Rightwing boxer knocked out
US boxer Rod Salka must have thought it was a good idea to wear border-wall-themed trunks against his Mexican opponent.
At a super-featherweight match against Francisco Vargas in California last April, Salka’s shorts read ‘America 1st’ against a background of bricks – an obvious reference to President Trump’s pledge to ‘build a wall’ between the US and Mexico.
But Salka was promptly defeated after six rounds and has since become the butt of social media jokes. ‘[Vargas] tried to knock the racism out of him,’ wrote Twitter user Shea Serrano.
Salka’s trouncing comes as activists step up their campaign against the draconian Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which aggressively captures and deports ‘illegal’ men, women and children living in the US.
In an interview on Bad Left Hook website, Salka said he’s not racist and is in favour of legal immigration, before adding, ‘I do think we need to put America first a lot more than we do’.
This article is from
the May 2018 issue
of New Internationalist.
- Discover unique global perspectives
- Support cutting-edge independent media
- Magazine delivered to your door or inbox
- Digital archive of over 500 issues
- Fund in-depth, high quality journalism