Race, Sport, and the American Dream

"Race, Sport and the American Dream is the culmination of a five-year research project investigating the scope and consequences of the deepening relationship between African American males and the institution of sport. It examines how sport has changed the nature of African American civil society and has come to be a major influence on economic opportunities, schooling, and the shaping of African American family life. The book probes the broader socio-cultural milieu surrounding the dialectic of African American athletes and mainstream American society. Smith examines the colonizing and exploitative nature of intercollegiate sports and the special arrangements that universities have with the world of sport through the lens of Immanuel Wallerstein's "World-Systems Paradigm." He also analyzes the world of professional sports, from NASCARto the NBA. All of the topics in this book, from youth violence, to sport as big business, to incivility and criminal behavior by athletes, to the lack of leadership and management opportunities in their sports for African American athletes who retire from play, to the question of the biological superiority of African American athletes verses white athletes, are addressed within the context of the history of racial oppression that has dominated race relations in the United States since its inception as a nation-state in the 1620s."--BOOK JACKET.