Racism In Sport Research Articles

Alvin Dark and the Chipmunks: Racism, Baseball, and the Press in 1964

ABSTRACT In 1964, Newsday columnist Stan Isaacs quoted San Francisco Giants manager Alvin Dark making disparaging comments about his team’s Black and Latino players. This article analyzes the controversy over the Newsday column, with a focus on the interpretations of sports journalists. Most baseball writers excused Dark and attacked Isaacs, who was one of the “Chipmunks”—a cohort of young, socially conscious columnists for East Coast afternoon newspapers. The San Francisco press protected Dark out of regional identification, while New York’s veteran writers resented the style of the upstarts. The mainstream press muffled the genuine grievances of Black and Latino players, and it manipulated the statements and actions of superstars Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays. Although Black columnists saw Dark’s comments as indicative of racism in sports, most sportswriters downplayed the conflict, reflecting baseball’s prevalent biases in this era.

A study of critical whiteness in sport research and disrupting racism: research with a Black Lives Matter task force

ABSTRACT This research note considers tensions and challenges faced by our research team in raising questions about white researchers, problematizing whiteness in research, and confronting anti-Black racism in sport. We document important insights to disrupt how white privilege is connected to complicity in racism. In doing so, we critically reflect on the process of our work with a Black Lives Matters (BLM) task force and our shift towards proactive allyship. Specifically, we frame our discussion through the concepts of critical whiteness, critical humility, and discomfort as white researchers involved in a social justice project confronting anti-Black racism in sport. Finally, with a call to action we identify the need for researchers to practice flexibility in research design and embrace social movements that alter the linear approaches to data collection and analysis. We also critique research team composition with our commitment to disrupting racism by problematizing whiteness.

The UN’s Work on Racial Discrimination: Achievements and Challenges

In 1997, the Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations General Assembly decided to convene the third World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa. All the major United Nations treaties protecting individuals from racial discrimination had been adopted prior to 1997 and the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance had been created in 1993. But the Durban Conference, symbolically held in post- apartheid South Africa, generated new momentum for these political and legal commitments against racial discrimination. This chapter presents an overview of the United Nations mechanisms and initiatives tackling racial discrimination and the thematic developments since 1997. In light of contemporary challenges posed by the use of technology and pandemics, and reflecting on the intersectional nature of discrimination, it concludes with reflections on the strengths and weaknesses of the United Nations response to racial discrimination. The chapter identifies areas for further attention, including racial profiling in law enforcement and border security, racism in sport, and the deepening inequalities caused by global emergencies.

‘Racist behaviour is interfering with the game’: exploring football fans’ online responses to accusations of racism in football

ABSTRACT This paper explores an incident of alleged fan racism involving Chelsea defender, Antonio Rüdiger. During a match against Tottenham Hotspur, in December 2019, Rüdiger claimed he heard racial abuse from Spurs fans. This incident sparked a broader national conversation regarding racism in sport, and wider society. This paper will draw on a comprehensive content analysis of Twitter comments to provide insights into fan reactions at the time of the incident. Was Rüdiger alleged to have played the ‘race card’? Was Rüdiger believed to have used his ‘race’ to attempt to punish the Spurs’ fans? Using thematic analysis, it will highlight patterns in fan responses to this case and attempt to illustrate football fans’ attitudes towards ‘race’ and racism within English football. The paper will close by offering some final thoughts on how racism, and other forms of discrimination, can be both challenged inside the stadium and on social media.

