The Fallout in Public Response: “Much Ado About Nothing”?

Over at SportsFilter the SpoFites are debating the merit in any racist interpretation of the Vogue cover. Overwhelmingly, the consensus appears to be that this is “much ado about nothing.” LeBron okayed the image. Gisele signed off on it. Which must mean that we’ve got a collective of all-too-sensitive zealots who want to make an issue out of nothing.

Follow the debate. Throw in your two cents. In a day or two I’ll have a follow-up post to help “make sense” of this all from a critical, but realistic, cultural studies point-of-view. Until then … do join in on the discussion, whatever your viewpoint may be.

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Racial Stereotypes–are we reading too much?

Ironically, this controversy (err, flashpoint?) erupts just as I’m reading Scripting the Black Masculine Body by Ronald L. Jackson (2006). Which means that my first point is going to qualify this response as an admitted disourse analyst who does read this image (and the bodies therein) as text. I do this in response to Jackson’s critique that reads:

In reading bodies as text, the discourse analyst does the interpreting of the written text with little to no regard for how and why the text was initially written (p. 53).

Jackson goes on to then espouse, “in a bit more sophisticated terms,” the nuances of the analysis of corporeal inscription, which he insists involves a more in-depth, “critical focus on both the historical and contemporary manifestations of body politics” (p. 53). Its principle concern, he says, lies with the intent as well as the underlying motivations for the inscription–for the act of writing the text–which, in this case, would be the staging of the photograph.

But let’s put that rather semantic debate over whether or not analysing the discourse or the inscription is more valid in this case (obviously, you know where I stand on this issue–once again we’re confronted with someone who doesn’t grasp the scope and complexity of discourse analysis), and look at the act, motivations, and intentions behind the “inscription” of this text.

First of all, Vogue is 100% unsurrepticiously seeking to capitalize on the celebrity status of the two cover models. As Vogue spokesperson Patrick O’Connell states, the magazine is seeking “to celebrate two superstars at the top of their game.” Moreover, they are also wanting to maximize the benefits from having the first black male on its cover (only the third male to grace the cover in its history. If I’m not mistaken, following Richard Gere and George Clooney (both with the supposed intent to pander to Vogue’s gay readership)). Exploit James’s marketability? Why not? Nike is doing it (as is Coke, Bubblicious, and Juice Batteries). This isn’t new. “[T]he Black body is treated as cultural capital and commodified in the popular marketplace”  (Jackson paraphrasing Cornel West (1993), 2006, p. 73). Realistically, “[i]f one surrenders capitalism, one must also concede the exploitation of Black bodies and the negative projections that drive this exploitation” (p. 73). As a result, black bodies will ”continue being commodified in a number of ways throughout everyday [North] American life, and this practice is mirrored in popular culture” (p. 73).

Secondly, the photographer of this cover isn’t shy about taking “controversial” shots. In fact, it’s how she gained such notoriety. Annie Leibovitz, as a contributor to Vanity Fair, garnered the reputation of being bold and unafraid after such provocative pics as Demi Moore’s pregnant nude and Whoopi Goldberg in a tub of milk. So let’s not even try to pretend that this imagery is “innocent.” The analyst quoted in the article hits it right on the head. And since magazines with such high profiles as Vogue don’t rush to print their covers (especially ones with potential for negative fallout), this had to be intentional–planned and deliberate.

Finally, something must be said to those who don’t see any potentially racist overtones, or to LeBron James himself who told an interviewer, “Who cares what anyone says?” Speaking to the “hypersensitivity to race” in [North] America, simply ask yourself this: who do you want to win in the US Democratic Convention, and why? Sex/Gender and Race are still very much at the forefront of contemporary thought and politics. Unfortunately (yes, for black folks, but also for us all), if this imagery is what is used to sell magazines, the ”suggestion [remains] that the worth of Blacks lies in their ability to entertain via sports, dance, comedy, drama, and so on” (Jackson, 2006, p. 58). But rather than point fingers at who is to blame, the least we can do is to consider all of the reasons why this imagery–these texts–can still be read in this way. Why does the lascivious image of black men–on black bodies in general–remain so “prominent in popular media” (p. 4)? 

