Racism In Sport Research Articles

FIFA and the South Africa question: The 1976/1977 football unity talks and their impact on the development of professional football in South Africa

The football unity talks which formally began in October 1976 were important because sport was integral to the debate about the national question in South Africa. At the time, football as a sport code was designated in negative and racist undertones as a ‘sport for blacks’ and rugby, golf, athletics, hockey, cricket and swimming were regarded as sporting codes reserved for white South Africans. These sports benefited immensely in terms of generous funding, infrastructure and facilities provided by the apartheid regime. This paper will be based on the following themes. First, it will focus on the broad legislative measures which reinforced separate development and racism in South Africa and how these laws impacted on the development of sport. Second, it will scrutinize the role of the multilateral, worldwide antiapartheid movement and boycott movement, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) in using football sanctions as a tool to fight apartheid and racism in sport. Third, the football unity talks of 1976 will be analysed. This discussion will focus on issues inside the boardroom, the football field and what took place outside the boardroom and off the football field. Lastly, the impact of the unity on the players and the public at large-including the development of professional football since 1976 will be reviewed. A major theme which runs through the different sections is defined by the use and abuse of football as a tool for public and sport diplomacy. This was because the football unity talks in South Africa were as a result of what was taking place in the world of international, continental, national and local politics.

Book Review: Dave Zirin, Game Over: How Politics Has Turned the Sports World Upside Down

Book Review: Dave Zirin, Game Over: How Politics Has Turned the Sports World Upside Down. New Press, 2013, ISBN: 978-1595588159 (Paperback). 240 Pages. $18.95[Article copies available for a fee from Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http://www, transformativestudies, org ©2013 by Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]Dave Zirin's newest book, Game Over: How Politics Has Turned the Sports World Upside Down, may be mistitled. Zirin does a terrific job of showing exactly how politics has turned the sports world upside down, but is the over? In fact, reviewing his litany of examples, it seems this game has been going on for decades and with no end in sight. This troubling, complicated relationship between sport and politics isn't new at all, and Zirin reminds the reader of this long term relationship that many continue to deny even exits. Over nine chapters, along with a short pre-game and post-game, Zirin covers the expected broad topics in a book like this - gender, race, and sexuality, along with more specific political issues, such as the Arab Spring, team owners, Joe Paterno and Penn State, Los and Zirin's current enemy number one (he's not alone; for example, see columns written by Joe Nocera of the New York Times), the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Many of the chapters are lengthier versions of Zirin's weekly columns at The Edge of and most are timely with layers of examples and connections. His writing style is engaging, provocative, and simply fresh, especially when read against the writings of sport reporters on websites and newspapers who toe the line to please their readers.Chapter 7, Here Comes Los Suns, stands out in this collection. Zirin uses the recent immigration legislation in Arizona and SB 1070, officially known as the Arizona Senate Bill 1070 Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, along with the responses from Major League Baseball, who hosted the All-Star Game in Phoenix the next year, and the Phoenix to illustrate the insidious ways politics influence sports and, importantly, sport fans and voters.The chapter that seems most out of place is Chapter 8, 'Is Your Underwear Flame Retardant?' Sexuality and which attempts to examine gender and sexuality in sport. Zirin is simply too ambitious in this chapter, providing some historical background (which is absent in the other chapters), and without a clear focus that is evident in the other chapters. He borrows material from his film Not Just a Game: Power, Politics & American Sports, including a list from 1878 detailing the downfall of women who play croquet, which doesn't help explicate the relationship between politics and sports, or help pinpoint current issues related to sexism (and there are plenty out there). Certainly there are current events that do show the politics-sport relationship, and Zirin briefly identifies a few, such as South African runner Caster Semenya, and, however briefly, Danica Patrick. By including a chapter on sexuality, Zirin signals his desire to be an advocate for women and homosexuals in sport, and he should be commended for not just focusing on men's sports. But by making the chapter so unlike the others, and without a clear focus, Chapter 8 appears to have been included for the purpose of not excluding women, when there are so many current examples of politics-sports that involve female athletes. His section on LGBT issues is worth including here as well, although it is interesting that the focus is on men's sports and homophobia.The final chapter, 'I'm Not Your Child': Racism Today in is also less focused, but because Zirin stays in the present, and provides a variety of examples of racism within sport, including David Stern and NBA policies, Michael Vick, and, Jeremy Lin, it works better as an overview of racism in sport than the chapter on gender. …

The televised sport ‘monkey trial’: ‘race’ and the politics of post-colonial cricket

Most critical analyses of racism in sport have taken place under conditions of white institutional domination, deploying a white/non-white binary model. But what of cases in which the issue of racism may not be confined to the usual antagonists? In recent years, international cricket, once clearly bearing the stamp of British imperialism, has been increasingly controlled by a coalition of cricket authorities, media corporations and entrepreneurs from the Indian subcontinent. This new order was strikingly revealed in early 2008 when Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh allegedly called Andrew Symonds, one of whose biological parents is Afro-Caribbean, a ‘monkey’ during a Test match in Australia. This article examines the ensuing furore in the international media and the organizational manoeuvring and resolution among the cricket authorities. It argues that the changing international political economy of sport is having a significant impact on its post-colonial cultural politics, including patterns of conduct and contested readings of mediated sport events.

