Popular Culture Credo- By: C



Black Male Images in Sport (Popular Culture Credo)

By: C. Keith Harrison, 1997

* Based on six years of formal and informal research; as well as participant-observer experience as a student-athlete (22 years in athletics).

-also based on the work of leading sport sociologists, J. Coakley and H. Edwards;

and cultural studies scholars, J. Fiske and S. Hall.

Papers and Publications where this framework is present:

“Messages to the African American Male From Printed Sport Advertising”

“Psychological Outcomes of Racial Constructions in the Media: Reinforcer or Creator?”

“The Mass Construction of the African American Male: Jumper(Sport) and Jailbird(Crime)”

“Jack Johnson His Own Man, The Symbolic Meaning: Where We See Jack Today”

1) Ahistorical or no historical foundation

Practical example: Little or no knowledge of those that have paved the way as African American Athletes. Frank “Big Hurt” Thomas articulated this when he revealed that he didn’t know anything about Jackie Robinson. Also, surveys during the baseball strike a few years ago revealed that over 80% of the pros had no knowledge of the significance of Jackie Robinson.

2) Monolithic Media Adoption

Practical example: Athletes, entertainers and criminals.

3) Identity Internalization

Practical example: Limited internal belief of what one can become in life.

4) Role Models Missing in Action

Practical example: Lack of exposure to positive African American males that are not perceived as “sellouts” or “Uncle Toms.”

5) School is not cool

Practical example: Belief that school is for “white people,” or that learning is a sign of weakness, not prowess. Recently at a high school game in Florida, black players told the white team “that you all may have the brains, but we won the game.”

6) Goal Setting: Either/Or Vs. Either/And

Practical example: “If I don’t go to the show, I’ll just get a job at UPS.” The reality of picking a career other than sport is not popular.

Black Male Images in Athletics

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to link the themes from Hutchinson’s chapter on African American men in sport to some of the race and sport literature. This essay argues that black male athletic images do not increase cultural sensitivity. On the contrary, it will be demonstrated that they reinforce historical stereotypes, attitudes, feelings, and emotions about black men in general. Both the individual and the institution internalize the monolithic symbols manifested by the media.

A day does not pass when I do not brood on the negative social profile and bad PR that seem to envelop contemporary images of black males in America. As an artist and a father, I am filled with urgency and more than a little anger because I know my own son, now approaching his twenty-first birthday, and my fourteen-year-old daughter must negotiate their way through an uncivil public space soured by the steady bombardment of media images that portray black people in the worst imaginable ways-- as welfare cheats, criminals, incompetent parents, ex-cons, poor students, crackheads, as an affirmative-action liability in the workplace, and, to put this bluntly, as the corrupting worm coiled inside the American apple (From Black Men Speaking, Johnson,1997, p. 177, in Johnson & McCluskey Jr.).

Background

As a young African American male in our society, I am subjected to many of the stereotypes mentioned above. Often I am asked, “Do you play football or basketball.” When I respond that I am an assistant professor at the University of Michigan, mouths drop wide open. In fact, people become even more confused the more they probe at me and find out that I am a former center on a collegiate football team, have been teaching for six years, and earned my doctorate at age 27.

What is poignant here is the relationship of my personal bombardment of presumptions, preconceived notions and flat out racist conclusions by many individuals in America to Hutchinson’s chapter on sport. While the “dumb jock” myth affects numerous athletic people from all backgrounds-- I tend to agree with Hutchinson’s thesis; racism is subtle in sports, covertly and overtly apparent at times, but problematic to the critical eye. The media’s constant flashing of salaries next to a black male athlete’s face has negated issues to the public in terms of exploitation and contemporary colonization. By synthesizing four major themes from Hutchinson’s chapter on sport, and illuminating preliminary data from an longitudinal study, the realities of the black male sporting experience can be more closely observed and practically applied into what I am coining Popular Culture Credo. This theoretical framework and its analysis will follow the themes of Hutchinson’s chapter and link to the illusions of meritocracy and democracy that race and sport profess as we near the next millennium. This perpetuates a psyche in many black males that consume immediate gratification, commodified imagery and apolitical representation.

