Legacy vs Rebellion: Booker T Swerve Strickland and the Generational Divide
Generational divides. Old school vs. New School. “Get off my lawn!” vs. “This is my neighborhood now.” Booker T. vs. Swerve Strickland.
It’s a classic tale in America, but this piece will specifically be about Black Americans. But to understand the mentality of the two men this piece is about, we need to go back in history just a smidge.
Orphaned at 13
Booker T Huffman was born on March 1, 1965 in Plain Dealing, Louisiana. He is the youngest of eight children. By the time he turned 13 years old, both of his parents had passed away and he moved in with his 16-year-old sister. He moved in with his older brother Lash, also known as Stevie Ray, at age 17. Before he was a wrestling star, Booker was arrested and pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery counts related to he and others’ armed robberies at Wendy’s restaurants in Houston. He served nineteen months in prison and was paroled in 1992.
The landscape of the United States, especially in the rural south, was not ideal for young black men. My Grandfather, who was born in Alabama and moved to Michigan when he was 15 years old, often carried a lot of his experiences and racial trauma into the newer era. My Father, his son, has told me countless stories about my Grandpa warning him to “be careful around those white folks” whenever he left the Detroit city limits. The reason I bring this up, is because this seems to be much more representative of Booker T’s line of thought.
7 years in Frankfurt
Swerve Strickland on the other hand, was born on September 30, 1990 in Tacoma, Washington, a much more racially diverse area of the country. His father, who was a sergeant first class cook in the United States Army, moved the family to Germany when Strickland was two months old to live on an American military base in Frankfurt. Strickland spent the first seven years of his life in Germany. The family later returned to the United States and settled in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, where Strickland attended Donegal High School.
The landscape at this time in the country was changing. Racism was still prevalent, however it became much more shameful to publicly express these attitudes. Around the same time Swerve was a baby, Booker T was making his debut with his brother, who went by the names Kane and Cole. Their manager was an overtly southern gentleman who dressed like a plantation owner, named Col. Robert Parker. Their gimmick? Wearing shackles to the ring, as Col. Parker had “purchased” their freedom from prison and they were indebted to him. Thankfully, WCW realized the optics and quickly changed this presentation.
Racism is still alive
Fast forward to 2005, and we have King Booker, one of the top stars in WWE at the time, and three of the most in your face examples of racism in modern wrestling happened to be aimed at (or near) Booker himself. The 1st? Triple H using very obvious racial tropes and insults to degrade Booker T, and then giving him a pedigree at WrestleMania, delaying the pin for at LEAST 30 seconds. This made Booker look extremely weak, and there was no comeuppance for Triple H’s trash behavior. The 2nd? Vince McMahon calls John Cena his “nigga” in front of Booker and his wife. The 3rd? The Kurt Angle…angle. You know the one. “I wanna have beastiality sex with his wife.” Well, if you know what beastiality is, you know that means sex with animals. So, Kurt Angle was calling Booker T’s beautiful black wife an animal.
These are just SOME of the examples that Swerve was referring to when he said that Booker T “wasn’t treated fair by WWE” (which is all he said about Booker by the way.) In contrast, you have Swerve Strickland who has become one the biggest stars in wrestling, he has mainstream appeal, and is unapologetically black.
Old School vs New School
As I said earlier, I brought up the difference in mentality. I wanted to paint the picture of both of their backgrounds to possibly explain where this comes from. If you were born in a racist environment, lost your parents at a young age, and did prison time in Texas, “being careful around them white folks” was in all likelihood a survival technique that he had to adopt, that never really left his psyche. Swerve on the other hand, grew up around white people, lived in the North, the East Coast, and in Europe, and did not share the same concerns as Booker, as his experience was probably drastically different.
What I would love to see come out of this is Swerve and Booker T coming together for a podcast, discussing where the tension (on Booker’s side) came from, the difference in generational mentalities, and how we can bridge the age gap. Because at the end of the day, these are two men who both broke barriers and paved a way for future entertainers who look like me, have hair like mine, and talk in a way I’m familiar with.
May Swerve’s House and King Booker’s Kingdom unite.
Art by Brett Michelle
