Another year, another Black Friday, and another day of insanity. This year, a 34-year-old Wal-Mart worker died in the stampede as shoppers smashed down the doors to begin their holiday shopping spree. Ugh...the maniacal acquisition of consumer goods comes at a cost.
I’m a huge fan of Buy Nothing Day, a practical response to the post-Thanksgiving buying binge. Falling on the same day as Black Friday, Buy Nothing Day encourages others to step away from consumer culture and think about their spending habits.
Now I’m not a Christian, but it seems that the whole Christmas spirit of loving one another, helping the less fortunate, and spending time with your friends and family has all but disappeared. In its place, we have a frenzied pursuit of playstations and plastic baby toys and expensive candies and matching dinner plates and tree ornaments and please santa I want a robot pony and and and...
...and BND gets back to the basic premise that our cultural focus on gathering products (rather than building relationships with real people) is damaging to both people and the environment. Now in its 17th year, BND protests occur outside of shopping centers all over the world.
Yesterday, BND activists in the UK organized a rat race to show the ridiculousness of excessive consumerism. They dressed in rat costumes and raced around the mall telling people to work harder and buy more stuff. Way to go, rats; I like their pairing of sports and social metaphors.
They also handed out little comics to illustrate their message. Their point is that making lots of money and buying lots of stuff won’t bring happiness.
Here’s the image the UK activists used in their Black Friday protest:
World middleweight boxing champion Laila Ali has more going for her than stellar athletic ability. As the youngest daughter of world-renowned boxing champ Muhammad Ali, she has some pretty big shoes to fill. But she proved her boxing worth right from the get-go when she knocked out her very first opponent without a hitch.
That was back in 99. Since then, Laila has kept rocking the ring and using her time in the spotlight to advocate for positive social change. Ali currently serves on the board of trustees for the Women’s Sports Foundation, a nonprofit that seeks to “advance the lives of girls and women through sport and physical activity.” She works for better health and fitness through her partnerships with the American Diabetes Alliance and the Nation’s Food Bank Network, which helps to alleviate hunger for low-income children in the United States. She has participated in fundraisers for ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History. She is an outspoken advocate of women and girls in sports, and also addresses the specific challenges faced by women of color and low-income women in sports. Rock on, Laila.
Watch this short video segment where Laila talks about how media representations affect young people, women, and people of color.
A recent study by the Women's Sports Foundation says that young girls residing in inner cities have less opportunity in sports.
I tackled a similar issue last week when I discussed the conundrum facing African American female athletes.
Not surprising, we now have researched evidence that not only speaks to
"race" identity politics, but also suggests that class (despite "race")
is a contributing factors to inner city girls participating less in
sports than inner city boys.
Besides the most obvious "gender" identity politic, the following contribute to such disparities:
Race
Economic inequality
School location
According to a Houston Chronice article,
when communities and schools lack funding, boys will come first and
benefit from most from the money left to support sports activities.
But is this really "new knowledge"? Honestly, I could've told you that
minority and economically disadvantaged young female athletes have less
opportunity in sports. Other than gender, race, class, and geographic
location, I also think that culturing has much to do with girls' lack
of participation.
According to the study girls enter sports at approximately
10-years-old, whereas boys enter the sport at approximately
7-years-old. Perhaps the fact that some young girls are more
encouraged toward ballet shoes than basketball shoes has something to
do with the delayed interest.
My above analysis is, of course, plauged with generalities. While
growing up I was actually encourage toward ballet shoes AND basketball
shoes. Yet at the same time media, my peers, and school had somehow
conquered my subconscious and made me believe that it's better girls
take a back seat to boys when it comes to opportunity through sports.
So yeah, culture has lots to do with girls' participation in sports.
I came across this cool Nike ad, "Girls." The ad really makes a subtle
yet poignant point about girls and sports. Afterall, shouldn't sports just
as empowering for girls as it is for boys?
Yesterday I wrote a post about white privilege—it’s ubiquitous in western society, but often goes unacknowledged.
But some would question that statement in the context of professional sports. Back in 2000, Jon Entine wrote a book called Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why we’re Afraid to Talk About It. At the time of his writing, African-Americans made up 13 percent of the U.S. population, yet comprised 65 percent of NFL athletes and 80 percent of the NBA.
I don’t know the current numbers, but I have no reason to argue with the statement that black athletes outnumber white athletes in pro sports. So why are there such disproportionate numbers of black players in pro sports? Does that mean that race issues have been resolved? Does it mean that there is ‘reverse racism’ in effect?