Because people buy it. It sells–period.

New Ethnicities – get your head around this, I dare you.

This is an excerpt from Stuart Hall’s (1992) chapter on “New ethnicities”:

     Another element inscribed in the new politics of representation has to do with the question of ethnicity. I am familiar with all the dangers of ‘ethnicity’ as a concept and have written myself about the fact that ethnicity, in the form of a culturally constructed sense of Englishness and a particularly closed, exclusive, and regressive form of English national identity, is one of the core characteristics of British racism today. I am also well aware that the politics of anti-racism has often constructed itself in terms of a contestation of ‘multi-ethnicity’ or ‘multi-culturalism’. On the other hand, as the politics of representation around the black subject shifts, I think we will begin to see a renewed contestation over the meaning of the term ‘ethnicity’ itself.

     If the black subject and black experience are not stabilized by Nature or by some other essential guarantee, then it must be the case that they are constructed historically, culturally, politically—and the concept which refers to this is ‘ethnicity’. The term ethnicity acknowledges the place of history, language and culture in the construction of subjectivity and identity, as well as the fact that all discourse is placed, positioned, situated, and all knowledge is contextual. Representation is possible only because enunciation is always produced within codes which have a history, a position within the discursive formations of a particular space and time. The displacement of the ‘centred’ discourses of the West entails putting in question its universalist character and its transcendental claims to speak for everyone, while being itself everywhere and nowhere. The fact that this grounding of ethnicity in difference was deployed, in the discourse of racism, as a means of disavowing the realities of racism and repression does not mean that we can permit the term to be permanently colonized. That appropriation will have to be contested, the term dis-articulated from its position in teh discourse of ‘multi-culturalism’ and transcoded, just as we previously had to recuperate the term ‘black’ from its place in a system of negative equivalences. The new politics of representation therefore also sets in motion an ideological contestation around the term ‘ethnicity’. But in order to pursue that movement further, we will have to re-theorize the concept of difference (p. 446).

So now that you’ve read all that, you are undoubtedly asking, “So what?” Well, simply put, this excerpt is a meditation on two things I’ve recently encountered. First, is the chapter that my last post references—”Football in Black & White” by Michael Oriard. Second, it relates to my interrogation of the racial politics put forward by Jim Brown. The former, for its explanation of the difference and diversity within the category of ‘black’; the latter, for his complicated espousal of strategic segregation (combating “integration” and “assimilation”) while at the same time embracing and erasing difference in personal relationships. So, in close, I’m trying to get my head around how this all could relate back to a reconceptualization of ‘ethnicity’, and what that would mean for a critical multiculturalism and/or an anti-racism politics. Guess I’m gonna have to sleep on it for at least one night.

Dig it!

Football in Black & White

I just finished what I think is one of the most engaging and accessible chapters on racialization and racial politics in professional sport. Oriard’s (2007) chapter “Football in Black & White” in Brand NFL: Making and Selling America’s Favorite Sport covers everything from stacking, “style”, and attitude, through economics and politics in the historical and contemporary periods. From Jim Brown through Chad Johnson and Terrell Owens, Willie Thrower through Michael Vick … he covers a lot of ground in this chapter, and covers it well. Frankly, the best quality of this chapter is how well Oriard delves into the complexity of racial politics and attitudes. He deftly explains the diversity and difference among supposedly homogeneous groups (e.g., how even black sports writers, coaches, etc. can differ in their views on things like “black expression” in the forms of endzone celebrations and sack dances).

In short, Michael Oriard, I’ve been a big fan of your cultural studies work since first cracking the spine of Reading Football. Well done in this latest work. Rest assured, I’ll put it to good use …

Dig it! 

