Muhammad Ali's Conflict Theory

In the height of the Vietnam war, the United States government called upon on Cassius Clay to be drafted into the Army and fight in the war. Muhammad Ali refused to go, and fight a war that did not have anything to do with him, and because his religion made him a pacifist.

Conflict theory is a macro-level theory that states society is made up of power struggles between those with power and those who do not have any or as much. Muhammad Ali refusing to go into the war was a result of the prejudice and racism that he felt from White people. The dominant group held values that anyone in society must go to war for their country without a second thought if called upon. While on the other hand the subordinate group clashed back refusing to lay down their life and risk losing their humanity for a society that takes advantage and disrespects its

People assign a meaning to something and decide how to act accordingly. This does not mean that assigned meanings are permanent. Assigned meanings can change based on the interactions that the individual has. To the American people the Vietnam war was a war against the evil communist and the fight for democracy, while on the other hand, Muhammad Ali did not see the war as his battle to fight in. Ali’s experiences living as an African American Muslim among a White Christian society made him believe that the white man is the devil and that the war in Vietnam is the work of the devil. This made Ali not want to fight for a group of people who have treated him like a second-class citizen all his life because of the color of his skin. George Hebert Mead believed that the development of an individual was a social process, because of his interactions with other people Ali developed a negative meaning to the war and ultimately decided that he was not going to find in what he saw as an unjust