|
| |
RACISM IN SPORTS.
Term Paper ID:23414
|
|
|
Essay Subject:
Sociocultural analysis of racist attitudes & practices in college & pro athletics, players & management, educational & scholarship aspects, institutional bias.... More...
|
18 Pages / 4050 Words
16 sources, 29 Citations,
APA Format
$72.00
Return to List of Papers
|
Paper Abstract:
Sociocultural analysis of racist attitudes & practices in college & pro athletics, players & management, educational & scholarship aspects, institutional bias.
Paper Introduction:
INTRODUCTION
The problem of racism is not specifically an American problem, though Americans have made it into an important political and social issue as they have tried to find a way to eliminate racism from their society. Racism occurs whenever there is a dominant racial group that uses its position to discriminate against a minority racial group on the basis of racial characteristics. Traditionally, discrimination has been seen as a creature of prejudice, and until the late 1960s the dominant perspective among social science analysts of discrimination was that prejudice and intolerance were the causes of discriminatory actions. Other observers have focused on individual racists and have seen the problem as the individual motivated by hatred of a given "outgroup." Still others consider
Text of the Paper:
The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper.
Thiscame about as baseball owners realized that the more they cared about thecolor of people's money, the less they could afford to care about the colorof their skin. In most cases, their college lives are educational blanks (Olsen, 1968, 1 ).Olsen (1968) states that in most cases the college coach expects the blackathletes to perform and to concentrate on the job for which they wereallowed into school. New York: St. Necessities. "Up in arms over collegebasketball." U.S. After Robinson, this would no longer be the case (Sailer,1996, 38-39). But, although appearances may have changed, four decades after Jackie Robinson's major league debut, racial prejudice remains as deeply rooted in American sports as it is in American society in general (Hoose, 1989, xviii). "Race becoems the game." Newsweek, 56-59. Thenumber of black student-athletes graduating within five years of enrollmentincreased from 3 percent to 4 percent, and the percentage of whiteplayers who earned a degree also increased from 54 percent to 69 percent.Graduation rates of all scholarship athletes now approximate those of thestudent body as a whole so that the program can be seen as a success(Swift, 1994, 88). Rivers further notes thatblacks and whites are treated differently when they joke around on thefield. White coaches who would blanch at being labeled racist nonetheless want coaches who are educated, articulate, and well dressed, and they don't necessarily associate those qualities with blacks (Rosellini, 1987, 54). The situation is similar incollege sports. Such elements might be intentional, but they need notbe. Isiah Thompson, player for the basketball team theDetroit Pistons, states, When you go to college, you're not a student-athlete but an athlete- student. Even moredisheartening is the fact that in the NBA, the percentage of black coacheshas actually declined from a high of 27 in the mid-197 s to 11 in the early199 s ("Minority report," 1993, 15). CONTINUING EVIDENCE OF RACISM There is more clear evidence for racism in professional sports thanin college sports, perhaps because the spotlight is brighter onprofessional teams, and perhaps because most of the racism in collegeinvolves academic issues against sports issues. There are so many stereotypes about the Black athlete. Howitt, D. Society's response torecent instances of racism in sports, however, shows that there has been achange in public mood and that what would have been tolerated at one timeno longer will be. As excesses grew more excessive, as illiterate NBA rejects began piling up, the National Collegiate Athletic Association started legislating minimum entrance requirements and maximum numbers of scholarships (Callahan, 1994, 23).Some of this is echoed by Richard Lapchick, director of the Center for theStudy of sport in Society at Northeastern University, who notes thatathletes of every stamp are stereotyped as the "dumb jock," and he saysthat if such a subculture does exist, it exists because it was created byour academic institutions. "How Jackie Robinson desegregatedAmerica." National Review, 38-41. There are certain specific problemswith the playing of sports that may worsen the situation: 1) any display ofnegative behavior is likely to reinforce existing biases; and 2)competition at the high-school level probably bred hostility with whiteteams against black teams, reflecting the city's residential patterns, andthis is carried over into college. Other observershave focused on individual racists and have seen the problem as theindividual motivated by hatred of a given "outgroup." Still othersconsider the issue in terms of patterns of segregation and communitypractices (Feagin and Feagin, 1986, 1). Players do nothave to mingle after