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