Discrimination in Sports as a Risk of Human Rights Violations in Ukraine

The urgency of the issue in question lies in the need to improve anti-discrimination legislation in Ukraine. The article aims to summarize the current state of combating discrimination in sports. Research methods include analysis, generalization, and the formal-logical method. The article summarizes international acts that promote the prohibition of discrimination and the need to combat it. One of the main problems in world sport is racial discrimination, and there are three types of racism in sports. The main disadvantage of laws that lead to imperfect prosecution mechanism is entirely criminal liability for discrimination, even though the law on preventing and combating discrimination also implies administrative and civil liability. The article analyzes some positive foreign experience in combating and counteracting in sports. It shows that the priority areas for combating and counteracting discrimination in sports in Ukraine should be: (a) improving the legislation in terms of prosecution; (b) establishing a special body responsible for combating and counteracting discrimination in sports; (c) introducing educational tools in schools and among members of sports organizations that promote human rights, regardless of race, colour or other characteristics. Emphasis is placed on the fact that an effective mechanism of legal regulation together with preventive measures should guarantee the protection of the rights of both athletes and fans. The obtained results can serve as the basis of legislative proposals to improve the fight against discrimination in sports, which will ensure the protection of human rights.

‘And Now, No Word from Our Sponsors’: Yorkshire cricket, the Azeem Rafiq controversy and the silence of the University

In 2021 Yorkshire County Cricket Club found itself at the centre of international media attention when a former player, Azeem Rafiq, spoke about the racism he had endured at the Club. When an investigation verified Rafiq’s account, all the Club’s sponsors, including Leeds Beckett University, ended their partnerships. Racism in sport is not new, nor is racism in higher education, nor is racism in Yorkshire; what this incident does is to bring these dimensions of racism together and ask important questions about the ways in which they overlap. Two themes emerged from interviews with individuals connected, in different ways, to the University. The first is the University’s muted response to this incident, a silence that was mirrored across other Leeds-based academic and sporting institutions. A second emergent theme is the absence of academic staff from minority ethnic backgrounds working in university sports departments and researching racism in sport.

Una visión futurista del racismo en el deporte por medio de un análisis temporal

This work deals, as its title indicates, with a temporary analysis by means of which a problematic reality knownto all such as racism in sport and which has been occurring continuously for many years, requires solutions tobe sought. The aim is to find solutions that not only allow us to confront such racism, but also to contribute tofight it so that it can finally disappear.

How Can Social Branding Mitigate Racism Among Fans in Sports? A Q-sort Analysis on the Value of Social Branding Campaigns as Vehicles for Reducing Racism Among Soccer Fans

Social branding is a new governance strategy in the field of sport. National governments and sport associations, for instance, use branding to reach out to fans and alter their perceptions of racism in sport. But how do fans, as a target group, actually value this governance strategy? This article zooms in on the purpose of social branding, as perceived by fans as a target group in a social branding campaign on racism in soccer in the Netherlands. The Q-sort methodology was used to study the subjective viewpoints of 29 soccer fans of different professional sport clubs. The analysis reveals that soccer fans prefer a transparent branding process in which they are recognized as coproducers of the brand and can add their story to the brand message that is conveyed to target audiences.

ОСОБЕННОСТИ ПРОЦЕССА ПОЛИТИЗАЦИИ СПОРТА ВЫСШИХ ДОСТИЖЕНИЙ: ИСТОРИКО-ПОЛИТОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ АНАЛИЗ

The main purpose of the article is to reconstruct the history of sports politicization, by which the authors, in accordance with the position of Norbert Elias and Pierre Bourdieu, understand the special practice of competitive games that arises in the states of the modern era. In this sense, the beginning of modern sports is the second half of the 19th century. The article demonstrates that throughout its development, sport goes through a complex evolution from the form of the embodiment of the power of the national state to the concept of sports outside politics, which is currently collapsing under the influence of explicit and hidden practices of the repoliticization of sports. Special attention is paid to the history of the fight against racism in sports, which in the 21st century is becoming a space for the realization of political interests, the hidden form of which is the practices of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

Countering Racism in Sports or Its New Round: Controversial Practices of the Black Lives Matter Movement

Countering Racism in Sports or Its New Round: Controversial Practices of the Black Lives Matter Movement

Get That S.O.B. Off the Field: A Critical Discourse Analysis of NFL Team Owners’ Responses to President Trump’s Comments About Athlete Protests

In this study, scholarship was extended on the cultural meanings of race and athlete activism by interrogating one key media spectacle surrounding athlete protests: President Trump’s 2017 speech questioning the National Football League (NFL) players’ character, with a focus on NFL owners’ responses. The NFL owners’ statements (n = 32) were subjected to critical discourse analysis. Discourses of post-racial nationalism and functionalism and the subject positions of “good player citizen” and “benevolent facilitator” (re)created meanings of the protests devoid of racial politics, linked to ideologies of color blindness, meritocracy, and diversity. These discourses and subject positions allowed the NFL owners to control protest meanings to maintain White privilege and appeal to their White fan base. These findings expand research on color-blind racism in sport, which perpetuates neoliberal ideals and the myth of a post-racial America, via taken-for-granted language use within discourses.

