Darwin's Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race
Books / Hardcover
Books › Sports & Recreation › Essays
ISBN: 0395822912 / Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, January 1997
Argues that the prominence of African American athletes provides fuel for sterotypes
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Darwin's Athletes zeroes in on our society's fixation on black athletic achievement. John Hoberman compellingly argues that this obsession - one shared by both blacks and whites in the media, in corporate America, and even by athletes themselves - has come to play a disastrous role in African American life and a troubling role in our country's race relations. This sports fixation originates in the painful century-long exclusion of blacks from every other path to high achievement. The scarcity of other kinds of " race heroes " has conferred messianic status on the most popular black athletes, which has fostered a delusion of integration while contributing to deep social divisions. Rich, flamboyant superstars lend credence to age-old prejudices, recycled " scientific" theories denigrating black intelligence, and stereotypes of black violence. This athleticizing of black identity encourages a disdain for academic achievement already too widespread among black males. During the past centur
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