Playing to Win: Baseball As a Racialized Parenting Strategy
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Playing to Win: Baseball as a Racialized Parenting Strategy A thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Sociology of the College of Arts and Sciences by Curtis L Webb III B.A., Morehouse College May 2013 November 12, 2017 Committee: Littisha A. Bates, Ph.D. (Chair) and Erynn Masi De Casanova, Ph.D. Playing to Win: Baseball as a Racialized Parenting Strategy Abstract What do recreational teams, Cub Scouts, and ballet recitals all have in common? Each of these activities are examples of extracurricular activities (ECA) that parents often enroll their children; one parenting strategy that is important for parents across racial and class lines. This study draws on twenty-five in-depth interviews with parents whose children are in the Cincinnati Urban Youth Academy (CUYA), an extracurricular program centered on developing baseball and softball skills. This study explores if and how parents' racial and class backgrounds, and the gender of the child affect the ways parents perceive children's involvement in ECAs, with a focus on their experiences in CUYA. All of the parents in this study practiced some form of concerted cultivation, a parenting style where parents have their children constantly involved in organized activities to help their development. The findings suggest that parents of different racial backgrounds all sought out racial socialization opportunities through ECAs, but the actual racialization processes varied across racial lines. I also found that a child’s gender affected parents’ thoughts on potential program benefits and involvement in ECAs. Parents of girls stressed the importance of character development and being involved in a diverse set of ECAs, while parents of boys stressed physical development and involvement in fewer similar ECAs. As child involvement in ECAs continues to increase, understanding the role of ECAs as a parenting strategy is important because it is commonly associated with good parenting. This project provides evidence that parents see ECAs, and more specifically CUYA, as more than a simple baseball or softball program, but a racial socialization tool, network builder, skill booster, and an organization to set up their children for future success. Acknowledgments I would like to thank my committee chair Dr. Littisha Bates, and co-chair Dr. Erynn Casanova sincerely for their guidance through this arduous process. Their commitment to providing valuable and timely feedback, intertwined with their patience and unwavering encouragement helped me reach the end of this journey. I would like to thank my committee member Dr. Erynn Casanova whose methodological expertise helped teach me valuable skills for this project. The knowledge and experience of interviewing and research recruitment will aid me in my future endeavors. I would also like to thank her for providing the class space and class time that helped brainstorm ideas for this project, and put the project into motion. I cannot thank Dr. Littisha Bates enough for helping me to turn this from a class paper into a Master’s Thesis. Dr. Bates sat through many meetings providing me with exceptional mentorship, and more importantly encouraging me to finish! Further, I would like to the Cincinnati Urban Youth Academy for welcoming me into their organizational space, as well as the parents who gave their time to help me pursue this research. I must also thank my friends in my graduate program, and others who sent me words of encouragement from afar. They all reassured me that I could complete this project and gave me boosts when I needed a push. Finally, I am blessed to have a family who is the ultimate support system, and my constant cheerleaders. Specifically, I would like to thank my parents and sister, and other family members who always believe in me, and motivate me to dream big because of their constant encouragement to pursue my goals. Although, I completed the writing of this project, it would not have reached this point of completion without many who had my best interest at heart. For this I am deeply grateful and blessed. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………..….... 1 BACKGROUND…………………………………………………………………………….5 Parenting …………………………………………………………………………………… 5 Extracurricular Programming……………………………………………………………… 12 Youth and Sports…………….…………………………………………………………..… 14 Overscheduling……………………………………………………………….……………. 16 METHODS….……………………………………………………………………….…….. 18 The Site……………………………………………………………………….……………. 20 The Population……………………………………………………………….……………. 23 The Interviews……………………………………………………………….……………. 26 A Note on Positionality…………………………………………………..….……………. 27 FINDINGS………………………………………………………………………………… 29 An Idle Mind is the Devil’s Playground……...………………………………………….…31 I Found Out From a Friend……….…………………………………………………...…... 35 The CUYA As A Space For Racial Socialization. ………………………………………... 42 More Mo’Nes, Serenas, and a Few Athletic Guys Too…………….……………………… 57 DISCUSSION………………………………………………………..…………………….. 65 FUTURE RESEARCH. ……………………………………………………………………73 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………………… 76 APPENDIX….……………………………………………………………………………… 82 1 Introduction One of my most vivid childhood memories is my time in Chicago’s Common Ground for Youth and Community Prevention Program, a community extracurricular organization in my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. My Black parents saw my involvement in this organization, and others like it as preparation for success in white America. I believe my parents thought they were being “good parents”, and viewed extracurricular activities (ECA) as a resistance strategy to combat racial hostility and discrimination faced by young Black men in America. Researchers suggest that involvement in ECAs is commonly associated with practices of good middle-class parenting (Mose 2016). ECAs like Chicago’s Common Ground for Youth and Community Prevention Program often center their lessons on respect, integrity, and creating holistic and “productive” citizens. This informed my current research question, as years later, I wondered what extracurricular organizations were actually preparing children of color like me for. Perhaps, to respectfully, occupy a (white) middle-class space? This study draws on theories of race and family to examine if and how parents’ racial and class backgrounds, affected the ways they interpreted their children’s involvement in extracurricular activities. My personal biography speaks to strategies employed by parents of color to prepare their children to succeed despite the persistent racial inequalities and discrimination that still profoundly impact the lives of marginalized populations throughout the United States, particularly in Cincinnati where my research was conducted. The Greater Cincinnati Urban League’s recent report, "The State of Black Cincinnati 2015: Two Cities", details a grim picture for Black residents who live in the city compared to their white counterparts. These glaring differences in lived experiences between Black and white Cincinnatians becomes further troubling when considering that the two populations are quite similar in terms of the percentage of the population. Although the percentages of the Black and white residents of the city are close 2 (42 and 52 percentage respectively) (ACS 1010), the Urban League’s report suggests that their lives could not be more different, as institutional racism is still prevalent in the lives of Black Cincinnatians. The report discussed the differences in education, income, criminal justice involvement, employment, and housing between Black and white natives (Curnutte 2015). One of the reports' significant findings was that three out of four Black children, six years and younger, were growing up in poverty. These children often experience poor quality education, poor health outcomes, high crime rates, and substandard housing conditions (Curnutte 2015). The report also illuminates disparities in disciplinary actions in schools, as Black male students were four times more likely to be disciplined than white males, and Black females were more than twice as likely to be disciplined as white males (Curnutte 2015). In both cases, these disciplinary actions caused students to miss valuable school time and fall behind their peers. Additionally, in the city of Cincinnati, which is located in Hamilton County, African-Americans represent about 25% of the Hamilton County population, but form nearly 60% of Hamilton County Justice Center’s population (Curnutte 2015). The racial inequalities highlighted in the Greater Cincinnati Urban League’s report are not unique to Cincinnati but rather an indication of how the current racial landscape in the United States continues to create drastically different lived experiences for people based on their positions in the socially constructed racial hierarchy. White individuals receive numerous benefits from this hierarchy while people of color experience different levels of oppression based on their proximity to whiteness, both physically and based on their performance of race (Harris 3 2006). The theory of Whiteness1 describes, "a constantly shifting boundary separating those who are entitled to have certain privileges (white people) from those whose exploitation and vulnerability to violence is justified by their not being white“ (Kivel 1996:19). Non-white families are expected to move through society achieving similar outcomes as their white counterparts without the benefits of Whiteness