Antiblackness and Carcerality: Implications for the Study of College Athletics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2376-5267.2024.2.2.82-97Keywords:
Antiblackness, carcerality, college athletics, racismAbstract
We frequently frame criticisms of college athletics in terms of labor exploitation and/or legacies of racism. Though these remain necessary and foundational analytical frames, there are other important frameworks through which we must analyze college athletics to fully understand how and why inequity and racism is both rationalized and compounded. Antiblackness and carcerality—and their deep interconnection—are two such perspectives that both complement and complicate other approaches to the study of college athletics. This paper discusses these two essential theoretical frameworks and demonstrates the nuance that using them in college athletics research provides through several exemplars.
References
Azzarito, L., & Harrison Jr, L. (2008). White men can’t jump': Race, gender and natural athleticism. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 43(4), 347-364. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1012690208099871 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690208099871
Branch, T. (2011). The shame of college sports. The Atlantic Monthly, 308(3), 80-110.
Browne, S. (2015). Dark matters: On the surveillance of Blackness. Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822375302
Coakley, J. (2002). Using sports to control deviance and violence among youths: Let’s be critical and cautious. In M. Gatz, M.A. Messner, & S.J. Ball-Rokeach (Eds.), Paradoxes of youth and sport (pp. 13-30). State University of New York Press.
Coakley, J. (2017). Sports in society: Issues and controversies. McGraw-Hill Education.
Comeaux, E. (2018). Stereotypes, control, hyper‐surveillance, and disposability of NCAA division I Black male athletes. New Directions for Student Services, 2018(163), 33-42. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ss.20268 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ss.20268
Comeaux, E. (2019). Toward a more critical understanding of the experiences of division I college athletes. Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, 35, 1-53. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11743-6_2-1 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11743-6_2-1
Comeaux, E., & Grummert, S.E. (2020). Antiblackness in college athletics: Facilitating high impact campus engagement and successful career transitions among Black athletes. Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics, Fall Special Issue, 56-72.
Comeaux, E., June Frazier, D., & Savage, B. (2022). The fire this time: Prioritizing critical research on racism and antiblackness in athletics. In J.N. Cooper (Ed.), Anti-racism in sport organizations. Center for Sport Management Research and Education (pp. 62-78). https://www.csmre.org/csmre-publications
Curtis, C. (2020, August 10). If politicians like Donald Trump wanted college football, they should have controlled COVID-19 first. USA Today. https://ftw.usatoday.com/2020/08/college-football-big-ten-donald-trump-twitter
Czekanski, W.A., Siegrist, A., & Aicher, T. (2019). Getting to the heart of it all: An analysis of due process in interscholastic athletics. Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport, 29(2), 152-170. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18060/22311 DOI: https://doi.org/10.18060/22311
Dancy, T.E., Edwards, K.T., & Earl Davis, J. (2018). Historically White universities and plantation politics: Anti-Blackness and higher education in the Black Lives Matter era. Urban Education, 53(2), 176-195. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0042085918754328 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085918754328
Davis, A.Y. (2011). Abolition democracy: Beyond empire, prisons, and torture. Seven Stories Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10999940601057374 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10999940601057374
Dellenger, R. [@rossdellenger]. (2020, August 10). Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) has drafted a letter that he plans to send to Big Ten presidents, identifying reasons why he believes college football should be played [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/RossDellenger/status/1292830897260175360/photo/1
Douglass, P.D. (2018). Black feminist theory for the dead and dying. Theory & Event, 21(1), 106-123. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/tae.2018.0004 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/tae.2018.0004
Dumas, M.J. (2016). Against the dark: Antiblackness in education policy and discourse. Theory into Practice, 55(1), 11-19. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2016.1116852 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2016.1116852
Edwards, H. (1979). Sport within the veil: The triumphs, tragedies and challenges of Afro-American involvement. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 445(1), 116-127. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/000271627944500113 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/000271627944500113
Fanon, F. (1952). Black skin, White masks. Paladin.
Foucault, M. (1975). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Translation by Alan Sheridan. Random House.