More Themes for 2008–This one courtesy of Dave Zirin

And, of course, it was all brought to us 24 hours a day by a sports media quick to draw broad assumptions, as the push to put out opinions in the absence of facts has become an accepted hallmark of today’s information-first age. This was a particular catastrophe after the tragic slaying of Taylor and the irresponsible assumption that his death in a botched robbery was the result of a thug life gone awry.

Yes, my own theme for ‘08 is to Write-Write-Write, but Zirin’s message is an important one to consider. I think it is vital that the sports media starts to include more critical voices. My hat goes off to Zirin, William C. Rhoden, and Stephen Brunt, but I think that it is important to get some critical academic voices to join this choir. And I don’t mean in the “soundbite” kind of way that many academics make newsprint, but in comprehensive, thoughtful, reflective, and engaged ways–but still timely.

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Themes for 2008:

It is almost impossible to narrow down the most important theme for me and apandanhandad in 2008. Generally, it could easily be assigned to Do. Dammit, but the Nike slogan rings so true for me right now–Just Do It. Period. For all of the things that I want to get done, that slogan is what needs to drive me this year. In all reality, 2008 could be the year that apandanhandad comes to fruition. The harvest is revealed. In order for me to do that, however, means that there is another important single action word–WRITE! Write, dammit, write!

To Write–To Act–To Do

And this goes for all other things too: through my personal life, professional, spiritual, corporeal, economic, philosophical, activist, pedagogical, familial, right down through the menial. Just Act. 

Action is just, when it is “correct action”–buddhist-style. When an act is wise, it is a just act. Thoughtful. Generous. Peaceful. Resolute. Responsible.

That action can be to write, and to write critically and fair. And there are many things I need to write about in this way. Some of those things are:

New Racism in Sport–my dissertation topic. It’s a history lesson as much as it is a theorization and application. I’m finding flashpoint events in the media and using them for their pedagogical moments. Moments to pause and reflect on what’s just happened. And moments to prospect for different ways to negotiate the moments to come, and events yet to unfold. We remember the past, assess the contemporary, and envision the future. I need to write about this. From that, I can teach about this.

An Historical Sense (wirkliche historie)–Searching for Jimmy Brown. Racial Integration in Canadian Football (compared and contrasted with the AFL/NFL). Can-Am Relations post-Second World War. 1946 is a pivotal year in many ways, for many reasons. There are ways that sport reflects broader social and political movements–shifts. American import rules. Places like Syracuse and strict non-integrationist practices. The segue here is to the context in which this all occurred. Post-War milieux.

Speaking of War–The Militarization of Canadian Society. Sport as the “Long Bomb” into individual lives. Asking hard questions. Finding accountability. Deconstructing military logics. Reading Empire. Reading Zygmunt Bauman. Arendt. Frantz Fanon. Man, I’m so ready to write about this–invoking the Multitude.

Canadian Football: The Game, The Issues, The Fans–From a concerted effort to become an historian of the game itself, or more accurately, a social historian–to an ethicist exploring several issues confronting the league (e.g., CFLPA Disability Pensions, Retirement & Injury; The No-Drug-Testing Policy and its relation to an inferiority complex; Officiating)–to an honest-to-goodness “Superfan” of the game interested in capturing other fan experiences of the CFL, the Grey Cup especially. There is a LOT to be written about the CFL, from a variety of perspectives. 

In close, for the time being, the theme of ‘08 is WRITE! Write everything that needs to be written. My dissertation. My passions. My life. Writing is my life. And a good life it is!

*since there’s so much more to say and do, I must leave it at this for the moment …

Hello, 2008 … We’re gonna get along just great … 

Dig it!

   

I’ve got to work this out …

Okay, so I haven’t been blogging as promised. I’ve got a lot on the go at the moment. Unfortunately, that means my own writing has been taking a bit of a back seat. But there’s something that I have to get written ASAP, and that’s my NASSH abstract. I’ve been working on this for a long time. But now it’s time to work it out.

