When I was doing karate in LA I was a little surprised how black the competitive sparring circuit was. I guess I shouldn’t’ve - fighting sports have always been the province of driven subalterns.

It was striking how these senseis were actual blaxploitation heroes - tall, steely-eyed dudes with fros, bushy mustaches, black belts, and a calling to clean up the ghetto streets. Except the role of “intimate companion and ally” was cast less as “a sexy pistol-packing jungle mama” than “our lord and savior Jesus Christ”.