I'm not sure what it is, but race is back in mainstream American discourse. Between Barak Obama being the leading candidate for the Democratic Party, the illegal immigration question, the best collegiate basketball player being white (Tyler Hansborough), to even something as simple and picking ones head up and simply looking around in a class room, a cafeteria, an office, the street- race is back as an issue in American discourse. It's such a coincidence for me personally considering how much race itself has been a pivotal point in so many of my classes (Modern European History, Asian American Politics, American Grand Strategy).
Let me start with what I understand 'race' to be. The word itself is fairly modern in that people didn't talk about 'race' in Ancient Greece. In America, the notion of race has been attached to phenotypical connotations stemming from the days of American slavery. Dark-skinned Africans made up most of the underclass as slaves while light-skinned Europeans made the ruling class of masters creating a notion of racial hierarchy that has persisted today. Although slavery itself was abolished after the American Civil War, the concept of race and racial disparity has been encoded into the American legal and judicial system both intentionally and unintentionally. It wasn't until the civil rights movement in the 1960s that these institutionalized notions of race and hierarchy were addressed for, in many cases, the first time. Mind you this is being very brief but now, we have a man many would identify as 'black' as a legitimate candidate for President.
Race, beyond being associated to notions of class, also has come to represent a key part of peoples' identity. For example, one of the many things shaping my personal identity is as a Korean American living in the United States. Because of this, we get a "chicken or the egg"-like argument where race has been used to create a schema for people in the United States- namely through the use of stereotypes. There are enough harmful and dangerous stereotypes (the black underclass stereotype for one example) as well as many relatively benign ones (white people can't play basketball for example) too.
Alright, now that I've provided a little background of race in the United State as a schema, let me get to what caught my interest.
LZ Granderson, a writer for ESPN, wrote
this article aptly titled "White men can't jump?" Now, I'm a huge sports fan because I have primal urges to associate myself to a larger association of people (fans) and that pro sports is every bit a part of American culture as music, cinema, current events, et cetera.
Professional sports for the last 50 years have developed and perpetuated specific racial stereotypes. LZ Granderson takes a look at this type of racial stereotyping that's prevalent throughout pro sports today. Tyler Hansborough and Kevin Love are outstanding collegiate basketball players but enough basketball pundits out there don't really consider them blue chip prospects for the NBA draft on nothing else outside of skin color. This kind of thing is seen in other sports as well, for example football: black quarterback, white wide receiver and white cornerback are all oxymorons to a lot of football fans. I hate to make it sound so academic- at the moment I can't really help it. But I really suggest you go and read this particular article.
Here it is again.