Theme 1: Post-Colonialism Equals Contemporary Capitalism

Hutchinson begins the chapter with the perfect framework, discussing documented racist comments by those elites in the sport hierarchy. Hutchinson facetiously feels that Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder being fired was one of the worst things that could have happen. His main point is that when Snyder said that blacks dominate major sports because they were “bred to be that way by the slave owner,” he only said what many of the men who make the decisions in the sports profession really think about black athletes (Hutchinson, 1996).

There have been other related comments. In 1993, Marge Schott, the owner of the Cincinnati Reds baseball franchise, made several comments behind closed doors that offended Americans of many races and religions (Shropshire, 1996). Statements Schott allegedly made referred to two star black players as “million-dollar niggers” and she stated that she would “rather have a trained monkey working than a nigger.”

The attitudes of the aforementioned eloquently inform one how subtextual racism in sports is, as well as raises an important question for future progress in our nation. How much has changed since slavery? Pieterse (1995) reminds us that:

Some blacks have become famous as entertainers or athletes is sometimes presented as an argument to the effect that there is no real discrimination against blacks, that western societies are integrated and that every opportunity is open to blacks if only they make an effort. It does not require too much imagination however to realize that his kind of success is a marginal phenomenon and can very well go along with a pattern of discrimination in society at large.

(1995: 132)

Pieterse guides one in the direction of reality, which is post-colonialism adaptation to a modern world. In other words, post-slavery saw segregation and no need for black athletes, except for side acts like the Globetrotters as clowns, buffoons, and “Uncle Toms.” As long as they kept away from white women, they were tolerated in boxing since it was considered a sport for brutes anyway. When Jack Johnson (former heavyweight champion) forgot, the sport and country KO’d him fast (Hutchinson, 1996).

From my perspective, the world has no doubt advanced, and some things are better in terms of racial discrimination, while some stay the same. Historically, for their bumps and bruises, the black bucks got a little better food, and extra set of hand-me-downs and if especially lucky, their freedom (Hutchinson, 1996). These black bucks were the master’s prize gladiators and minimal specialties were provided.

“Conditional integration” has led to blacks accessing subordinate or participatory roles in sport. This had created a love and hate relationship with the black male athlete or what we might call a “post-modern buck.” The success of the black male athlete should always be kept in proper perspective. The racial complexion of some sports have changed, but the mentality of many of those who ran it, promoted it, and broadcast it did not. They are still black performers employed for the amusement and entertainment of the public and as always bottom-line profit of the men and women who run the sporting industry (Edwards, 1970, cited in Hutchinson, 1996). Frederick Douglass seems to have captured it when he said, “only those wild and low sports peculiar to semicivilized people were encouraged.” Clearly, Douglass was critical of the promoted subordinate (the black athlete and physical performance).

Theme 2: Visiting Athletic-Scholars

Hutchinson raises the issue on the hypocrisy of collegiate athletics. The fact that Walter Byers (former NCAA executive director for almost 40 years) published a book in 1995 truthfully titled Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Exploiting College Athletes should scare all of us concerned. Hutchinson’s case and point is the fact that Patrick Ewing made Georgetown an estimated $4.5 million on ticket sales, television, publicity and promotional revenue. Ewing tangibly got a scholarship worth $48,000 and a degree, and plays for the New York Knicks and makes millions as a superstar. How many black male student-athletes can say the same? Works by scholars such as Harry Edwards, Gary Sailes, Othello Harris, Robert Sellers, Richard Lapchick, Earl Smith and many others support what Hutchinson argues in this topical debate. Even with the impact of the black male in sport, blacks were/are underpaid, underappreciated, and not accepted as social equals.

Hutchinson focuses on the debate over the years with Edwards and sports writers and executives as to how much opportunity is really afforded to black men to receive an education while on athletic scholarship. Sports writers remind Edwards that slaves don’t make millions of dollars, receive a college education, and live in palatial estates in the suburbs. They have always felt that Edwards should shut up and be grateful. From their perspective, if it wasn’t for sports, these guys would be selling hot clothes in Harlem, peddling dope in Watts, or carjacking on Chicago’s West side. Eventually, they would all wind up serving hard time in some joint.

