The role of sports in the production, reproduction, and contestation of racism and inequality in the society remains paradoxical. On the one hand, many in the athletic establishment champion sports as a unique arena of exceptional opportunity, fairness, and cross-racial understanding. They celebrate (with some good cause, I think) the institution’s leading role in providing opportunities for excellence, advancement, and resistance for people of colour all over the modern world. On the other hand, sport scholars tend to take a dimmer, more critical view. They – or, I should probably say “we” – emphasize persistent racism throughout the sports world and argue further that the success of persons of colour in the athletic arena can distort or distract attention from the realities of racism and injustice in the rest of society. Even more, scholarly critics argue that representations of minority athletic success, innocent and uplifting as they may seem, too often play off of and thus reproduce some of the deepest, most insidious racial stereotypes in Western and world culture.
