Professional Wrestling's Most Offensive Racial Caricatures

While Jim Harris might not have had much actual wrestling ability, or the eloquence required to be a good talker, wrestling impresarios Jerry Lawler and Jerry Jarrett never let that kind of thing get in the way of pushing someone into the main event. Hell, it was what Lawler's entire career was based on.

Thus, the 6 foot 7 inch, near-400 pound Mississippi native was transformed into Kamala, the Ugandan Giant. Because if he's big and black, why wouldn't he be an inarticulate, loincloth-wearing cannibal covered in ridiculous bodypaint?

Putting aside the fact that  the former policeman is revered as a hero in his native India, The Great Khali is still kind of super-racist. There's absolutely room for a wrestler that plays around with Bollywood tropes, but that's not really what The Punjabi Giant is all about.

Named for the Hindu goddess of death and motherhood, Kali, the former Mr. India was given the same inarticulate savage gimmick with which so many other foreign, non-white wrestlers are saddled. Adding absurdity to offense, he was originally managed by Daivari, who would shout at him in Persian, a language not even spoken in India. Then, when Khali lost his heat, WWE used another common move from their "Ideas for Colored Wrestlers" playbook, turning The Great Khali into The Punjabi Playboy, a squared circle lothario that made out with ugly women.

That said, did you see when The Great Khali tried to give Big Show a goat? That shit ruled.

Sure, there have been a lot of racist American Indian characters in wrestling over the years, many of them more John Smith than Powhatan (we're looking at you, Chief Jay Strongbow). But those were the old days, back when everyone was totally racist - have you talked to your grandfather lately?

Tatanka, aka Chris Chavis, is an actual real-life American Indian, combining elaborate headdresses, tomahawks, warpaint and goofy stompdances from only-the-Raven-God-knows how many different Native American cultures. He's been on television as recently as November, 2010, dancing in a futile attempt to summon either rain, or a late-career midcard push.

Mike Jones' original wrestling gimmick was Soul Train Jones, which seems both self-explanatory and at least semi-racist. But he didn't really blossom into a full-fledged caricature until joining WWE, where he debuted as Virgil in 1987.

Virgil was supposedly meant to be Ted DiBiase's bodyguard. However, the way he followed The Million Dollar Man around, carried his bags, did his bidding and even wore a flashy sleeveless tuxedo made it clear that Virgil was less bodyguard and more manservant.