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| Hank Willis Thomas--"Strange Fruit" |
Playing Field to Prison Pipeline?
by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
In our contemporary moment, sport does much of the ideological work of mass incarceration. Even more than others forms of popular culture, which peddle in racial stereotypes, celebrate law and order, and turn police into righteous crime fighters, sports has increasingly become a space that is central to maintaining America’s prison nation. Because of the visibility and cultural resonance of sports, because of the number of African Americans involved in professional sports, and because of the centrality of “American Dream” narratives, sports serves as the public relations wing of mass incarceration.
None of this should be surprising given the racist nature of America’s criminal justice system, and the centrality of race within contemporary discourses. Public discourses around sports and criminal justice center race.
Writing about basketball, Todd Boyd argues that the NBA “remains one of the few places in American society where there is a consistent racial discourse,” where race, whether directly or indirectly, is the
Wahneema Lubiano Debunks the Term "Black on Black" Crime
Duke Forum for Scholars & PublicsWahneema Lubiano, speaking at Duke's "National Dialogue on Race Day," offers a critique on the term "Black on Black Crime." In Fall 2013, the Center for Study of Race and Democracy at Tufts University partnered with Duke University for the first annual "National Dialogue on Race Day." The panel was co-hosted by Duke's Forum for Sch