[Let me stop for a second to explain why I hate the term ‘reverse racism.’ There is no such thing as ‘reverse racism.’ Racism is an entire system of oppression perpetrated by one racial group (the group that holds most systemic power) unto another racial group. You can’t pick out little discrepancies and call it racism; that’s inaccurate. There are such things as racial bias or even white hatred, but there’s no such thing as ‘reverse racism.’]
Entine answered these questions by claiming that our predicament is rooted in biology; as athletes, blacks are naturally superior to whites.
Clearly, this is a very controversial statement. I’m very skeptical of any “biological” argument about racial superiority or inferiority. It is just too reminiscent of eugenics practices in the United States, otherwise known as “the good breeding movement” that began in the late 20th century and continued into the 1970s. This involved forced sterilization of hundreds of black women across the United States, under the racist assumption that their genes were inferior (Sinderbrand). And then there was the time when Samuel Morton “proved” white man’s intellectual superiority in 1839 by measuring the cranial capacity of skulls. But don’t forget the studies of Sarah Bartmann. By measuring the size of Bartmann’s labia, scientists were able to “prove” that black women are more sexually charged (read: promiscuous) than white women (Giddings 416).
Maybe now you understand why I’m skeptical. Too many biological studies of race had an unethical and atrocious history of proving whatever point the white scientist felt like making.
Another NBA blogger noted that “19th century biological ideas of race continue to inform how we think about not just black and white athletes but about black and white people in general: black people are physically gifted, BUT the white people are intelligent.” The old stereotype that black people are more physical (and less intellectual) fits in nicely with Entine's thesis.
So then the question remains—why are there so many more pro black athletes than pro white athletes?
It could have something to do with culture. Maybe more white kids are encouraged to pursue career paths in medicine or law rather than basketball or football. I’ve heard that for many black urban youth, becoming a sports star often seems like the best shot at “making it”—not to mention the fact that basketball could translate into a full athletic scholarship for college. Like I mentioned yesterday, white folks on average have more economic privilege and might not need to focus so much on getting a sports scholarship or even a job in pro sports.
This is just a guess. I don’t know the answer. I’m happy that the MLB and NBA are no longer white organizations. I’m upset that racist stereotypes still live on in the sports world.
Sources:
Giddings, Paula. “The Last Taboo.” In Beverly Guy-Sheftall, ed., Words of Fire. The New Press. New York: 1995.
Sinderbrand, Rebecca. “A Shameful Little Secret.” Newsweek: March 28, 2005
After reading Tara’s awesome post about the economic hardships often faced by women and people of color, I began writing a comment in response to her post. After typing for a couple of minutes, I realized that I had much more to say about white privilege than I could fit into a little comment box.
I’ve thought a lot about what it means to be white in a country (a global economy, really) where white guys control the majority of wealth and most positions of power (CEOs, senate chairs, etc). Tara’s absolutely right; the distribution of wealth—and access to information about attaining financial success—is skewed in favor of whiteness.
Many white people tend to think of their own economic privilege as something that they earned purely through hard work, perseverance, and intelligence. They often overlook business lessons passed down from parents and grandparents, job offers from neighbors, inheritance funds from relatives, and other sources of good fortune that can be traced back to white privilege.
That’s not to say that all white people are born with a silver spoon and an open invitation to an Ivy League college; social class, geographic location, physical/mental ability, and other factors also have a lot to do with access to resources. But on average, white folks have more access to more resources than people of color.
You can see this racial bias just about everywhere. (That is, unless you’re so enveloped in white privilege that you can’t even see its existence. One aspect of white privilege is the privilege to not have to think about race matters much at all. They say that fish can’t see water; likewise, most white people (including myself, I’m sure) can’t see white privilege in all of its manifestations. For a better explanation of this, read Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh. It’s a short article—I highly recommend it.)
Anyway, white privilege also lives on in the sports world. Whether it’s the privilege to name a sports facility after a racial slur, the privilege to report only white sports events, or the privilege to deny ‘others’ entrance to white-only swimming pools, nonwhite athletes have had a heck of a time trying to overcome racist social institutions and racist attitudes in sports.
But the current prevalence of Black athletes in pro sports leads some to suggest that either race issues have been resolved, or that there’s even some level of ‘reverse racism’ occurring in the sports world...
