Sneak Preview Modern Sport and the African American Experience Edited by Gary Sailes Included in this preview: • Copyright Page • Table of Contents • Excerpt of Chapter 1 For additional information on adopting this book for your class, please contact us at 800.200.3908 x71 or via e-mail at [email protected] Sneak Preview Modern Sport and the African American Experience Edited by Gary Sailes Indiana University, Bloomington Copyright © 2010 by Gary Sailes. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfi lming, and recording, or in any information retrieval system without the written permission of University Readers, Inc. First published in the United States of America in 2010 by Cognella, a division of University Readers, Inc. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trade- marks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe. 14 13 12 11 10 1 2 3 4 5 Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 978-1-935551-30-0 Contents Foreword vii By Gary Sailes Introduction 1. Crisis of Black Athletes on the Eve of the 21st Century 1 By Harry Edwards Chapter I: African American Culture and Sport 2. Race and Ethnicity in the Sociology of Sport in the United States 11 By Jay Coakley 3. Th e Role of Sport in the Black Community 25 By Othello Harris 4. Th e Conveyor Belt: Th e Dilemma of Alienation 35 By William C. Rhoden Chapter II: Myths, Stereotypes, and Images of the African American Athlete 5. Th e African American Athlete: Social Myths and Stereotypes 55 By Gary Sailes 6. Examining the Portrayal of the Black Male Athletes in Leading Sport Magazine Advertisements 69 By Billy Hawkins, Ph.D. 7. “White Men Can’t Jump”: Evidence for the Perceptual Confi rmation of Racial Stereotypes Following a Basketball Game 87 By Jeff Stone, Zachary W. Perry, and John M. Darley Chapter III: Performance Differences 8. An Examination of Basketball Performance Diff erences Among African American Men 107 By Gary Sailes 9. Perceptions of Athletic Superiority: A View from the Other Side 117 By Laura Azzarito, Joe Burden, Jr., and Louis Harrison, Jr. 10. Talented Genetics Or Genetically Talented Th e Historical Rationale for Black Athletics Success 137 Tina Hunt, Isaac Ivery, and Gary Sailes Chapter IV: African American Women and Sport 11. Factors Infl uencing the Sport Participation Patterns of African American Females 155 By Jennifer E. Bruening, Donna L. Pastore, and Ketra L. Armstrong 12. Th e African American Female in Collegiate Sport: Sexism and Racism 181 By Doris Corbett and William Johnson 13. Brown Sugar: Media Images of African American Female Professional Athletes 217 By Kelli Hinton, Gary Sailes, Zayn Jenkins, and Elizabeth Gregg Chapter V: College Sports 14. Understanding Racism Th rough the Eyes of African American Male Student Athletes 231 By John N. Singer 15. College Students’ Perceptions, Myths, and Stereotypes About African American Athleticism: A Qualitative Investigation 241 C. Keith Harrison and Suzanne Malia Lawrence 16. Short Communication: African American Athletes’ Experiences of Race in Sport 267 By Suzanne Malia Lawrence Chapter VI: Power, Confl ict, and Cultural Identity 17. Race and Penalized Sports Behaviors 285 By Herbert D. Simons 18. African American Racial Identity and Sport 305 By Louis Harrison, Jr., C. Keith Harrison, and Leonard N. Moore 19. African American Head Coaches and Administrators: Progress But …? 321 By Dana Brooks and Ronald Althouse Foreword By Gary Sailes MODERN SPORT AND the African American Experience is a collection of essays from some of America’s most brilliant and vibrant sport sociology and race scholars in the United States. I constructed this book as a result of my inability to fi nd a text on the market that focused on the topics I critically examine in a course I teach at Indiana University. Th e focus of this text highlights more of the experiences of African Americans in modern sport than any of its kind which makes it a more complete book than any on the market today. Th e essays contained within this text allow me to provide interesting and provocative information about relevant topics on the African American experience in modern sport. It is my intent to stimulate and maintain the interest and attention of my undergraduate students, a daunting challenge to be sure. Th e experiences of African Americans in modern sport are unique. My twenty-fi ve years of research has taught me that those unique experiences are important, worth writing about and surely would stimulate interesting conversations across the country among scholars, students and sports fans alike. It was my intent to stimulate the senses, to evoke emotional responses and most importantly, to teach. Many of the examples detailed in this book were images of my own experiences as an African American athlete