baseball, basketball, and football. (1994, January 24). O'Brien, R. . One reason for the problems faced in the NCAA according to Callahan(1994) derives from the way college basketball turned into big business: As tournament and television money zoomed into the millions, the academic connection became more and more academic. The figures are even worse if traditionally blackinstitutions are removed from the list, in which case the number of headcoaches and athletic directors drops to 4 percent. Howitt and Owusu-Bempah (199 ) point out that institutional racismhelps explain how racial discrimination can be effected in a society whichfundamentally claims to reject racism. (1968). Black collegiateathletes stated that they were dehumanized, exploited, and then discarded.Harry Edwards was the recipient of an athletic scholarship. he attributesone element of this to the media, which he says is 99 percent white and onepercent black. "Braves David Justice says racism, stereotypes still evident inbaseball" (1994, Juen 13). Kroll, J. Glenn Rivers is a basketball player with the New York Knicks, and hereports that there is a great deal of racism in the NBA. THE BLACK PROFESSIONAL ATHLETE The number of blacks in professional sports makes it seem that theracism of the past has been overcome, but as noted, the very success ofblacks in athletics often masks deeper divisions and prejudices in societyat large. They contrastedindividual racism, illustrated by a small band of white terrorists bombinga church, with institutional racism, illustrated by the practices leadingto many black children dying each year because of inadequate food, medicalfacilities, and shelter (Feagin and Feagin, 1986, 12-13). The NFL is a different story, for there 64 percent of theplayers are black while only 7 percent of the head coaches are. In Division I basketball, 6 percent of the players areblack and only 19 percent of the head coaches. The racism in sports and education alike are examples ofinstitutionalized racism. . Baseball is the sport that has made the greatest progress inhiring blacks for such positions, and 31 percent of baseball players aremembers of minorities, while 21 percent of managers are members ofminorities. "The pragmatics ofinstitutional racism: Beyond words." Human Relations, 885-899. (1993, February 15). Infact, the integration of professional sports took place before the era ofthe Civil Rights Movement and helped make later reforms possible. In Division I-A football,4 percent of the players and black, while there were no black head coachesat all in 1992. Heechoes Justice when he states that a black athlete will be described asathletically gifted and with great instincts, while a white player isdescribed as determined and a hard worker. One of his reasons for opposing this provisionwas his belief that the SAT and ACT tests are unfair because they areculturally biased against minorities and the poor. The authors write that "arguably,the key feature of racism does not lie in its rhetorical expression but inits central role in maintaining the material advantage of White people overBlack people" (Howitt & Owusu-Bempah, 199 , 888). Any education they get is incidental to their main job, which is playing sports. On the face of it, sports would seem to be a model for racial progress. In the 1992-93 academic year, 25.6 percent of scholarship athletes inDivision I were black, compared with 24 percent in 1985, and blacks who didnot meet the requirements were now being replaced by blacks who did. A white would be labeled a "free spirit" or "fun-loving," while ablack is described as having "an attitude problem." One reason for thedifference, says Rivers, is that management is largely white--there are afew black coaches but very few black general managers ("Knicks guard DocRivers sees racism aplenty in NBA," 1994, 49). Eight to 1 hours of your day are filled with basketball, football. Leroy Walker was president of The AthleticsCongress in 1986, and he does not believe the doom-sayers concerning thechange in requirements. The first is side-effectdiscrimination and refers to practices in one institutional area which havea negative impact because they are linked to direct discriminatorypractices in another institutional area. We still believe thistoday, even in an era of diminished expectations, but blacks seem to havebeen unable to make this idea work for them as well as some groups havedone in the past. Racism in education may be more a case of institutional failures thanintentional discrimination, but the problem persists in the "real" world ofprofessional sports as well. Feagin and Feagin (1986) state that there are two types ofindirect institutionalized discrimination. They refer to some of this as "new"racism or as "modern" or "symbolic" racism. Yet, theblack community remains disproportionately poor, uneducated orundereducated, and unemployed. The NCAAimplemented a rule called Proposition 48 in 1986, and it stated that to beeligible to play in his or her freshman year, an incoming student-athletehad to have scored a combined 7 (out of a possible 1,6 ) on the SAT or acomparable score