Edwards has reminded sportswriters and society as a whole that some black male student and professional athletes end up in jail anyway once they were dumped from a team because of injury or a run-in with a coach, or fell from a team with an owner. Edwards has candidly written how even successful black athletes were often discarded like a dirty jockstrap once their glory days were over. Black athletes as a norm do not step from the court, gridiron, or cinders into Congress or the Senate like Jack Kemp, Bob Mathias, and Bill Bradley. Edwards today raises the question on how many African American male student-athletes are majoring in law, medicine, or engineering? Graduation rates are still a national disgrace for brothers, as Emerge magazine reports the biggest abusers every year (institutions with low graduation rates for black student-athletes).

I want to make one thing clear at this point. Edwards and most of my colleagues mentioned above do not argue that student-athletes should be paid. We argue that radical reconstruction of NCAA policies and procedures must come to fruition if true change is to ever take place. Stipends should be increased, freshman should be ineligible, and rewards should be given to those schools who graduate the most players are only a few suggestions. In general, we need to construct new priorities and a balance of academics and athletics. Until then, we will have visiting athletic-scholars as Harry Edward’s song has sang for far too many years.

Theme 3: Conditional Acceptance

Grant Hill captures Hutchinson’s next argument in his biography Change the Game:

Bigotry can be blatant and it can be subtle. For example, a magazine article appeared that asked, “Can Grant Hill Save Sports?” Most people, even my mother saw it as a positive article. It complimented me for being smart, unassuming, and modest. Along with such praise, though, were some troubling characterizations. The writer of the article described a party I went to. There were some guys wearing fur coats who made a big deal over me, and the writer described me at one point as “the king of the hoodlums.” The implication to me and most of my friends was that “hoodlum” equaled “black.” Take me out of that scene, a friend pointed out, and it paints an unfair and unflattering picture of African American men.

(Hill 1996: 63-64)

Hill’s observation links to Hutchinson’s discussion of the good and bad Negro in sports. Perfect narrative he eludes to is the Lawrence Phillips incident a couple of seasons ago, which in short was the star athlete beats us a coed (white female at that) and gets to play anyway. While suspended for several games, Phillips got to play in the national championship game, which the University of Nebraska won. Hutchinson points out that while Nebraska University got the glory, Coach Osborne the championship, what will happen to Phillips someday? Since his college days, Phillips has been in and out of trouble, dropped from the team that drafted him, and picked up by another at the minimal league salary.

I argue that Phillip’s behavior is both accepted and not accepted by the power structure, just because he can run with a football. Take his pads away from him and he would be seen as just another brother on the streets. Meanwhile his stereotypical out-of-control, animalistic behavior, reinforces that black men do not know how to act in a structured society, justifying every conservative politicians head nod of “I told you so.”

Hutchinson concludes the pseudo-acceptance of black athletes with two powerful points that he feels black athletes should internalize if they want to last long. One, do not ask for more money, and two, never get hurt. Those in control allow Frank Sinatra or Bob Hope to ask for much money long after their best days are over, but the public perception at large is that we have overpaid, arrogant black superstar athletes. Getting injured opens the door for other criticisms according to Hutchinson. Black men aren’t viewed as “normal people.” With all that muscle and brawn, black men are supposed to be impervious to injury and pain. The “injury-prone” label is attached, which is a polite way of saying they’re damaged goods. If the black athlete is smart, he will save his money, and plan on a speedy retirement because his days are numbered. Blacks are not allowed to sit on injured reserve lists or be benchwarmers. Those are the quota spots for marginal white players (Hutchinson, 1996). This is why black athletes are conditionally accepted.

Theme 4: Twisting the Truth: No White Male Error

Hutchinson appropriately cites the Lawrence Phillips ordeal again, but this time adds in his teammate at the time, Christain Peter. Lapchick (1996) argues that “broadcast and print media are largely responsible for the images that people see and remember”(p. 209). This is important in understanding the disparity between the media’s portrayal of Phillips and Peter. Consider:

The critics continued to beat up on Phillips after the Rams made him their first- round draft choice in 1996. Yet they were strangely silent about his white teammate, Christian Peter. The giant defensive tackle apparently did more than sack the opposing teams’ quarterbacks. Between 1991 and 1994, Peter was charged with harassing and assaulting a woman in a bar, attacking a former Miss Nebraska, twice raping a Nebraska coed, and threatening the life of a parking-lot attendant. He also faces a federal sex discrimination suit. Peter got brief media mention only after the New England Patriots drafted him and then dropped him because of his sex and violence record. My computer search turned up twenty newspaper articles that specifically mentioned Phillip’s off-the-field woes. Despite Peter’s misdeeds, there was exactly one on him. Peter is a white athlete with an off-the-field record that made Phillips look like an altar boy. I wonder how the sports establishment missed this?