and coach. My head was initially fi lled with familiarity, frustration and anger which eventually led to objectivity and served as the foundation for my work as a sport sociolo- gist and race scholar. Th is collection of essays represents the central themes in the discussion on African American participation in modern sport. Certainly there are other very provocative and more detailed issues which we discuss in class but which fall under the genre of the central themes contained in this book. For example, in our class, we also discuss African American male student athlete interracial dating, the invisibility of the African American female stu- dent athlete, homophobia among African American athletes, the black machismo, athletic VII dominance, and much more. Consequently, the central themes and the essays included in this work lead to stimulating discussions and provocative critical debates. My favorite aspect of this text and the class I teach is it gets my students talking and encourages their participation in class. Th e articles in this anthology represent the diversity of issues in the discussion on African American sports participation. I searched six months for what I felt were the most compelling and divergent essays in the literature. Many of the essays are current but I felt some earlier essays were too compelling to ignore, especially since their uniqueness was not replicated since their initial publication. Th e Introduction is a single essay by Harry Edwards. I have the highest regard for Edwards’ work because he is arguably the “Father” of American critical thought about culture and sport. Certainly, he was a signifi cant pioneer in the development of American Sport Sociology and the dialogue on critical race theory in sport. It was Edwards’ work that drew me into this discipline and his early writings made me feel he was an invisible spectator witnessing my early experiences in sport as an athlete and coach. It is with intent, reverence and respect that Edwards’ work represents the initial essay in this anthology. As always, Edwards delivers in a compelling and thought provoking article on what he perceives will be the immediate future of the African American athlete. Th ere is something very special occurring in America’s black communities relative to preparing male youth for adulthood. Specifi c social aspects of the African American male’s “Rites of Passage” pass through basketball courts and football fi elds. Richard Lapchick, architect of the Center for the Study of Sport in Society, claims that a black family is seven times more likely to push a male child into sport than a white family. Jay Coakley further confi rms this thought in his work proclaiming that the social world of the African American community is organized such that it fosters a sense of sports destiny within its own culture. In the chapter on African American culture and sport, Jay Coakley introduces the reader to the intricacies of race and sport in American culture and the impact race has on sporting culture within the African American community. Psychologist Richard Majors eloquently delivers a powerful essay on black male masculinity and how it expresses itself in American sport. William Rhoden plays the role of anchor in this chapter and takes the reader on a journey disclosing the inequities and lack of power African American athletes actually experience as they navigate through the “Conveyor Belt” we call institutionalized American sport. I have studied the myths, stereotypes and media images of the African American athlete for three decades. I fi nd it both fascinating and frustrating that with current media satura- tion and competitive sports racial interaction on so many levels that many of the cultural beliefs from three decades ago still exist today. Chapter Th ree focuses on the myths, ste- reotypes, and media images of the African American athlete and I am sure will stimulate discussion and debate on many fronts. Th e ensuing chapter which focuses on performance diff erences between black and white athletes is a continuation of Chapter Th ree. Th ere is the belief that African American athletes are natural athletes and better performers than their white counterparts. Chapter Four examines performance diff erences between black VIII MODERN SPORT AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE and white athletes and asks the questions, where did this debate begin; where are we now; and where are we headed? Th ree years ago, one of my African American female students led me to recognize the fact the fact that my research focused exclusively on the African American male athlete. She felt the absence of research in the literature and in my own initiatives slighted the presence and contributions of African American women athletes.