on the ACT and have earned a 2. "Words and deeds." SportsIllustrated, 9-1 . Yet, a closer examination showsthat racism has not been eliminated from the sports world any more than ithas from American life in general, and racist attitudes and discriminatorybehavior emerges in various ways among players, in terms of how minorityplayers are treated by management, and in terms of how players are treatedby the fans. CONCLUSION Why blacks excel in sports remains uncertain, but it is evident thatoften sports is the only route poor blacks have to attain any status insociety. THE BLACK COLLEGE ATHLETE TODAY Lapchick (1984) details a number of incidents showing that racismcontinued long after both college and professional sports were integratedand supposedly served as models for society at large. The impact of Proposition 48 is better known today, and theRand Corporation studied the data compiled by the NCAA regarding graduationrates among student-athletes and found among other things that after aninitial two-year decline in the percentage of athletic scholarships awardedto blacks, the numbers soon rebounded to, and then exceeded, former levels. This is a reflection of the concept known as institutionalizedracism, one of the more pervasive forms of racism and one of the reasonsracism continues in our society. Your main purpose was not to be Einstein but to be a ballplayer, to generate some money, put people in the stands. White coaches, and administrators, boosters, and players had to adjust. This is a perfectdescription of unintentional institutionalized racism, based on its effectand not its intent. By one usage, it refers to specific organizations such asbusinesses, corporations, unions, and political organizations. They can also acquire an education through their prowess insports, but too often the structure of college sports programs hasmilitated against black or white athletes from doing as well as they mightwithout the pressure to perform on the field. Sports at all levels reflect the culture in which they are embedded,and it is likely that any racist attitudes or behaviors derive from thelarger culture rather than from sports itself: Indeed, the ultimate barrier for blacks is probably not money or skill but lingering prejudices that are deeply ingrained in American culture--despite a generation of civil-rights reform. Rivers statesthat he could read another team's scouting report on any athlete, with thename removed, and determine whether the player is black or white. These civil rights leaders canpoint to the number of qualified blacks, former players and otherwise, whoare routinely passed over in favor of whites for positions as head coach ormanager. Blacks may need even moreassistance, however, given the reality of racism in the lower grades andthe reality of different experiences for black and white people in society. Callahan, T. More recently, she has been sanctioned again for statementsmade about Hitler. Black athletes had power on the playing field by 197 astheir numbers were increasing at all levels in basketball, football,baseball, boxing, and track and field: As the mood of the country shifted slightly toward giving blacks more educational opportunities, coaches with an eye toward the scoreboard took advantage of "open admissions" policies. Supporters of these tests state that the disparity reflects alack of opportunity rather than cultural bias, meaning that the tests arefair but that minorities have been cheated of a good education in the lowergrades (Kroll, 1989, 56-58). This sort of race differential in management in professional sportshas been protested by groups such as that led by Jesse Jackson in 1993, agroup which demonstrated outside the All-Star Game at oriole Park at Camdenyards in Baltimore that year because of the failure of Major LeagueBaseball to hire more minorities in off-the-field positions. Hoose (1989) notes that blacks make up about 12 percent of theAmerican population, while the median income of blacks is only about 57percent that of whites and the black poverty rate is three times that ofwhites. Jackson'sRainbow Commission for Fairness in Athletics had also targeted other sportsleagues for the same failure (Dodd, 1993, 3). The rest of the time, you've got to motivate yourself to make sure you get something back (Kroll, 1989, 59). "Propping up student-athletes."Sports Illustrated, 88.