Low Hanging Fruit: How Sports Talk Radio Hosts Discuss Racism

Talk radio has grown exponentially in the United States. The growth in talk radio was ignited by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed station owners to purchase more stations without antitrust scrutiny. One of the most popular formats on the radio is sports talk radio. Sports talk radio provides a unique entry point to understand how callers and hosts discuss racism in sport. The purpose of this study is to advance our understanding of race on the radio by examining how sports talk radio hosts discuss racism. The researcher interviewed 15 sports talk radio hosts over the phone to better understand how they discuss racism on the airwaves. After reviewing the transcripts and going through several rounds of data analysis, three themes were discovered: We can smell it, race is not always about race, and Black/White binary.

A produção da Educação Física brasileira sobre fair play e racismo no esporte: estado da arte de teses e dissertações

Fair Play (FP) refere-se a atitudes moralmente boas na prática esportiva e reprova o racismo. No Brasil, o esporte começou a se desenvolver após o fim da escravidão, de modo que o racismo acompanha a sua história. A presente pesquisa teve por objetivo mapear e analisar a produção acadêmica da Educação Física brasileira sobre a temática do FP e do racismo no esporte. Realizou-se uma revisão bibliográfica de teses e dissertações produzidas nos principais Programas de Pós-Graduação de Educação Física brasileiros. Levantaram-se 32 teses e 103 dissertações, das quais cinco teses e dez dissertações foram analisadas. Essa considerável redução ocorreu porque poucos trabalhos relacionam diretamente as duas temáticas. Entre os analisados, destacaram-se aqueles que tratam sobre o futebol, especialmente sobre violência entre torcidas. Houve também uma expressiva parcela de trabalhos que realçou a importância do FP e do combate ao racismo na Educação Física escolar.

The problem of racism in European football

The paper addresses racism as a key contemporary challenge to safety at football matches in Europe. The hypothesis is that racism does occur in the sports environment. To prepare the paper, press excerpts and scholarly publications on racism were used. To interpret the material, comparative method was used, so as to present the environments that harm safety in sports. The goal was to demonstrate the role of education in fighting discrimination in contemporary European football and the need to care for security culture in football. It is because football stadiums become arenas for expressing political and ideological views, as well as for racist at-tacks. The author points at the role of mass media and public entities in shaping social atti-tudes concerning racism in sports. He also indicates shortcomings in the law and in the activi-ties of the institutions overseeing sportspeople’s and sports activists’ safety. The conclusion is that the upbringing of society as regards tolerance and respect must become a priority in fighting racism in sports. Further research should focus on the education of children and ado-lescents and on introducing costly and effective sanctions for the individuals and entities that violate the rule of respecting one’s sports competitor.

‘I haven’t lost hope of reaching out … ’: exposing racism in sport by elevating counternarratives

ABSTRACTThis paper tells the ‘back story’ to the development of a local soccer hub, which focuses on the experiences of a predominantly South Sudanese team called the Western Tigers. We use a counter-story telling approach anchored in critical race theory, to develop a composite story that brings together biographical and autobiographical accounts gathered during an ethnographic study. These accounts are narrated from the vantage point of David, a player/coach, whose experiences expose everyday racism and its effects, while also illuminating responses to racism in the context of sport. This composite story challenges dominant narratives about sport in Australian society particularly those that position sport as the great equaliser and a pathway to ‘integration’ and belonging. Our analysis sheds light onto how the dynamics of racialisation and exclusion take the form of a slow violence for young people of refugee background, shaping their experiences and trajectories on and off the field. We discuss the paradoxical role of settings such as the Western Tigers and the Community Soccer Hub as important ‘public homeplaces’, that can also be understood as marginalised and marginalising for young people of refugee background.