From the NASSH website:

Guidelines for Individual Papers:

1. Include author’s name, phone and fax number, and postal and email addresses.
2. Include title and abstract of the paper. The abstract should include the question(s) addressed in the paper, the evidence to be used, a precise statement of the argument and conclusions, and what significance the paper has to our understanding of sport history (500 words).
3. Suggest the type of NASSH conference session for which this paper might be appropriate.
4. Submit copies of the complete proposal by November 15, 2007 to ALL members of the program committee. E-mail addresses of the Program Committee members appear below. Early proposals are appreciated. E-mail attachment is one of the two preferred forms of submission. The second preferred method is sending the proposal via the NASSH website (www.nassh.org). People wishing to submit via the NASSH website will find instructions posted there as the deadline approaches.

So now, what I’ve gotta do is: ask the questions, find my evidence through research, clearly articulate the argument and the conclusions. Simple, right? So what about this?

To fully contextualize the current state of affairs in the Canadian Football League (CFL), a different kind of story line needs to be explored. Magnified by the overall lack of scholarship on the CFL, the histories of minority players has gone relatively unexplored. A few recent books on the subject have made me turn my eye in that direction. Third and a Mile: The trials and triumphs of the black quarterback by William C. Rhoden, and The Slave Side of Sunday by Anthony Prior, each tell similar stories. They draw comparisons between the Canadian and American (National) football leagues. And all share the kinds of stories told about life in football during the fifties and sixties. Out of Their League by Dave Meggeyesy and Canada’s own The Plastic Orgasm are rich with similar stories. But little effort has been made to connect them all.

My argument comes from a guy who really wants to know what life was like back then. The call has been loud for this kind of work. Rinaldo Walcott resonates the loudest, but also Abdel-Shehid, hooks, Anzaldua, and Shogan. It’s a call for a different kind of cultural studies. One that floats freely, not mired, in academese. One that roams smoothly back and forth between academic and less critical worlds. And I think people are really diggin’ critical histories these days. They move off the bookshelves. The grit and grime of real life need to be felt when reading or hearing the history. The texture of lives lived revealed. This goes for both my dissertation chapter/NASSH paper (the history of racial integration in the CFL) and the Jim Brown chapter. Yes, that totally needs to be next. From Ray Emery to Jim Brown, I’ll be able to easily jump to more ambitious projects. The dissertation project, to be precise. But I’ve digressed … my argument is that we need to have the historical sense of the people and the time. That’s the gritty feel. To really know what life was like, or the closest thing to it possible. So I read. I listen to people. I learn the stories. And then, I tell them the way I feel them. Like Dionne Brand on a mission. Like W.O. Mitchell on the prairies. Who has seen the wind? No, we know it’s who has felt the wind.

So now, in the true Murray style of making a short story long, the NASSH abstract idea:

On the heels of a revival movement around Black history, or rather, histories of blackness–the black experience–I am suggesting that one of the most fecund sites for historical analysis is the Canadian Football League. I can’t think of another perspective from which to better capture the racial climate across the nation, than through the eyes of the “pioneers.” What really happened in the wake of Jackie Robinson in Canada? How has the African-American experience informed, or been transformed by, life in Canada. My contemporary interest is in the Ricky Williams saga. My historical interest is from Herb Trawick (or not long before) through Johnny Bright to Warren Moon and Tracy Ham. I recognize, for brevity sake at a conference, I must limit this to a more narrow scope, but this contextualizes whatever period or figures I choose in the broader view of the research project overall. I think it is shameful that the public isn’t more aware of this fascinating thread of Canadian history, or the story that’s presently being told. Some writers have their finger on the pulse. Dionne Brand. Dave Zirin. Spike Lee. Sean Penn. Paul Haggis. Stephen Brunt. William Rhoden. And I’d love to join that club. Clearly, not in that same league right away, but always striving for it, and in time–who knows? But back to the punchline. I argue that by examining the stories of racialized athletes in certain parts of the country, at certain times in the past, we can get a better view of what social and cultural life were like in those places at those times. And while it feels like I’m stating the obvious, it’s one of those things that still needs to be restated. The CFL is largely unexplored, especially in light of the wealth and breadth of scholarly and literary work on hockey in Canada. Racial histories are only recently being added. A Fly in a Pail of Milk was quickly forgotten, Breaking the Ice was relatively cursory. But the cry sounds loud and clear in Black Like Who? and Bread Out of Stone. And even Linda Hutcheon. That’s right, I invoke an admitted postmodernist. Postmodernism is not the death of history, but a warm embrace of multiple histories. Just like when TV went from black & white to color. Life–in living color–the way it’s meant to be lived and remembered and re-told.