----------------------- 21 After almost four decades of the Civil Rights movement, the degreeof change in the black community, while real and noticeable, also remainsinadequate. Baseball had originally been organized as a segregatedsport as owners in the late nineteenth century gave in to the demands ofplayers that the races be separated. Broken promises. This was an amended versionof Proposition 48 and would have eliminated the "partial qualifiers,"meaning that if the student did not meet both grade and test standards, hewould be denied a scholarship and any form of aid from the university.Leading the protest against this rule was John Thompson, basketball coachat Georgetown University. The success of blacks in college and professional sportshas a racist component to it on its face--blacks are more accepted whenthey excel at sports or in the entertainment field while the mass of blacksare still relegated to bad schools and low-end jobs. While it istrue that the admission of blacks to the ranks of college and professionalsports was slow in coming, it is also clear from an examination of collegeand professional teams today that blacks and whites coexist and worktogether on teams in nearly every sport. (1989, January 3 ). (1984). New York:Time-Life. This lack of blacks in positions of power extends to collegeathletics as well, for it has been reported that college athletics programsacross the country have failed to hire minorities in any significantnumbers. Still, the overall record for the sport remained poor, and the casefor other sports was even more dismal (O'Brien, 1993, 9-1 ). Thedisparity is even greater in the NBA where 75 percent of the players areminorities and only 11 percent of the coaches. "Institution" in this context has severalmeanings. The NBA was seen asdoing better, but only to a slight degree. He states ofthe experience, Black athletes aren't given athletic scholarships for the purpose of education. He also states thatblack players are treated in a different way than are whites: You never see a Black player considered to be hard-nosed, born with no talent, and he just worked himself. 2) Now that thephysical dominance of blacks has been accepted in so-called black sports,whites can explain away such success with reference to racist theoriesabout genetics (Lapchick, 1984, 178-179). Sportscasters were stilldescribing black athletes as 'acrobatic" and white players as "smart." TheNational Football league appeared to agree with Campanis, for there were noblack coaches and no black coordinators. New York: Random House. In 1993, Schott was fined and suspended forone year because of certain statements she made that were seen as raciallyinsensitive. Rosellini, L. . Jet, 52. Feagin, J.R. (1994, December 5). Efforts have been undertaken to correct thissituation, which affects both black and white athletes. In 1988, blacks whose parents earned more than $7 , had average SAT scores of 42 verbal and 451 math, while white youngstersfrom the same income level had average scores of 471 verbal and 523 math.Critics claim that the difference is because the tests are geared to whiteculture. INTRODUCTION The problem of racism is not specifically an American problem, thoughAmericans have made it into an important political and social issue as theyhave tried to find a way to eliminate racism from their society. and J. The fact that they are expected to spend so much of their time onthe field does not help these students, for many need more time studyingthan they need practicing. so long as all teams discriminatedagainst blacks, each team could be certain it was no worse offcompetitively. It is evident that much still has to be doneto create a level playing field in sports and in society alike. BACKGROUND The position of blacks in America today remains an issue that is muchargued. Lapchick (1984) points out that black and white players meeting oncampus carry with them a great deal of racial baggage, and they haveprejudices which are not likely to evaporate simply because blacks andwhites are playing together on a team. In 1994, proposition 16 was proposed to raise the requirements anotch, and the same howls of protest were heard as had been heard whenProposition 48 was offered. An example would be directinstitutionalized discrimination in the education and training ofminorities, which often handicaps them when they attempt to compete withwhite males for jobs in the economic sphere because of hiring and promotionstandards in the employment sphere: Such education credential requirements often have a negative impact, yet they were frequently not established as expressions of prejudice or intent to have a negative impact (Feagin & Feagin, 1986, 32).The second type is past-in-present discrimination, which refers toapparently neutral practices in an institutional area which systematicallyreflect or perpetuate the effects of institutional discriminatory practicesin the past in that same institutional area. Blacks are brought in to perform. Dodd, M. "Minority report" (1993, January 18). Discrimination American style:Institutional racism and sexism. Racismoccurs whenever there is a dominant racial group that uses its position todiscriminate against a minority racial group on the basis of racialcharacteristics. Former All-Star Lou Brock stated that the game wanted hisexpertise to the extent that he could be hired to coach at hitting clinics,but he could not find a permanent job in baseball. Swift, E.M. "Strike one and you're out." U.S.News & World Report, 52-57. Whites stillscore about 1 points higher than blacks on the SAT, while on the ACT, theaverages were 13.6 for blacks and 19.6 for whites out of a top score of 36. Baseball was again found to be a prime offender--there wereno black major-league managers, no general managers, no third-base coacheswho were black. Malabar, Florida: Robert E. Sailer, S. Theconcept