Combing Pluralism with Discrimination in Sport
As I mentioned earlier, my greatest passions are sport, writing & rhetoric, and how we can change the narrative of systemic racism and oppression. This section is a collection of my own, Kelsie Abadir, and Ben Ericson's work on division and inequality that can help the reader gain insight on what exactly pluralism is, as well as how I see division in the U.S.
A Brief Introduction on Fundamentalism and Pluralist Rhetoric
Written by Bailey Cornett
Edited by Kelsie Abadir & Ben Ericson
When discussing race in the United States, we as Americans have misdirected and diverted these crucial conversations by expressing its discomfort, or by shifting the conversation into a linear faceted system. We use these shields of being uncomfortable when approaching systemic racism, and in doing so we have allowed for everyday applications of casual racism across any and all aspects of everyday life. As systemic racism has festered and spread within the United States, we have gradually become accustomed to inherent forms of microaggressions and acts of “accepted” racism. These instances often go unrecognized and have become systemically ingrained in our societies, fueling our inherent biases and racial discrimination. We often see overt actions of racial discrimination and hatred (especially in the media) yet eliminating these cruel and violent acts of racism is not the key to solving it. We live in a society that has systematically dismissed the acceptance and bridge of cross-racial communication, which can be described as recognizing, affirming, and valuing varying cultural perspectives and communications avoiding assimilation to common “culturally expected” communication practices. We have gradually fueled the idea that cross-racial communication does not belong in the United States, an idea that seems like a generally simple act to achieve. We will start by asking the question: why have we let this go on so long?
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Readers may be wondering, “if we stop overt, violent acts of racism, how does that not help solve the problem of racism in the U.S?” We need to be establishing what has fueled these acts over time, and we need to recognize that no one is born a racist. One of the greatest amplifications to racial division and the unwillingness to accept cross-racial communication is the notion of fundamentalist rhetoric. To give a brief, baseline understanding, fundamentalism is to have strict adherence to one’s basic principles.​ The way in which we can combat racism is by better understanding where it exists on a fundamental (different than fundamentalist) and accepted level, and then by understanding ways in which we can identify and gradually eliminate them.
Helpful Concepts
Developed by Bailey Cornett, Kelsie Abadir, & Ben Ericson
Rhetoric: How to persuade/the art of persuading.
Fundamentalism: strict adherence to one’s basic principles.
Fundamentals: Basic understanding/core structure of any ideology or concept.
Whiteness qualities: Beauty standards (white people in beauty magazines, white models, etc.), social standards, and the romanization of whiteness.
Rhetorical fundamentalism: One assumes that one side holds 100% of the truth, and the other sides are 100% wrong; Engaging in conversation or debate with someone of opposing views, and both or one party enters with a preconceived assumption of what the opposing party believes before communication.
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Pluralism: Recognition and affirmation of a diverse group and wide variety of perspectives and values, alternative to a linear approach or method of ideology.
Cross-racial communication: Recognizing, affirming, and valuing varying cultural perspectives and communications avoiding assimilation to common “culturally expected” communication practices.
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Systemic racism: Engrained social, political, and economic practices that have, over time, attributed to the inherent biases and racist behavior and attitudes toward people of color within the U.S.
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Intersectionality: Systemic ways in which practices of many forms of discrimination attribute to how certain groups have become marginalized.
Cross-Racial Communication & Integrating Pluralist Rhetoric: Identifying Opposition
Written by Bailey Cornett
Edited by Kelsie Abadir & Ben Ericson
Cross-racial communication, while being its own separate ideology, coincides directly with the practice of pluralist rhetoric. Pluralism is defined as recognition and affirmation of a diverse group and wide variety of perspectives and values, alternative to a linear approach or method of ideology. When understanding this from a rhetorical perspective, we know that this is to address debate, conversation, conflict, or argumentation with an open mindset, and to immediately recognize the diversity and likelihood of your opposition to enter the discussion having a much different perspective to the situation.