But more on this later … like I said, it something I have to work out. To be continued …       

Searching for Jim Brown

So I have been contracted to write a chapter in a kind of critical biography series. In this second volume, the theme is fallen. My chapter is supposed to be about how Jim Brown has seemingly fallen from grace in his status as a legendary runningback in the NFL, through times as a political activist (strong supporter in a pivotal time), to early retirement from football to pursue a career in film. I tentatively want to title the piece, “Jim Brown: One Bad Actor (or a really good guy?)” Fact is, I really don’t know Jim Brown. Yet, I can’t really explain why. I’m removed from him by just some degree of separation. There are athletes of similar status that I feel I know very well. Mediated knowledge of course, but still that so-close-you-can-think-you-can-touch-him kinda knowledge. [reminder: follow up with Smithers on that 'tactile burden' question] Magic Johnson. Moreso than Michael Jordan. I saw the former play live. And with historical athletes, like Muhammad Ali (who I did actually see fight live, but on television, and when I was very young), George Foreman (saw him fight Ken Lakusta at the Agricom), Walter Payton, Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis, Lew Alcindor to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, et al, I really feel confident in my knowledge about them, but it’s definitely knowledge in the wirkliche Historie as Nietzsche and Foucault describe it. I may be able to trace a genealogy, but I must be willing to surrender or refuse the certainty of absolutes. I can’t “know” anyone. But I can know how we got broken down by distinct regimes. I can know the resistances that have formed. But I can’t “know” it all.

So, that’s my long-winded way of saying that I can’t know it all, but I can get an historical sense. And that’s what I’m after about Jim Brown. And so, I’ve set out to look for him. He’s in many places, but only the spectre of him. It’s like he haunted many places and many people, but like a ghost you just can’t see the whole of him. It’s almost like Plato and how he almost never mentions himself, and when he does, it’s always in the third person. He’s always situated among great names. So what was his gift? What did he bring for us? And what did he do to make us think that he has fallen? That’s what I need to know. Jim Brown. That’s who I need to know. And here’s where I found him tonight:

The desire for Woods to be a savior matched a widespread hunger for a great African American redeemer. In twentieth-century American history, a series of black sports heroes achieved mythic status for their athletic exploits that transcended the social limitations of their race. From Jack Johnson, Jesse Owens, and Jackie Robinson to Muhammad Ali, Arthur Ashe, Jim Brown, and all the way through to Tiger Woods, American writers have continually fantasized that a single person could save U.S. society from endemic racial problems (Yu, 2002, pp.338-339). 

 And then there’s the reference in the classic, The Revolt of the Black Athlete:

In professional athletics, blacks and whites of similar abilities are paid vastly different salaries. Whites, in a word, make more on average than blacks. The super-stars such as Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Willie Mays, and Jimmy Brown, of course, rank as exceptions (Edwards, 1969, p. 22).

