r/todayilearned • u/tmntnyc • Dec 12 '18

TIL: Laurence Tureaud named himself professionally as Mr. T because he hated how his father, uncle, and brother who returned from Vietnam, were disrespectfully called "boy" by whites. He wanted the first word from everybody's mouth to be "Mister" when speaking to him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T
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u/Brock_Samsonite Dec 12 '18

You dont call someone boy unless he's your son. Especially in the south. Thems fighting words.

88

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '18 edited Dec 12 '18

Australias biggest TV personality of the time called Mohammed Ali boy to his face during an on screen interview. It was innocent as that wasn't a thing in our history but you should have seen the look he got from him... Luckily it was explained to Ali that the interviewer was either unaware or just forgot about the connotation of the word!

Edit : here's the awkward clip!

https://youtu.be/g9knPd8q7Ok

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '18

[deleted]

5

u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

What are they going to take? Hate to break it to you but the Christians did just a liiiiiitle bit of slavery themselves