White Sports/Black Sports: Racial Disparities in Athletic Programs

225 Pages·2015·2.256 MB·English

by  Lori Latrice Martin

White Sports/
Black Sports
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White Sports/
Black Sports
Racial Disparities
in Athletic Programs
LORI LATRICE MARTIN
Racism in American Institutions
Brian D. Behnken, Series Editor
Copyright©2015byLoriLatriceMartin
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedinaretrieval
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Martin,LoriLatrice.
Whitesports,blacksports:racialdisparitiesinathleticprograms/LoriLatriceMartin.
pagescm.— (RacisminAmericanInstitutions/BrianD.Behnken,SeriesEditor.)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978–1–4408–0053–5(hardcopy:acid-freepaper)—ISBN978–1–4408–0054–2
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Contents
Series Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xi
1. Toward a Unifying Perspective of Race, Racism, and Sports 1
2. Race, Place, and Sports 21
3. A Perfect Combination: The Mass Media and Representations
of Race in Sports 35
4. Race Thinking and Minority Athletes in Football 51
5. America’s Other Favorite Pastime: Baseball 67
6. The New Plantation?: Racism on the Hardwood 81
7. Black-Free Zones: Black Athletes on the Course
and on the Court 105
8. Sports and the Myth of a Color-Blind Society 123
9. Conclusion 145
Notes 161
Bibliography 175
Index 201

Series Foreword
White Sports/Black Sports is the second book in Praeger Publisher’s series
Racism in American Institutions (RAI) to explore racial disparities in
American sports and the second offering from Lori Latrice Martin. The
RAIserieswasdesignedtoexaminethewaysinwhichracismhasbecome,
andremains,apartofthefabricofmanyAmericaninstitutions.Forexam-
ple,whiletheUnitedStatesmayhavedoneawaywithovertlyracistpolicies
suchasdisfranchisementlaws,racismstillaffectsmanyofAmerica’sestab-
lishedinstitutionsfromthelocalvotingregistrartopoliticaladvertisements
thatmarginalizecommunitiesofcolor.Lawenforcement,likemuchofthe
Americanlegalsystem,issupposedtobeimpartial,andyetpeopleofcolor
make up the majority of those incarcerated in American prisons. Recent
twenty-first-century examples of racism in sports, from mascots that cari-
cature Native American figures to sportscasters who argue that African
Americans make superior athletes because of the legacy of slavery, also
abound. This open-ended series of works examines the problem of racism
in established American institutions. Each book in the RAI series traces
theprevalenceofracismwithinaparticularinstitutionthroughoutthehis-
toryoftheUnitedStatesandexplorestheprobleminthatinstitutiontoday,
lookingatwaysinwhichtheinstitutionhasattemptedtorectifyracism,but
also thewaysin which it hasnot.
In White Sports/Black Sports, Lori Latrice Martin shifts our focus to the
myriad ways race has shaped sports as an institution. Many Americans
seem to think that certain ethno-racial communities somehow naturally
occupy certain sports. For example, some people believe African Ameri-
cansarenaturallybetteratbasketball.Martinchallengesthesebeliefs,dem-
onstrating that racial socialization—the process by which members of
various ethnic groups learn what is expected in U.S. society—has gone far
inestablishingthebeliefsandopinionsofAmericansaboutraceandsports.
This may mean the widespread acceptance of black players in basketball,
whilesimultaneously a widespread rejectionof blacks in, say, NASCARor