Historically, sport has been viewed as an apolitical space where organizers, managers, coaches, spectators, and sponsors expected athletes to focus solely on their performance and adhere to functionalist origins of the activity, including physical fitness benefits, character building, teamwork, and social entertainment. Despite these various positive attributes, the institution of sport does not operate in isolation from broader society. Instead, sport serves as a site where societal inequalities such as racism, sexism, economic stratification, and other forms of oppression are reproduced, exacerbated, and/or ignored. Throughout history, several African American athletes, sport scholar activists, sport institutions, and entrepreneurs have critically reflected upon this arrangement and courageously engaged in actions to promote social justice within and beyond sporting spaces. Recent actions by African American athletes across participation levels have raised questions about the term activism and how it is applied to certain actions. In an effort to foster a deeper understanding of this phenomenon, the purpose of this article is to present a typology that delineates different forms of African American sport activism. The proposed typology outlines five categories: (1) symbolic activism; (2) scholarly activism; (3) grassroots activism; (4) sport-based activism; and (5) economic activism. Implications for future engagement and research are discussed.
There are two cultural narratives often purported within the American sports cultures of basketball and football. First, those participating within these sports are African American athletes from poor communities lacking educational and economic opportunities. Second, the meritocratic myth perpetuating American society feeds the notion no matter where an individual is from their talent will elevate them to the next level. There have already been a few studies who have challenged these myths. This study seeks to continue the conversation by collecting community data on 7,670 high school football recruits for the years 2000 to 2016. This study seeks to provide a broad overview of the interscholastic football landscape as well as determine production levels of schools. This study finds that while players are recruited from a diverse range of communities and school types, as a school becomes more productive they tend to be located within wealthier urban communities, have a diverse student body, and have a higher likelihood of being a private school.
This study deconstructs the racial dimension of teacher resistance to parent authority within the shared social institution of education. More specifically, we examine how teachers responded to a teacher evaluation policy that included a parent-based component to assess teacher quality. Using framing theory, this study illustrates the use of professionalism as one mechanism connecting teachers’ individual actions to broader sociocultural experiences of privilege and oppression. To illustrate the anatomy of color-blind framing, we deconstruct three tactics teachers used when framing their resistance to parents: minimizing professional responsibility for engaging parents, masking racist perspectives through geographic and social distance, and misdirecting attention away from parents’ rights to judge education as a public good.
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