Race, Culture & Sport

Definitions

Race : The physical characteristics of a person e.g. skin colour Ethnicity: Cultural Aspects, belonging to a particular group – religio

n, traditions etc…  Racism: The practice of oppression by ‘others’ due to physical  differences i.e. a set of beliefs or ideas based on the

assumption that races have distinctive cultural characteristics  determined by hereditary factors, and that this endows some raceswith an intrinsic superiority. 

Ethnocentrism: Assumption that culture is inferior e.g. ….  Discrimination: section of community is disadvantaged  Stereotype: Belief, but usually little fact e.g. .. 

White men cant jump . . .Or run

Race

Look at the following pictures What do you notice?

Race – West African

There are some physiological reasons: Physique of black athletes better suited to sprinting. Low body fat Longer legs Narrow hips Greater muscle mass Higher bone mineral density Higher levels of testosterone Higher percentage of fast twitch muscles fibres Higher percentage of anaerobic enzymes

Race – East African

Kenyan athletes come from a region of Africa (Kalenjin). This area of East Africa is at high altitiude.

Scientists believe that over the years living at altitude has enhance the Kenyan’s ability at endurance events.

These athletes have been shown to have Greater numbers of red blood cells Larger lung capacity Greater proportion of slow twitch fibres

Race - Caucasian

More natural upper body strength Mesomorphic body build Excel at weightlifting, field events, swimming

Stereotyping & Stacking

Racial discrimination has excluded black people from achieving in the work place.

Therefore many black people entered sport as a way of improving their life chances.

This has led to many black people spending more time improving their sporting ability rather than their academic ability.

Stereotyping & Stacking

This has produced two stereotypes:

1) Black people are naturally good at sport

2) Black people are not intelligent

Stacking

This theory suggests that different people be guided into different sports due to their colour or their ethnicity.

Examples of this are that there are a lot of black sprinters. This is not to say that only black people can sprint.

Stacking

Due to ideologies and beliefs that are deeply rooted in society, people believe that certain types of people can only play specific sports.

The result of this is that they get channelled into these sports and thus reproduce the inequalities in sport and society.

Stacking

How does racism through stacking / stereotyping occur in the following sports in the UK?

Cricket Tennis Golf Athletics Swimming Rugby Union

Theory of centrality

This theory believes that the people who are academically superior play the central positions on the sports field.

It is believed that these are the decision-making positions on the centre of the field of play whereas the peripheral positions are the ones that require the physical attributes such as speed and strength.

Theory of centrality

Through numerous studies it has been recognised that primarily white players play the central positions.

A prime example of this is the number of white quarterbacks in American football compared to the number of black ones.

This theory believes that the black athlete is praised from the toes up and white ones are praised from the brain down.

Theory of Centrality

Can you think of examples of centrality in UK sport?

Football

A survey on the racial origin of players in the English premiership found that:

20.3% of players were black or black British; 4.1% were mixed race, 0.4% were Asian, 0.7% Chinese or other, and 74.5% white.

There are four British Asian professional players in the English leagues: Zesh Rehman (Fulham), Michael Chopra (Newcastle), Adnan Ahmed (Huddersfield) and Harpal Singh (Stockport County).

Football

The same study has also revealed that black players dominate certain positions.

Goalkeepers – 15% Fullbacks – 13% Centre Backs – 28.7% Midfielders - 21.5% Forwards – 47.9%

Observation of figures

Majority of black players are forwards Few black players have captained Premier

league clubs, and none have yet managed one, despite many now being in retirement.

Paul Ince was the first black player to captain England.

Very few black players play pivotal roles.

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

This is basically a theory that states that if you are told something or grouped / labelled as something you will end up as it.

Can you think of ways in which this occurs in sport in the UK?

Initiatives to Combat Racism

There are many instances of racism in sport in the UK. For this aspect of the task you should research newspaper articles and websites and comment on your findings.

In particular football in the UK has had a number of incidents related to racism. Find out about them and also comment on what is being done about it.

Look up these websites www.kickitout.org www.furd.org