 And I’ll close with a quote from ol’ Jimmy himself:

Then, as now, attitudes toward Muhammad Ali paralleled attitudes toward his time. “I loved the 1960s,” Jim Brown, a friend and fan of Ali’s admitted; “America met Rebellion, got its pompous ass woken up.” (Hietala, 1995, p. 127).

I’m still searching for Jim Brown. One day, clearly a day after I’ve watched his film exploits, “I’m gonna git you sucka!”

Dig it!

Edwards, H. (1969). The Revolt of the Black Athlete. New York, NY: The Free Press. 

Hietala, T.R. (1995). Muhammad Ali and the age of bare-knuckle politics. In Gorn, E.J. (Ed.). Muhammad Ali: The People’s Champ. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. 117-153.

Yu, H. (2002). Tiger Woods at the center of history. In Bloom, J. & Willard, M.N. (Eds.). Sports Matters: Race, Recreation, and Culture. New York, NY: New York University Press. 320-353.

The Making of “Vanilla Ice” and the Rest of my Dissertation Case Studies

To describe the step-by-step method I employ to produce the chapters for my dissertation, I will recap the process used to write “Vanilla Ice: Prison garb, goalie masks, and the hip-hop panic in basketball and hockey” (Murray & Lorenz, forthcoming). It is a process that starts with the occurrence of a “flashpoint” event and ends ultimately with a prescription for possible interpretive or intervention strategies.

The case in this instance was precipitated by the enactment of a dress code policy in the National Basketball Association prior to the onset of the 2005/06 season. This set in motion a wide variety of responses by the affected players as well as the media.  Largely, any of the assertions that this dress code was racially motivated (due to its direct targeting of “hip-hop” apparel) were denounced or outright denied. Few pundit journalists were astute enough to notice that “race” was inextricably involved, but for the most part the dominant position was that “race had nothing to do with it.” As I have outlined elsewhere, there is a process that can be used to determine what constitutes a valid flashpoint. In this case, we (Lorenz and I) first contextualized the dress code within the broader “racialized culture wars” (Leonard, 2006, p. 158) being waged against hip-hop and the hip-hopification of the NBA in particular. Clearly, the “complication” (i.e., what went wrong) was that several players spoke out about how they felt that the dress code was aimed at the very culture from which they emerged (urban, street, hip-hop), the culture valorized by the NBA in its own marketing machine. As a result, our “evaluation” was in line with an example used by Philomena Essed (2002) that ”suggests that this was a case of [new] racism, even when [little or] no reference was made to color” (p. 212, see also Henry & Tator, 2002, p. 38). The argumentation to justify our position labelling it (the code) as racist was initially done in an op-ed piece published in the Edmonton Journal (Lorenz & Murray, 2005). Ironically, this formulated part of the overall and ongoing “reaction” in and by the media.

On the heels of the NBA dress code, Ray Emery of the Ottawa Senators also came under the fire of team management for ”problematic” forms of self-expression. Again, the similar process outlined above was employed to determine whether or not this was a fecund site for analysis. The complicated part of the Ray Emery case study is in the failure of anyone in the media to note the ways in which his forms of “personal” expression are, in fact, racialized forms of expression. This ranges from the numerous (some graffiti-art) tattoos adorning his body to his choice of icons painted on his goalie mask (historical boxing champions Jack Johnson, Marvin Hagler, and controversially Mike Tyson). It also extends to his status as a “fashion plate” for his outstanding sense of style (again, ranging from hip-hop track suits to “pimpin’” formal wear on game days). No direct acknowledgment of the ways in which race is implicated in these cases involving Emery, especially in light of the prevalence of such discussions in regards to the NBA dress code, highlighted the need for a critical analysis and intervention.