(Hutchinson 1996: 56)

I can answer Hutchinson’s last question. To date, white male error is not seen as “newsworthy” or a story in general. This is why hockey players can fight for hours and NBA and NFL teams get fined astronomical figures for late hits, fights and flagrant fouls. The summation of Hutchinson’s last theme is that the media labels and codes black males specifically in terms of performance on and off the field, which the Phillips and Peter incidents clearly show a difference between black and white analysis. It all starts in the broadcast booth with the announcers. Studies such as James A. Rada’s (1996) on “Color Blind-Sided: Racial Bias in Network Television’s Coverage of Professional Football Games” show strong evidence of Hutchinson’s thesis of media bias. Rada’s study found that announcers emphasized the athleticism of black players and the cognitive abilities of white players (p. 231).

Essentially, black players are given what I call “credit/no credit” for their athletic achievements. This is why the word athlete has come to mean black. I always have my students do an assignment on rating announcers and their descriptions and they are shocked at the biases they hear. I myself have observed hours of athletic contests on television and heard the same biases described. Black athletes have great feet and “natural” ability, while white athletes “know” how to get open or perform a task. This is why the truth gets twisted and white male error usually gets left out. As Hutchinson ends his chapter, that’s why Jackie Robinson said in his autobiography, “I never had it made.”

Hutchinson feels that we should bring Snyder back, because he made the game so much simpler. Snyder never kept blacks guessing about where they stood. Snyder was oblivious to twisting the truth (black male athletic achievement) and white male error(his racist beliefs that include negative actions).

Adding Science To McCall’s Revolution: Hutchinson’s Hypothesis

While Hutchinson has contributed to the body of knowledge on deconstructing mass media images of black men, another author has added a similar perspective in relation to race and sport. Nathan McCall (1997) in What’s Going On, articulates a contest between whites and blacks in his powerful but hilarious chapter “The Revolution is about Basketball”:

Of course, the brothers knew they were being watched. Standing there, dressed in the finest brand-name tennis shoes and athletic gear, they appeared confident, cocky. Like maybe they’d taken too many of those popular sneaker commercials that feed America’s myths about their super ball-playing skills. Perhaps they’d bought into that slick Reebok ad, the one where a brother, caught up in a fit of hoops bravado, boasts to the world, this is my planet. Or maybe they were inspired by the hip Foot Locker spot, in which a determined dude with a basketball spinning like a crystal on his gleaming bald head turns to Zen meditation to achieve white folks’ idea of black men’s greatest quest: defying gravity so we can dunk a goddamned basketball.

(1997: 4-5)

In American culture, we see primarily three images of black men: athletes, entertainers and criminals. And if one were to look closer, these three images are practically rolled together. That’s why Billy Hawkins(University of Georgia) has an excellent article forthcoming titled “Super-Athletes, Super-Heroes, and Super-Criminals” in terms of black masculinity and contemporary images. Hutchinson, McCall, and Hawkins all confirm what I have found in a longitudinal study.

From September of 1995 to present, I have taped over 350 commercials of advertisements with black male athletes in them, as well as had two graduate students complete thesis work on sports media advertising and race. A few themes of these commercials blatantly portray that black males are “natural” athletes, education is not a key to being successful, and that the odds of making it professionally are very attainable. McCall’s commentary adds to what I am finding, and he concludes his chapter by saying:

The blind eye that some pro players turn to white America’s sham voids them as role models for the young bloods who look up to them. And so youngsters often don’t get told-- firsthand-- that the revolution is not about basketball. Instead, they go on, inspired by the commercial hype. They grow up nursing juvenile dreams of being the next Jordan, Shaq, or Hardaway-- rich, famous, and above all, loved. You see them in backyards, on school grounds and city basketball courts, leaping, rising above the stars, descending to the court with flashy thunder-dunks. You see them out there, cocksure as hell, destined to learn the same hard lesson handed those brothers in that Arlington pickup match: that you can have all the natural skills in the world and still lose if you haven’t mastered the mental game.

(McCall 1997: 15-16)

Since Jack Johnson and his stardom too many black males feel that the road to success is in a gym, on a football field, or baseball diamond. I will discuss this more in the conclusion.

