On reading Rhoden's 40 Million Dollar Slaves

I trust you have dug yourselves out from this week's installment of back-breaking schedule-rupturing snow... When we have had class we've been discussing Wlliam C. Rhoden's provocative and controversial book, which examines the history of structured racism in U.S. professional and collegiate sports.  Through compelling stories, historical analysis, and personal narrative, Rhoden illuminates the ongoing struggles for social and material power among black athletes in a society that simultaneously reveres and reviles them in both past and present history.  The book examines racialized social structures that create dissimilar, though interlocking institutional givens and opportunities availed to white people like myself and black people, whether mega rich or chronically poor.

So, how are sports structured differently (socially and materially) for black and white athletes in the United States?  How does an examination of our nation’s past help us to understand what is happening in the sporting world today?

Consider, for instance, what light can Rhoden’s book shed on public controversy surrounding Donald Sterling?  Does Rhoden’s analysis suggest that Sterling’s blatant racism (L.A. Clippers) is an aberration in American society or connected to deep-seated patterns of structured racial exclusions?  The book highlights and argues that despite earning million dollar salaries and corporate endorsements, modern black athletes continue to be tied (not physically, but metaphorically chained) to a system that is exploits and fears them.  If Sterling’s overt racist attitudes were a well-known secret in the NBA (prior to being caught on tape), why did other NBA owners and the league not seem to have an issue with Sterling until his remarks went viral?  How did head coach Doc Rivers justify/rationalize to himself working for Sterling?  If Sterling’s housing discrimination practices and slumlord tactics were documented over the year, how did this not land him in the hot seat among sports commentators and fans? How on earth could he have been in line to receive an NAACP award for philanthropy?  

One short response is that it is much easier to identify blatant racist remarks than it is to locate subtle racist beliefs or more systematic racial exclusions.  When such obvious bigotry is outed, people can point and say, Sterling is a racist.  The NBA can ban him from the league for life.  And everyone can feel better about themselves for NOT behaving or talking like Sterling.  As Bomani Jones argued on ESPN radio, "This is the only opportunity that a lot of people have where they feel comfortable within their souls, within their psyches to stand against racism... Cause it's so easy to do it on this right here when it's so scandalous" (Listen to Jones break down how most the media have focused on the over racism while overlooking systemic racism hiding in plain sight in Sterling's actions).  Addressing racism has reached critical condition, yet recent research points trends that many white people may in fact deny that structural racism exists and believe  so-called "reverse racism" is actually a bigger problem than, well, actual racism. 

If, as a society, we hope to fundamentally diverge from the wrongs of our racialized histories, we must work harder to notice and oppose everyday, hidden forms of racism, not just the blatant acts of bigotry.  Rhoden's book offers grounded analysis to perceive the legacies of racism in contemporary sports.  It's full of compelling stories from the past, stories about struggle, triumph, oppression, and resistance among black athletes.  But Rhoden also offers a cautionary tale, to reconsider how race & class are lived through sports (the book's almost complete lack of discussion on women in sports until Ch. 8 should be troubling to you). He envisions an alternate path forward that includes athletes of color as power-brokers and decision-makers in a field that relies heavily on the celebration & selling of black athletes for public spectacle, but mostly fails to include black men or women with the institutional power structures of sports.

So, what issues and questions are coming up for you in reading the book?  What is most striking? Offensive? Troubling?  What lessons should we distill from it?  I want to hear from you.

Also, check out Rice University book discussion with Bomani Jones addressing Rhoden's book and issues of race, labor, and exploitation in the sports world, at both college and pro levels.