of institutional racism was first addressed systematically in the196 s by Charles Hamilton and Stokeley Carmichael. Sports Illustrated, 15. We're never going to be able to change it ("Braves David Justice says racism, stereotypes still evident in baseball," 1994, 5 ). Another rule was proposed in 1989, Proposition 42, which was totighten restrictions on athletic scholarships. Racism is seen by some of the players in various sports in terms ofhow they are treated, and this can include treatment that might seempositive. References "Blacks overlooked for posts as athletic directors, coaches incolleges across U.S." (1994, September 5). This cameabout when Al Campanis stated his belief that blacks were not mentallyconstituted for management positions in sports. Feagin and Feagin (1986) say that thisoccurs when privilege becomes institutionalized, as happens in colonialsocieties: "that is, it becomes imbedded in the norms (regulations andinformal rules) and roles (social positions and their attendant duties andrights) in a variety of social, economic, and political organizations"(Feagin & Feagin, 1986, 12). Certain areas of American life areseen as transcending racism, and sports has been one of these. . In 1974, James Harris of the LosAngeles Rams became the first black starting quarterback in the NFL; in1987, there were still only two in that position (Rosellini, 1987, 52). This has bene changing withnew policies designed to assist athletes. Hoose, O.H. In a way, today's attitudes are more insidious than the old ones--simply because they are often unconscious. Martin's. Racist white athletes may be able toaccept blacks on their team for two reasons: 1) They do not have to haveany social contact with black teammates, and off-the-field interaction israre. (1987, July 27). Blacks have achieved positions of power, are less subject toinstitutional racism than in the past, and have redress in the courts andeven in the court of public opinion that was once denied them. AN EVOLVING SITUATION Many blacks find that the route to a college education is eased by anathletic scholarship, but at the same time many of these athletes are ill-prepared for college and do not do as well as others in an academicprogram. However, the belief that sports have been fully integrated since thetime of Jackie Robinson and that racism is no longer part of the sportsworld is false. Jet, 48-5 . The black athlete: A shameful story. he says that the evidence shows that student-athletes will rise to the occasion when expectations are raised and remainreasonable. It shows that White liberalshave learned to pay lip-service to a norm of equality while remainingfundamentally racist in their feelings. & C.B. Blacks do score farbelow whites on these tests, though the gap has been closing in recentyears--over a period of 13 years, scores went up 21 points on the verbalportion of the SAT test and 3 points on the math section. This caused the news mediato look at the issue once more and to find that blacks were still over-represented on the playing field and barely represented at all in coachingor management. Feagin (1986). all that is essential is that they maintain the favorable position ofWhite people at the expense of Black people. Critics of the rule included coaches and athletic directors whoclaimed that the academic criteria, and especially the use of test scores,would unfairly affect blacks by disproportionately restricting their accessto college. In 1987 it was noted that the racist attitudes of anearlier era had not disappeared but had merely gone underground. The rate of unemployment for black youth is nearly double that ofwhite youth, but black players make up almost 77 percent of all NBA playersand 62 percent of all NFL starters: Some of these athletes earn millions of dollars each year, and many signed for huge bonuses. (1989). Blacks do not dominate in sports such as golf, tennis, and swimmingwhere socializing is almost a prerequisite for competing. The attention brought to bear on Cincinnati caused thatteam to hire more blacks and other minorities, and other teams followedsuit. Only 9 other schools have everemployed a black head coach. In professional sports,black athletes stated that they were underpaid, shunted into certainstereotyped positions, and treated ill by coaches. Lapchick opposed Proposition 42 because itwould penalize players by making it impossible for them to go to school,though it is the system that has put them in the position where they areunable to achieve. Olsen, J. He finds this significant because the white journalist doesnot have the same background as the black athlete and so does notunderstand the nature of being a black sports figure. To claim otherwise is to ignore the accomplishments of the 1.2 million black undergraduates now enrolled in Division I schools who have no involvement in athletics (Swift, 1994, 88). Owusu-Bempah (199 ). Graduation rates for black student-athletes in those sports were even lower--29 percent for the freshman classes of '84 and '85, the last classes to be admitted before Prop 48 (Swift, 1994, 88). Black coaches believethat