Those who welcome cross-racial communication and pluralist rhetoric are more likely to recognize that everyone comes to their own conclusions and beliefs can be attributed to their cultural upbringing. Language, rhetoric, values, and understanding of certain ideologies often form from one’s cultural background, which is something that those who welcome cross-racial communication are likely to recognize. In doing so, individuals in favor of pluralist rhetoric affirm and recognize cultural perspectives and language practices that do not conform to culturally expected, traditional forms of communication within the United States. What culturally expected forms of communication in the U.S. look like, are generalized ways of communication and learning that romanticize Whiteness and traditional American social norms. We will address what traditional, culturally expected norms in the U.S look like going forward.
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Directly opposing the belief that society as a whole should recognize and welcome varying forms of communication, those who oppose cross-racial communication and pluralist rhetoric have a fundamentalist mindset that there should be one, centralized form of communication that everyone must learn and adapt to. This form of communication, learning, understanding, and rhetoric is rarely/never called into question in the United States, and is what is recognized as acceptable and socially normal to this group of people.
This group typically has more of a fundamentalist perspective to conversation, debate, conflict, or argumentation, so as to have a more linear way of looking at things. This is typically a more conservative perspective to have, as these individuals are more likely to believe that in the U.S, those who do not possess the typically expected form of communication should be able to learn and adapt to it. With this mentality, these individuals tend to elect one group to possess the superior and celebrated form of communication, which often selects White Americans to be their preferred understanding of the proper way to communicate.
To reiterate fundamentalism, it is defined as strict adherence to one’s basic principles. This coincides with fundamentalist rhetoric, being that those who apply this form of rhetoric tend to assume that one side holds 100% of the truth, and the other sides are 100% wrong, and to enter with a preconceived assumption of what the opposing party believes before communication transpires. This is a much more linear form of communication than to its opposition, pluralism.
The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America Analysis
Written by Bailey Cornett
This is an original analysis and my own interpretation of The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America. This novel touches on a variety of issues that are presented in racial injustices, particularly toward black athletes in the U.S. What I found particularly compelling about this book was how not only do we see the extreme prejudices and discrimination toward athletes of color, but the way these systems in sport represent a greater division within society. This in fact reflects how institutions in the sport community are embedded in the same racism of U.S political systems placed decades, and even centuries prior. This book was deeply reflective of what we have systematically broken down in lecture and in our readings, in that sport is a microcosm of our U.S society; one that is rooted fundamentally in racism. My analysis and perspective of the reading also was indicative of that of our lessons in lecture (i.e., conflict/functionalist perspectives of sport and society, theories, values, etc.). Reading through Bryant’s analogies, comparisons, and thematic presentation within the book, it appears that his primary goal was to educate the readers on how sport institutions are a greater reflection of U.S systems and policies.
Bryant spends quite a lot of time throughout the book analyzing historical moments where we would see how black oppression in U.S society and government systems influence the oppression they would face in sports. This is directly reflective of the History of Sport in U.S Society lecture we learned early on in the course. In the book, Bryant talks about immigrants coming to America and bringing sports from their homes into the U.S. He mentions how during the 19th century post-emancipation, President Lincoln expressed his ideals of sending black people to other countries, such as Central America, Liberia, etc., and many people (including African Americans) were in favor of this. This was when the phrase, “go back to Africa” rose in popularity (Bryant 2018). Although slavery was abolished, racism was still incredibly prevalent, and blacks were still not seen as equal, and black skin was automatically seen as a weakness. While these times were much more obvious about racism, it still exists heavily today, even in sport. Something from our lecture on Values in U.S Sports that I was reminded of during this portion of the book was when we discussed progress in sport, and how the U.S values technological progress, but resists fundamental changes in society, such as racism, poverty, and mass incarceration (Kremer 2020). Thinking back to the deeply rooted racism and oppression from generations prior, it is easy to see how these ideals have carried on to present day and exist within many U.S systems, whether that be political, social, or economic.