Investigating Debates Around Racism in Sport to Facilitate Perspective Transformation in the Secondary English Classroom

The English classroom is a space in which issues of social justice can be explored through texts, using a critical literacy approach. Indigenous Australians have been subject to racist policies throughout postcolonial Australian history, and racist attitudes toward Australia’s original inhabitants prevail. This article suggests that racism in the Australian Football League online discourse community can be addressed in the English classroom, as social media texts in this area provide rich illustration of the prevailing antisocial attitudes thriving both in this community and the broader Australian community. Informed by both critical literacy and transformative learning theory (TLT), this article proposes a learning experience to facilitate perspective transformation in a secondary classroom. This experience draws on TLT to construct an experience incorporating introspection, stimulating awareness, reflection, and action. This experience is proposed in the hope that reticence to directly challenge antisocial views in the classroom may be overcome.

“Yes, I am a racist! So what?” The incompetence of hegemonic discourse of the Czech media to reflect racism in sport

The paper presents results of discourse analysis focusing on the representation of racism in the news and online discussions dedicated to the case of the football team SU Junior Roma. This team was boycotted by other teams in the league. They did not want to play with them, referring to the alleged aggressiveness of players with Roma ethnicity. After analysing related articles and reader’s posts, the paper reveals a discrepancy between the representation of racism in sport by media and discussing readers. The findings support our hypothesis that discussions under articles allowed people to spread racist thoughts and build the resistance towards others. On the contrary, the journalists used hegemonic discourse, which the racism theme set aside or avoided it entirely.

‘For your ears only!’ Donald Sterling and backstage racism in sport

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this paper is to elucidate how racism manifests ‘behind closed doors’ in the backstage private domain. We do this with reference to recent high-profile controversies in the US and UK. In particular, we use the concepts of frontstage (public) and backstage (private) racism to unpack the extraordinary case in point of the ex-National Basketball Association franchise owner Donald Sterling. The paper concludes that though it is important for frontstage racism to be disrupted, activist scholars must be mindful of the lesser-known, and lesser-researched, clandestine backstage racism that, we argue, galvanizes more public manifestations. The Donald Sterling case is an example of how backstage racism functions and, potentially, how it can be resisted.

Out of bounds: racism and the black athlete

This collection of essays highlights the controversies surrounding racism in sports and African American athletes, examining the racial discrimination that exists in one of the most public arenas in the 21st century. Despite increasing diversity in the American population, race and racial bias continue to be significant issues in the United States. Sports-one of the most visible and important subsets of American culture-directly reflect our society's beliefs about race. This book examines racial controversy and conflict in various sports in the United States in both previous eras as well as the current Age of Obama. The essays in the work explain how racial ideologies are created and recreated in all areas of public life, including the world of sports. The authors address a wide range of sports, including ones where racial minorities are in the numerical minority, such as hockey. Specific topics covered include the devaluation of black athletes, racism in Major League Baseball, and the treatment of black female athletes. Enables readers to comprehend how sports influence-and are influenced by-society, and grasp that both race and sports are powerful social constructions Contains contributions from sociologist and social theorist Joe Feagin, a highly respected authority on the subject of race Identifies and discusses the institutional barriers and personal practices regarding African Americans that perpetuate racism in sports and our society at large

Codes Combined: managing expectations and policy responses to racism in sport

This article is a transnational comparative discussion that interrogates responses, particularly formal policy frameworks, to addressing racial vilification in sport. Themes interrogated include racism in sport, sport as an agent for social change, diversity in sport, sport and community harmony, sport and ethnicity, and sport and education. Emphasis is placed on the importance of education as a plank in formal policy responses to addressing on- and off-field racism in elite sport. The article also examines how education is important in enabling greater social participation among groups. National and transnational discussions about respective footballing codes are located within a broader international context by way of comparison with other elite sports.