Racial ideology in the NBA
Racial Ideology and White Privilege in the NBA For almost three-quarters of the year, the players of the NBA prance around the court and show off their various hard earned skills. Every season, thousands upon thousands of fans, young and old, rich and poor, come to be entertained by the best in the game on a multi-million dollar stage. Contrary to popular belief, the National Basketball Association is no longer all about competition and winning the championship, it has evolved to a whole other animal. The NBA is annually a multi-billion dollar operation, and continues to grow every day. Not only do they are they making money off the fans attending games, but now is deeply involved in endorsing a vast array of products. Today, the NBA is one of a select few places where Blackness is considered to be the norm. In a sense, the players in the NBA are in the spotlight to entertain a predominantly white middle-to-upper class audience, which only further reinforces the concept of white privilege. The history of basketball is a never-ending account of shifting racial ideology. In order to better understand this, I will break down the racial ideologies involved in the NBA from its beginning to modern day. It all started when an individual named James Naismith who worked at a local YMCA, which needed a sport that could be played indoors and in 1891. Basketball fell into place with the YMCA’s mission to use sports as Richard Mandell who believed that basketball would help to “absorb the idle time of poor city boys and instilled in them the habits of good hygiene, self-discipline, and respect for officials” (Mandell, 1984). Basketball really took hold in urban areas with a limited amount of space and where families struggled to be able to afford the costly equipment associated with sports like baseball and football. Historically, the best basketball players have came from the poorest neighborhoods in America. Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995) argue, “The cause of their
Cited: Adichie, C. (Performer) (2009). The danger of a single story [Print]. Lapchich, R. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.tidesport.org/RGRC/2012/2012_NBA_RGRC[1].pdf Ladson-Billings, G., & Tate, W. (1995). Teachers College Record. Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education, 97(1). Mandell, R. D. (1984). American Sports in the 1920 's. In Sport, a Cultural History(pp. 188-189). New York, US: Columbia University Press. Marger, M. (2012). Race & ethnic relations: American and global perspectives. (9e ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Wellesley, MA: Wellesey College Center for Research on Women. Schwarz, A. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/sports/basketball/02refs.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0