Mark Anthony Neal has to be one of the smartest people I know who thinks about, writes about and talks about issues of race, especially on his blog, New Black Man. Neal also has a weekly webcast, Left of Black, and today he had on two scholars who look at race and sports, and they discuss Tiger Woods -- the original "Cablinasian" and apt symbol (and apt problematics--and by this I mean the problem of being read as mixed race in the U.S. not that I think Woods is a "problem" although his golf game is currently problematic, but that's a different post for a different audience) of a Mixed Race America. Watch now.
Showing posts with label race and sports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label race and sports. Show all posts
Monday, February 27, 2012
Sunday, December 16, 2007
The color of sports
I just caught the tail end of a schmaltzy Kevin Costner baseball film, For Love of the Game. I've never seen it before, and while I mainly caught the climactic moment at film's end (is it giving it away to say that he wins both game and girl at the end of the film? I said it was a Kevin Costner baseball movie, right? So this shouldn't come as a surprise) the glance at both dugouts, the field, and the staduim reveals something I've thought about major league baseball for a while: it's largely a white sport.
While I don't actually follow baseball myself, for some reason I really like baseball films--there's something about the narrative arc that coheres around baseball that makes for a good story (and is someone somewhere teaching a film course or American studies course on the baseball films of Kevin Costner, because that's definitely an arc, where you start with the young and cocky Costner in Bull Durham, you have middle-aged Costner in Field of Dreams, cocky but a family man, you have older Costner in For Love of the Game who is cocky but recognizing that he's a 50-something actor playing a 40 year old Major League pitcher, and then you have The Upside of Anger where he is a washed-up former baseball player--but of course still cocky to the end).
Where was I?
Yes, baseball films--they seem to portray mainly white protagonists with white love interests (Mr. Baseball that AWFUL film with Tom Selleck in Japan not-withstanding) and with largely white fans.
Yet baseball has also seen a rise of players from Japan and Latin American countries and Latino players. But still not a huge influx of Asian AMERICAN ball players, and certainly less African American players than in other sports, like basketball or even football.
So why? Why does baseball seem to be a largely white sport? Is it? Is this my own preconception based on Hollywood movies or is this a reality? And either way, why are there so few Asian American ball players--if Japan manages to send over some pretty incredible players, how come we haven't seen a rise of Asian American ball players? And why do certain sports seem to attract people of different "races" more (and less) predominantly than others? Basketball seems to have a higher concentration of black players, hockey looks like a white sport, golf is certainly still a white sport (or a game for those who don't believe having a caddy and chasing a small ball qualifies as a sport) despite Tiger Woods dominance (and Vijay Singh and KJ Choi's presence--which is a good reminder to us that Woods has been in the PGA for over a decade and yet not one other major golfer of color from the U.S. has come up in the ranks).
Perhaps a different way to ask the question is, why, with the exception of basketball (and maybe football), do all other spectator sports (baseball, soccer, NASCAR, hockey, golf) see to be dominated by white players and white fans?
While I don't actually follow baseball myself, for some reason I really like baseball films--there's something about the narrative arc that coheres around baseball that makes for a good story (and is someone somewhere teaching a film course or American studies course on the baseball films of Kevin Costner, because that's definitely an arc, where you start with the young and cocky Costner in Bull Durham, you have middle-aged Costner in Field of Dreams, cocky but a family man, you have older Costner in For Love of the Game who is cocky but recognizing that he's a 50-something actor playing a 40 year old Major League pitcher, and then you have The Upside of Anger where he is a washed-up former baseball player--but of course still cocky to the end).
Where was I?
Yes, baseball films--they seem to portray mainly white protagonists with white love interests (Mr. Baseball that AWFUL film with Tom Selleck in Japan not-withstanding) and with largely white fans.
Yet baseball has also seen a rise of players from Japan and Latin American countries and Latino players. But still not a huge influx of Asian AMERICAN ball players, and certainly less African American players than in other sports, like basketball or even football.
So why? Why does baseball seem to be a largely white sport? Is it? Is this my own preconception based on Hollywood movies or is this a reality? And either way, why are there so few Asian American ball players--if Japan manages to send over some pretty incredible players, how come we haven't seen a rise of Asian American ball players? And why do certain sports seem to attract people of different "races" more (and less) predominantly than others? Basketball seems to have a higher concentration of black players, hockey looks like a white sport, golf is certainly still a white sport (or a game for those who don't believe having a caddy and chasing a small ball qualifies as a sport) despite Tiger Woods dominance (and Vijay Singh and KJ Choi's presence--which is a good reminder to us that Woods has been in the PGA for over a decade and yet not one other major golfer of color from the U.S. has come up in the ranks).
Perhaps a different way to ask the question is, why, with the exception of basketball (and maybe football), do all other spectator sports (baseball, soccer, NASCAR, hockey, golf) see to be dominated by white players and white fans?
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