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Bryant’s goal and purpose of this novel appears to aim to show the audience how systems within American politics reflect the U.S world of sport. He provides the stories and perspectives of black athletes who have looked in the face of oppression for merely expressing concern for current events in the U.S. Some examples he uses to show black oppression in sports was at the beginning of the book, where he describes Colin Kaepernick’s nonviolent protest of police brutality by simply kneeling during the national anthem at a San Francisco 49ers game, and parallels this toward the end of the book where he mentions Lebron James and the Miami Heat wearing their heads in hooded sweatshirts to express their grief and recognition for the murder of Trayvon Martin (Bryant 2018). These acts, although they were completely civil and nonviolent, posed much controversy and uproar within the sports community and beyond. This uproar ties back into the functionalist view of sports, being that questioning or criticizing sport is a threat to social order, sport is seen as good because it socializes citizens to act properly and promotes unity among citizens through patriotism (Kremer 2020). These acts of recognition and using their social platform to raise awareness for these civil injustices created a shift in how athletes (primarily those of color) started turning around their oppression into awareness. Many people believe that athletes of color should just “stick to their sport,” which coincides with the typical American standard that they should merely “know their place” (Kremer 2020). With athletes with high social influence, changing that narrative of knowing your place within society causes the shift in the way our political system is built as well.
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While Bryant exposes the deception that the functionalist views in sport and society provide, he also systematically breaks down the reality of the conflict view, which appears to me to be one of the main purposes that the book serves. According to Dr. Joseph Kremer’s lecture on Sociological Perspectives and Theories of Sport, the conflict perspective of sport gives false hope to African Americans, minorities, and other oppressed groups and diverts attention from mass public away from real world issues and is organized to exploit athletes and achieve goals of elite (Kremer 2020). Bryant often describes the various ways in which black athletes and people of color in sports are overshadowed and cast aside due to the fundamental racism and oppression that the sport community is entrenched in. In chapter 9, he talks about ownership within professional sports and how up until 2017, between the NBA, MLS, NFL, and MLB had combined one black owner (Bryant 2018). Bryant goes on to describe how Lebron James called for the league to be a partnership rather than owners above the players. Following this discussion, I remember hearing about professional athletes of color calling owners in the NBA and NFL specifically “slave owners.” This of course caused a massive controversy in both fans and those involved in these leagues. Many people claimed that athletes have no right to complain because they are paid millions of dollars a year and live lavish lifestyles. Based on lecture, readings, videos, and Bryant’s book, we know this is not true, and we know that black athletes are constantly being oppressed within the sports community and in society. We see in the media that many of these professional athletes are given massive contracts, buying expensive homes, and vacationing lavishly, but this does not reign true for all athletes, and certainly does not define an individual’s struggles and obstacles to get there. This conversation takes me back to a lecture delivered by Dr. Joseph Kremer, describing the hegemony theory of sport, which examines how sport is related to class, race, gender, and the control, production, and distribution of economic and cultural power in the sports industry (Kremer 2020). While black athletes are getting large contracts and appear to be “living the dream,” they are still expected to act in a certain way to meld within U.S society. This again is one of the major points that Bryant aims to make throughout the book. He strives to educate the readers on the struggles that black athletes must face due to the color of their skin despite their appeared success.
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This book was the perfect way to pinpoint various sociological perspectives in sport. There was no better read than this to help visualize and bring to life the many theories we have learned in lecture this semester. The author succeeded in providing incredibly helpful examples of how black athletes and black citizens in the United States have been facing oppression for as long as we can remember, whether than be in sport or in day-to-day life. When we look at previous centuries and up to present day, we are able to see how American politics are rooted in racism and oppression, and we cannot so easily make this go away. What is remarkable about this book however is the awareness it brings, and knowledge for this topic is incredibly prevalent in not only sports, but in general overall. That being said, this is a book that should be read by not only sociology of sport students, but any student, so that we can spread awareness of how our political system is entrenched in racism, and how we can move away from a system of oppression.
References
Bryant, Howard. 2018. The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism. Beacon Press.
Kremer, Joseph. 2020. Sociological Perspectives of Sport. Washington State University