Gayles, J.G., Comeaux, E., Ofoegbu, E., & Grummert, S. (2018). Neoliberal capitalism and racism in college athletics: Critical approaches for supporting student‐athletes. New Directions for Student Services, 2018(163), 11-21. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ss.20266 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ss.20266
Gilmore, R.W. (2007). Golden gulag: Prisons, surplus, crisis, and opposition in globalizing California. University of California Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/9780520938038 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520938038
Giroux, H.A., & Giroux, S.S. (2012). Universities gone wild: Big money, big sports, and scandalous abuse at Penn State. Cultural Studies? Critical Methodologies, 12(4), 267-273. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1532708612446419 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708612446419
Grummert, S.E. (2021). Carcerality and college athletics: State methods of enclosure within and through college sport (Publiction No. 28542700) [Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Riverside]. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/52z8679n
Harris, C.I. (1993). Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review, 106(8), 1707-1791. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1341787 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1341787
Hartman, S.V. (1996). Seduction and the ruses of power. Callaloo, 19(2), 537-560. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/cal.1996.0050 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.1996.0050
Hartman, S.V. (1997). Scenes of subjection: Terror, slavery, and self-making in nineteenth-century America. Oxford University Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/25149073 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/25149073
Hartman, S.V. (2007). Lose your mother: A journey along the Atlantic slave route. Straus and Giroux. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvwcjf57.9 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvwcjf57.9
Hartman, S.V., & Wilderson, F.B. (2003). The position of the unthought. Qui Parle, 13(2), 183-201. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/quiparle.13.2.183 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/quiparle.13.2.183
Hartmann, D. (2012). Beyond the sporting boundary: The racial significance of sport through midnight basketball. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 35(6), 1007-1022. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2012.661869 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2012.661869
Hartmann, D. (2016). Midnight basketball: Race, sports, and neoliberal social policy. University of Chicago Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226375038.001.0001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226375038.001.0001
Haslerig, S.J., & Grummert, S.E. (November, 2017). Omissions & misdirection: Policing dissent beyond the backlash narrative [Paper presentation]. North American Society for the Sociology of Sport, Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
Haslerig, S.J., Grummert, S.E., & Vue, R. (2019). Rationalizing Black death: Sport media’s dehumanizing coverage of Black college football players. In P. Brug, K. Roth, & Z. Ritter (Eds.), Marginality in the urban center: The costs and challenges of continued Whiteness in the Americas and beyond (pp. 77-109). Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96466-9_5 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96466-9_5
Haslerig, S.J., Vue, R., & Grummert, S.E. (2020). Invincible bodies: American sport media’s racialization of Black and White college football players. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 55(3), 272-290. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1012690218809317 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690218809317
Hatteberg, S.J. (2018). Under surveillance: Collegiate athletics as a total institution. Sociology of Sport Journal, 35(2), 149-158. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1123/ssj.2017-0096 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.2017-0096
Hatton, E. (2020). Coerced: Work under threat of punishment. University of California Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520973404
Hawkins, B. (1999). Black student athletes at predominantly White National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) division I institutions and the pattern of oscillating migrant laborers. Western Journal of Black Studies, 23(1), 1-9.
Hawkins, B. (2010). The new plantation: Black athletes, college sports, and predominantly White NCAA institutions. Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5860/choice.48-2143 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5860/CHOICE.48-2143
Hextrum, K. (2018). The hidden curriculum of college athletic recruitment. Harvard Educational Review, 88(3), 355-377. http://dx.doi.org/10.17763/1943-5045-88.3.355 DOI: https://doi.org/10.17763/1943-5045-88.3.355
Hextrum, K. (2019). Operation Varsity Blues: Disguising the legal capital exchanges and white property interests in athletic admissions. Higher Education Politics & Economics, 5(1), 15-32. http://dx.doi.org/10.32674/hepe.v5i1.1359 DOI: https://doi.org/10.32674/hepe.v5i1.1359
Hextrum, K. (2020a). Amateurism revisited: How US college athletic recruitment favors middle-class athletes. Sport, Education and Society, 25(1), 111-123. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2018.1547962 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2018.1547962
Hextrum, K. (2020b). Bigger, faster, stronger: How racist and sexist ideologies persist in college sports. Gender and Education, 32(8), 1053-1071. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2019.1632418 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2019.1632418
Hextrum, K. (2020c). Individualizing conflict: How ideology enables college athletes’ educational compromises. Studies in Higher Education, 45(4), 755-767. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2018.1554639 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2018.1554639
Hextrum, K. (2020d). Segregation, innocence, and protection: The institutional conditions that maintain Whiteness in college sports. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 13(4), 384-395. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000140 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000140
Hextrum, K. (2021a). Special admission: How college sports recruitment favors White, suburban athletes. Rutgers University Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2v55kkq DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2v55kkq
Hextrum, K. (2021b). White property interests in college athletic admissions. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 46(4), 383-403. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/01937235211015352 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/01937235211015352
Hoffman, K.M., Trawalter, S., Axt, J.R., & Oliver, M.N. (2016). Racial bias in pain assessment and treatment recommendations, and false beliefs about biological differences between Blacks and Whites. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113(16), 4296-4301. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1516047113 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1516047113
Huma, R., & Staurowsky, E.J. (2011). The price of poverty in big time college sport. National College Players Association. https://www.ncpanow.org/research/study-the-price-of-poverty-in-big-time-college-sport DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv31r2mq6.5 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv31r2mq6.5
James, J. (1996). Resisting state violence: Radicalism, gender, and race in US culture. University of Minnesota Press.