the NCAA is not addressing the issue as it should ("Blacks overlookedfor posts as athletic directors, coaches in colleges across U.S.," 1994,52). Feagin and Feagin (1986) note different categories of racism, and onethey call indirect institutionalized discrimination, referring to practicesthat have a negative and differential impact on minorities and women eventhough the organizationally prescribed or community-prescribed norms orregulations guiding those actions were established and are carried out withno prejudice or no intent to harm. The aim is for the athlete to maintain hiseligibility: At the end of the last second of the last minute of the last hour of a Negro athlete's eligibility, he is likely to find himself dumped unceremoniously into the harsh academic world. On their face, these norms appearfairly neutral. Krieger. Civil rights leaders have become more concerned about the disparitybetween the number of blacks playing sports and the far smaller numberemployed in coaching and front-office jobs. Tutors who wrote his themes disappear; professors who gave him superior grades for inferior work stiffen their marketing standards overnight; counselors who advised courses in basket weaving and fly casting suddenly begin pointing out that certain postponed courses in English and mathematics and history must be passed before graduation (Olsen, 1968, 1 -11). Even blacks and whites who came from very similar backgrounds haddifferent scores. Such racism often hides more direct racialattitudes lying just beneath the surface, attitudes which may emerge in thesort of statements made by Al Campanis or Marge Schott, owner of theCincinnati Reds baseball team. If they had been racist before, they would have to tone it down (Lapchick, 1984, 176). "Knicks guard Doc Rivers sees racism aplenty in NBA" (1994, January31) Jet, 49. Such incidents rangefrom cross-burnings in the South to reactions of black athletes at SouthMiami High who called their white assistant coaches "honky crackers" afterthey lost the regional championship game. This includes the efforts of black athletes: If the SATs and ACTs are culturally biased against blacks, as Walker suspects they are, they are not so culturally biased that scoring 7 on the college boards is an unreasonable expectation. One kind penalizes minoritiesin the present because they lack some ability or qualificationintentionally denied them in the past. (1996, April 8). Lapchick, R. Basketball then had four blackcoaches and two black general managers. Traditionally, discrimination has been seen as a creatureof prejudice, and until the late 196 s the dominant perspective amongsocial science analysts of discrimination was that prejudice andintolerance were the causes of discriminatory actions. grade point average in 11core high school courses: Proponents of the measure hoped these entry-level standards would increase graduation rates of all student-athletes, which among Division I scholarship athletes in the early 198 s were 33 percent for basketball players and 37.5 percent for football players. Since that time, black head coaches have been hired byTemple, Eastern Michigan, and Wake Forest, but this still means only 3percent of the coaches are minorities. Education is seen as the key to success inAmerica, and every immigrant and ethnic group has eventually come to theconclusion that education for the next generation will give that generationa leg up on the ladder of success in American life. In the 196 s, many black athletes reported that they weredissatisfied, disgruntled, and disillusioned. They always say we're naturally gifted, we're born with it. Only three schools--Arizona State, EasternMichigan, and Minnesota--have black athletic directors. (1993, July 14). Still, the advancement of blacks in sports and elsewhere in Americanlife has to be seen as an improvement over what existed before. It wasonly in 1946 when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in professionalsports as he played his first baseball game for the Brooklyn Dodgers. "Pickets focus on baseball hiring." USAToday, 3. Lapchick points to golf gameswhere blacks were excluded because the tournament was taking place on asegregated private course, something also true of tennis and swimming.Lapchick also find that black athletes are often told they are lucky to beout of the ghetto and that it was sports that made this possible for them.The people who say this would call the instances of racism mereaberrations. David Justice is an outfielder for the Atlanta Braves, and hehas stated more than once that baseball is a racist sport. Blacks comprised one-fourth of all major college athletes in 1993-1994, but they constituted less than 1 percent of the athletic directorsand 8 percent of head coaches, according to the NCAA Minority Opportunityand Interest Committee. Theseorganizations are large and legally constituted, with written and unwrittenrules governing the conduct of those who fill positions within them. News & World Report, 23.
If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again:
or
Click here to request an essay written just for you.
|
|
|