How a turn to critical race theory can contribute to our understanding of ‘race’, racism and anti-racism in sport

As long as racism has been associated with sport there have been consistent, if not coordinated or coherent, struggles to confront its various forms. Critical race theory (CRT) is a framework established to challenge these racialized inequalities and racism in society and has some utility for anti-racism in sport. CRT’s focus on social justice and transformation are two areas of convergence between critical race theorists and anti-racists. Of the many nuanced and pernicious forms of racism, one of the most obvious and commonly reported forms of racism in sport, racial abuse, has been described as a kind of dehumanizing process by Gardiner (2003), as those who are its target are simultaneously (re)constructed and objectified according to everyday myth and fantasy. However, this is one of the many forms of everyday racist experiences. Various forms of racism can be experienced in boardrooms, on television, in print, in the stands, on the sidelines and on the pitch. Many times racism is trivialized and put down as part of the game (Long et al., 2000), yet its impact is rarely the source of further exploration. This article will explore the conceptualization of ‘race’ and racism for a more effective anti-racism. Critical race theory will also be used to explore the ideas that underpin considerations of the severity of racist behaviour and the implications for anti-racism.

Race and racism: Experiences of black Norwegian athletes

This article examines race and racism in sport based on the experiences of black Norwegian athletes. The findings are based on in-depth qualitative interviews with nine female and eight male black athletes. Race and racism concepts are explored to draw attention to different approaches of understanding racism in sport, from the individual to the institutional level. The findings add to previous critical scholarship which cautioned that sport should not be taken for granted as free from racial inequalities. By using Critical Race Theory (CRT), we examine how racializations of racial minorities in sport from mere stereotypes to the ways institutions function, work to produce and reproduce racial inequalities. We argue for a more systematic and critical analysis of contemporary Norwegian sport for a better understanding of how race relations and racism are exercised. This is expected to contribute in the development of better and more effective policies to deal with racial and ethnic diversity in contemporary Norwegian sport.

On the Moral Economy of Racism and Racist Rationalizations in Sport

This article draws on and extends a series of empirical studies into the nature and extent of racism in selected sports and philosophical explorations of certain virtues and vices in sports more generally. In particular, the article explores dispassionately questions of responsibility and culpability for both committed and unacknowledged racism in sports, and critically evaluates sportspersons’ attempts to rationalize it. We argue that it is necessary to examine: some of the underpinning ‘logic’ of empirical and conceptual research; certain unchallenged assumptions about the moral repugnance of racism; and certain undifferentiated moral responses to racisms of lesser and greater viciousness. The aim of this article, then, is to offer a clearer conceptual schema for evaluating beliefs and behaviour in this highly charged arena. We examine critically certain definitions of racism, and evaluate the ethical standing of a range of actions and practices that characteristically fall under the labels ‘racist’ and ‘racism’.

Shades of white: an examination of whiteness in sport

Apart from millennium concerns about what it means to be English, 'whiteness' has largely escaped examination, particularly in the leisure literature. Where 'black' people have been seen as the significant other in British sport, 'whiteness' could be seen as the 'silent' other. This paper begins to redress this by drawing on the experience of a suite of studies conducted by the Centre for Leisure and Sport Research into racism in sport. During those we solicited self-definitions of ethnicity and explored perceived characteristics not just of Asian and African-Caribbean, but also of white footballers and cricketers. From this we examine personal identity in the context of normalized, privileged 'whiteness' and demonstrate the processes by which these operate in sporting environments. Examining 'whiteness' more closely should allow researchers to make it visible and open to discussion. Moreover, an understanding of its construction generates the possibility of a clearer understanding of the processes of racism, hence a better chance of disrupting them. The paper demonstrates the complexity of these processes and their interpretation, which cannot, of course, be achieved independently of the researchers' own blackness and whiteness.

No racism here? A preliminary examination of sporting innocence

The issue of racism in sport has been receiving a lot of attention recently, but there is a tendency to be distracted by high-profile cases in football that grab the headlines. In this paper attention is directed not just to conspicuous incidents, but to the 'everyday racism' that is insidious and difficult to address. Drawing on empirical research (particularly in rugby league and cricket), existing literature and media coverage, the paper examines the various attempts to rationalize claims of racism in sport. The paper identifies the process of denial by many within sport that serves to inhibit moves to counter racism and reviews some of the most common attempts to explain away what is perceived as racism.

The Rhetoric of Racism in Sport: Tom Brokaw Revisited

This article provides a sociorhetorical analysis of the April 25, 1989, NBC telecast of “Black Athletes—Fact and Fiction.” It applies Toulmin’s (1958) model of the structure of argumentation to identify the major claims, data, and warrants Tom Brokaw used to construct the program and argues that a racist rhetorical structure resulted. We posit that the racism lay in the claims Brokaw made, the data he utilized, the inferences he drew from selected sources, and the absence of alternative explanations. The sociological implications of such a racist rhetorical structure are explored.

Sport in America: New Historical Perspectives

This stimulating anthology provides a scholarly perspective on the history of sport. New and exciting dimensions of sport history are introduced by exploring its political, economic, social, and cultural aspects. Race relations and racism in sport, the interaction of sports and politics, sexism and the role of women in sports, and the role that the profit motive plays in sports are among the topics covered. The impact of American attitudes toward violence as they apply to sport, and sport's powerful role in reinforcing class values are also reviewed from a historical perspective.

The Role of Icaris (International Campaign Against Racism in Sport) and San-Roc (South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee) in Initiating Tennis Protests 1977-1978

The Role of Icaris (International Campaign Against Racism in Sport) and San-Roc (South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee) in Initiating Tennis Protests 1977-1978

The Socio-Historic Background of the Ideology of Racism in Sport

The Socio-Historic Background of the Ideology of Racism in Sport