James, J. (1999). Shadowboxing: Black feminist politics. Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-06751-7
Jayakumar, U.M., & Page, S. (2021). Cultural capital and opportunities for exceptionalism: Bias in university admissions. Journal of Higher Education. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2021.1912554 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2021.1912554
Jenkins, S. (2021, March 25). The NCAA’s shell game is the real women’s basketball scandal. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/03/25/ncaa-women-basketball-tournament-revenue/
Kahn, L.M. (2007). Markets: Cartel behavior and amateurism in college sports. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21(1), 209-226. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/jep.21.1.209 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.21.1.209
Kalman-Lamb, N. (2020). The (African) American dream: Spectacle and post-racial teleology in U.S. sports films. In D. Brown (Ed.), Sports in African American life: Essays on history and culture, (pp. 208-250). McFarland.
Koch, J.V. (1973). A troubled cartel: The NCAA. Law and Contemporary Problems, 38(1), 135-150.
McCormick, R.A., & McCormick, A.C. (2006). The myth of the student-athlete: The college athlete as employee. Washington Law Review, 81(1), 71-157.
LoMonte, F.D. (2014). Fouling the First Amendment: Why colleges can’t, and shouldn’t, control student athletes’ speech on social media. Journal of Business & Technology Law, 9(1), 1-50.
Moten, F. (2021). A conversation with Sandy Grande, Stefano Harney, Fred Moten, Jasbir Puar, and Dylan Rodríguez. Strike MoMA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2vzhwnjy4s
Nocera, J., & Strauss, B. (2016). Indentured: The inside story of the rebellion against the NCAA. Portfolio.
Patterson, O. (1982). Slavery and social death: A comparative study. Harvard University Press.
Penrose, M. (2012). Outspoken: Social media and the modern college athlete. The John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law, 12(3), 509-550.
Rhoden, W. (2006). Forty million dollar slaves: The rise, fall, and redemption of the Black athlete. Crown Publishers. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0095798407310542 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0095798407310542
Richie, B. (1996). Compelled to crime: The gender entrapment of battered Black women. Routledge. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315656557 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315656557
Rick, O. (2018). Is this the beginning of the end? Small colleges and universities are questioning the value of an NCAA program for their student body. In R. King-White (Ed.), Sport and the Neoliberal University: Profit, politics, and pedagogy (pp. 153-169). Rutgers University Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt2050wq3.10 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt2050wq3.10
Roberts, D.E. (1999). Killing the Black body: Race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty. Vintage.
Rodríguez, D. (2006). Forced passages: Imprisoned radical intellectuals and the US prison regime. University of Minnesota Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0734016809349176 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0734016809349176
Rodríguez, D. (2017). The political logic of the non-profit industrial complex. In INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence (Eds.), The revolution will not be funded: Beyond the non-profit industrial complex (pp. 21-40). Duke University Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9780822373001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11smnz6.6
Rodríguez, D. (2021a). “Mass incarceration” as misnomer: Chattel/domestic war and the problem of narrativity. In M.K. Jung & J.H.C. Vargas (Eds.), Antiblackness (pp. 171-197). Duke University Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1grbbwr.11 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478013167-009
Rodríguez, D. (2021b, January 29). Campus safety task forces as police power. Remaking the University. http://utotherescue.blogspot.com/2021/01/campus-safety-task-forces-as-police.html
Sack, A.L., & Staurowsky, E.J. (1998). College athletes for hire: The evolution and legacy of the NCAA’s amateur myth. Praeger. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1123/jsm.13.2.167 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9798400628443
Sacks, T.K. (2019). Invisible visits: Black middle-class women in the American healthcare system. Oxford University Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190840204.003.0003 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190840204.001.0001
Sexton, J. (2010). People-of-Color-blindness: Notes on the afterlife of slavery. Social Text, 28(2), 31-56. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/01642472-2009-066 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-2009-066
Sexton, J. (2012). Ante-anti-blackness: Afterthoughts. Lateral, 1(1), 1-14. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.25158/l1.1.16 DOI: https://doi.org/10.25158/L1.1.16
Sharpe, C. (2016). In the wake: On Blackness and being. Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822373452
Sojoyner, D.M. (2013). Black radicals make for bad citizens: Undoing the myth of the school to prison pipeline. Berkeley Review of Education, 4(2), 241-263. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5070/b84110021 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5070/B84110021
Sojoyner, D.M. (2016). First strike: Educational enclosures in Black Los Angeles. University of Minnesota Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816697533.001.0001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816697533.001.0001
Southall, R.M., Hawkins, B., Polite, F., & Sack, A. (2011, April). “Pimpin’ ain’t easy, but it’s necessary”: Oscillating migrant labor & one-year grant-in-aids in college sport [Conference session or Paper presentation]. 4th Annual College Sport Research Institute Conference on College Sport, Chapel Hill, NC.