Conclusion

Nike-sponsored images of Michael Jordan are found around the world. Nike and other corporations have worked hard to sever the Jordan persona from connections with African American experiences. This allows people to comfortably ignore the legacies of colonialism and racism that still affect people’s economic, political, and social lives today (Coakley, 1997). Coakley’s argument lends immediate support to my theoretical framework, which I call Popular Culture Credo.

I have used it recently in papers and keynotes to reach deeper into the psyche of young black males. Not only have institutions been apathetic about historical racism, but so have many black males that participate in sports. Without a historical perspective, goals are usually directed at athletic achievement. Combine these factors with the exclusion of diverse role model representation of black men and the revolution does become about basketball only (see Table 1). Viewing point one, black males must be taught the history of integration, race and sport. Many of the struggles yesterday are still true today. The problem is that too many black males treat today’s struggles without knowledge of the past and lack proactive strategies for combating and coping with racism.

Point two addresses the notion of stereotypes of the average black male in society. While less than one percent of the African American male population is a professional athlete, this is often the assumption by society at large(I eluded to this in the opening paragraph of this essay.

Point three stresses that the salaries of black athletes channels the goals of many. Many “brothers” no doubt think “Why do anything else besides play ball if it pays like that?” Having a limited goal as a professional athlete and the status attached to it can (if achieved) allow an individual to obtain many of the things they wish to consume(money, women, cars, houses).

Point four relates to the notion of African Americans living in two worlds(homogenous and heterogeneous) and all the social tensions that associate with upward mobility. The problem is that many of the black male role models in institutional roles are not visual to young black males. Too often when they are visual and present, the desire to become them is low based on stereotypes of assimilation.

Point five follows that education is seen too often as part of the “sellout” and assimilation process of being less black. Early black male student-athletes such as Paul Robeson, Jerome Holland and William Henry Lewis were all outstanding scholars and athletes-- proving this notion to be pathological.

Point six examines that goals outside of sport appear nebulous, abstract and a waste of time to many black males.

Finally, one of my colleagues is a senior collegiate athletic director. While she is white, young and female, she seems to have expressed the perfect ending to this review essay by stating:

One thing that sorely needs to be pointed out(sadly enough) is that we have only come as far in sport as we have in society. That sport is a microcosm of society ought to tell us that what we find in sport ought not be a surprise. Sport is, however, the one area where the color of a man’s skin can be forgiven. In other words, he becomes acceptable to a white society that he otherwise would not have been. Take O.J. for instance, he was eating with some other African-Americans at a restaurant during his playing days, when he overhead a woman at the next table say look at O.J. Simpson sitting at a table with a bunch of niggers. There is something wrong with this picture. See, to many white people, and to some black people too, nigger equals poor, uneducated black people; while a rich well-off educated black person is African-American with no other negative connotation. It is as if the presence of money and a physical talent wipe the color right off the skin. What other facet of American society has such a population? Even in corporate America a well-educated black person is a nigger with a degree.

(Arnold 1997: personal communication)

The assassination of the black male image in sport becomes more and more complex each day, while seemingly moving farther and farther from equality and reality. Let’s hope the next-millennium will see more images of black male super-doctors, super-lawyers and super-thinkers, thus diffusing the traditional paradigm and becoming more inclusive to holistic realities.

AFTERWORD

At the end of the 1998 NFL season, Kevin Greene of the Carolina Panthers “lost his cool” and attacked his defensive coordinator. One could barely find this in the mass or print media. In contrast, the Latrell Sprewell incident, where the NBA player physically attacked his verbally abusive coach, ran day and night, and his altercation was not captured on tape unlike the Kevin Greene fiasco. This is another manifestation of white male error not being as “newsworthy” or eye-catching. Imagine if Bryan Cox, an NFL linebacker for the New York Jets, had behaved like Kevin Greene? What about Dennis Rodman, Allen Iverson or Albert Belle?

References

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Johnson, C. & McCluskey, J. (1997). Black Men Speaking. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

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Smith, J. et al. Black Firsts: 2,000 of Extraordinary Achievement. Detroit: Visible Ink, 1994.

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White, Lonnie. “Breaking the Ice.” Los Angeles Times, 18 January 1997: C8.

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