The method of analyzing the discourses operating in each of these cases (and the others that will form the basis for my complete dissertation) begins with constructing a corpus of texts from which to first identify the discourses. Using the “flashpoint” event(s) and/or the athlete celebrities involved, a search is done through the ProQuest database of Canadian English-language newspapers. Other than filtering the articles for redundancies, any article (news article, editorial, or op-ed) with mention of the event or issue in question, or the parties involved, is considered for inclusion. General (macro-level) rhetorical strategies are identified and highlighted in each (Henry & Tator, 2002). Additionally, a web search is done on various popular sport forums, discussion boards, and blogs to look for further interactive texts regarding the flashpoint. Sportsfilter is one such useful site. Following Henry and Tator (2002), I employ their outlined methodology for case studies and (critical) discourse analysis from Discourses of Domination (pp. 71-77) to perform my complete analysis. This includes the processes of problematizing the argumentative logic present in the media discourses and public reactions (p. 77), of evincing what has been omitted from the represented narratives (p. 75), of identifying how and when “White representations of the social world” (p. 77) are privileged, and of producing “counter or oppositional discourses that provide alternative ways of interpreting, understanding, and interacting” (p. 73) with my selected case studies.  

In “Vanilla Ice”, the discourses most visibly connected to propping up new racism are discourses of denial and of moral panics. In my other proposed case studies, I suggest that I will be able to demonstrate how many of the other discourses operate in similar ways. For example, my case study looking at Ricky Williams’ controversial stint with the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League relies heavily on broader liberal discourses (including discourses of Canadian multiculturalism, tolerance, etc.), as well as discourses of national identity. This case study will also contextualize this contemporary discursive event within the history of racial integration in the CFL and look at similar rhetorical devices used when other prominent players from the United States (National Football League) have made similar decisions to pursue their careers in Canada and the CFL. Here I refer to such notable players as Johnny Bright (first NFL first-round pick to choose the CFL over the NFL, also one of the first black players to be selected in the first round), and Warren Moon (Pro Football Hall-of-Famer who was part of a substantial movement of black quarterbacks who chose pursue careers in the CFL rather than the NFL due to the practice of NFL teams forcing them to change positions to something other than quarterback, see Rhoden, 2007).

For my case study looking at the sports media’s role in perpetuating new racist discourses, much like Henry and Tator’s (2002) look at the racial bias in the Canadian English-language press, I will be looking at the ways in which the likes of Don Cherry on CBC’s Coach’s Corner segment of Hockey Night in Canada invoke discourses of victim blaming (such as with the case of Ted Nolan’s absence from the coaching ranks of the NHL despite being a Jack Adams Award winner), and the discourse of political correctness and other liberal discourses. Particular flashpoint, or discursive, events like the controversy surrounding Ted Nolan will be used.

In a related case study, I hope to demonstrate how the discourse of binary polarization is brought into play, even within supposedly anti-racist movements. I’ve used examples such as the plea for Jarome Iginla to speak out against racism in the context of Canadian hockey, but there are countless other examples as well. Thierry Henry as a spokesperson for the Kick it Out campaign in European soccer is one such example. Willie O’Ree as the chair of the NHL’s Diversity office might serve as another. O’Ree himself utilizes the liberal discourses of individualism and the age-old protestant work ethic in conjunction with his own story as the “Jackie Robinson” of professional ice hockey. Again, this is a very general rhetorical strategy that is often utilized to downplay the relevance of “race” or the existence of racism in contemporary sport.

Finally, by doing a comparative analysis between the cases of the Kobe Bryant rape trial and the almost simultaneous Latasha Byears sexual assault charges, I hope to demonstrate the ways in which the saliency of race is diminished or overlooked in comparison to other axes of difference and/or marginalization. In this example, the valorization of black masculinity and its concomitant stereotype of athletic prowess overrides a ”feminine” athleticism, due in no small way to the fact that Byears is an openly lesbian athlete and demonstrably “mannish” in her playing style. Other relevant case studies likely help to inform this analysis (such as the coming out of NBA player John Amaechi, and the controversial exclusion of Angela James from the Canadian women’s Olympic hockey team). The intention of this form of analysis is to demonstrate how dominant discourses have effectively moved “beyond race” as a marker for exclusion, in some cases as a direct result of the discourses of reverse racism and equal opportunity.