Southall, R.M., & Staurowsky, E.J. (2013). Cheering on the collegiate model: Creating, disseminating, and imbedding the NCAA’s redefinition of amateurism. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 37(4), 403-429. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0193723513498606 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0193723513498606
Southall, R.M., & Weiler, J.D. (2014). NCAA division-I athletic departments: 21st century athletic company towns. Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics, 7, 161-186.
Spillers, H.J. (1987). Mama’s baby, papa’s maybe: An American grammar book. Diacritics, 17(2), 65-81. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/464747 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/464747
Stanley, E.A., & Spade, D. (2012). Queering prison abolition, now? American Quarterly, 64(1), 115-127. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/aq.2012.0003 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2012.0003
Stewart, D-L. (2019). Ideologies of absence: Anti-Blackness and inclusion rhetoric in student affairs practice. Ideologies of Absence: Anti-Blackness and Inclusion Rhetoric, 28, 15-30.
Vargas, J.H.C. (2013). “Borrowed land as prison: Spectacles of homeland warfare in Rio de Janeiro.” In Beyond the School to Prison Pipeline: Radical Perspectives on Criminalization & State Violence Across State Institutions. UCR Critical Ethnic Studies Research Center.
Vargas, J.H.C. (2018). The denial of antiblackness: Multiracial redemption and Black suffering. University of Minnesota Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5749/j.ctv3zp0cg DOI: https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctv3zp0cg
Vargas, J.H.C., & James, J. (2013). Refusing blackness-as-victimization: Trayvon Martin and the black cyborgs. In G. Yancy & J. Jones (Eds.), Pursuing Trayvon Martin: Historical contexts and contemporary manifestations of racial dynamics, (pp. 193-204). Lexington Books.
Vargas, J.H.C., & Jung, M.K. (2021). Introduction: Antiblackness of the social and the human. In M.K.Jung & J.H.C. Vargas (Eds.), Antiblackness (pp. 1-16). Duke University Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1grbbwr.3 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478013167-001
WeAreUnited. (2020, August 2).#WeAreUnited. The Players’ Tribune. https://www.theplayerstribune.com/articles/pac-12-players-covid-19-statement-football-season
Wilderson III, F.B. (2010). Red, White & Black: Cinema and the structure of US antagonisms. Duke University Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9780822391715 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822391715
Wilderson III, F.B. (2016, March 30). Afro-pessimism and the end of redemption. The Occupied Times. https://theoccupiedtimes.org/?p=14236
Wilderson III, F.B. (2021). Afropessimism and the ruse of analogy: Violence, freedom struggles, and the death of Black desire. In M.K.Jung & J.H.C. Vargas (Eds.), Antiblackness (pp. 37-59). Duke University Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1grbbwr.5 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1grbbwr.5
Wilderson III, F.B., & King, T.L. (2020). Staying ready for Black study: A conversation. In T.L.King, J. Navarro, & A. Smith (Eds.), Otherwise worlds: Against settler colonialism and anti-Blackness, (pp. 52-73). Duke University Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/9781478012023-005 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478012023-005
Wun, C. (2016). Against captivity: Black girls and school discipline policies in the afterlife of slavery. Educational Policy, 30(1), 171-196. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0895904815615439 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904815615439
Wun, C. (2017). Not only a pipeline: Schools as carceral sites. Occasional Paper Series, 2017(38), 1-6. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.58295/2375-3668.1131 DOI: https://doi.org/10.58295/2375-3668.1131
Wun, C. (2018a). Angered: Black and non-Black girls of color at the intersections of violence and school discipline in the United States. Race Ethnicity and Education, 21(4), 423-437. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2016.1248829 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2016.1248829
Wun, C. (2018b). Schools as carceral sites: A unidirectional war against girls of color. In A. Ali (Ed.), Education at war: The fight for students of color in America’s public school, (pp. 206-227). Fordham University Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt2204pqp.13 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt2204pqp.13
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Sara E. Grummert
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