Thus, from one initial flashpoint (the NBA dress code), a host of other relevant case studies has been identified as being fertile ground for the discursive analysis illuminating how new racism has come to be a seemingly invisible, yet incredibly dominant discourse. While it is unlikely that my dissertation project will be able to address all of the myriad of discourses and discursive strategies perpetuating new racism, it should be sufficient at highlighting how these discourses operate within the context of the sport nexus that influentially informs social and cultural life on countless levels.   

Why Sport?

Q: Can you outline why you have chosen to situate your case studies in mass spectator sport, primarily professional, that attracts media attention, and what effects (limits) this might have?

They are our heroes. They are eulogized as modern-day warriors. Whether in Olympic or professional team sports, they have a worldwide audience, command enormous respect, and, often, enormous salaries. They smile, they scowl, and they sell products. Virtually every boy wants to grow up to be just like them. They are our athletes. Their world may be the arena, the court, the track, and the playing field, but their performances fuel vast institutions where media and industry come together in a powerful and profitable embrace with local, national, and international politics. This world is, in Varda Burstyn’s phrase, the sport nexus (Kaufman & Messner in Burstyn, 1999, p. xi).

Dave Zirin (2005) starts his provocative debut book, What’s My Name, Fool?, with a scene from The Godfather, Part II in which “dying mob boss Hymen Roth wheezes the obscene truth to young Don Michael Corleone. ‘Michael,’ he whispers, ‘we’re bigger than U.S. Steel.’”(p. 17). He updates this scene to a fictionalized moment with contemporary sport moguls George Steinbrenner and Mark Cuban. “‘Screw U.S. Steel. We’re bigger than the damn mafia.’” (p. 17). He cites the statistics announcing professional sports as the tenth largest industry in the United States ($220 billion/year), but qualifies it as being much like the mafia in that it is “a business that can stink to high heaven” (p. 17).

So why sport? Why big money, professional sport? That says it all. We’re not talking about some minor social, economic, or political phenomenon. This is a big deal—on all those levels! The impact that sport has in all of these areas is well-known to scholars looking at the Olympics (e.g., Lenskyj, 2002; 2000). Once every four (or every two, if we oscillate between Summer and Winter Games) years we can see the debates rage over the anticipated fallout in cities set to host the Games. These debates range from the macropolitical (e.g., boycotts, competing ideologies, environmental impact, etc.) to the micropolitical (e.g., impact on homeless people in a host city, housing and job markets around Olympic venues, etc.). Today, the comparisons between Olympic and professional sport are more numerous than they were long ago, but the differences are still important to note. For starters, Olympic sport, unlike pro sport, is still underpinned by the myths of amateurism and “pure” sport. Pro sport is all about business. This is where they are more similar today than in the past—the Olympics definitely are big business too—but pro sport doesn’t tend to wait for controversy before announcing that it is all about money and marketing. Secondly, the Olympics only do garner regional interest outside of the lead up to competition when a host city (or bid city) is in North America. Pro sport has its own section in the newspaper, its own television stations, and its own established audience every single day. In Canada, even when it’s not hockey season, NHL trades and debates make front page news. Wayne Gretzky still steals the headlines even when he’s in Edmonton to golf, not coach hockey.

What are the limits of situating my research in this behemoth of professional sport? Quite simply, there are none. Even if, as the Tragically Hip sang, you are waiting for the “trickle down” to see the effects of the discourses proliferated in the professional sport world at the amateur, school, or recreational level, the effects are there to be found. As Guy Debord (1967) would say

The fetishism of the commodity — the domination of society by “intangible as well as tangible things” — attains its ultimate fulfillment in the spectacle, where the real world is replaced by a selection of images which are projected above it, yet which at the same time succeed in making themselves regarded as the epitome of reality (36).

Pro sport is that spectacle.