Race, Culture & Sport

Race, Culture & Sport

Definitions • Race : The physical characteristics of a person e.g. skin colour • Ethnicity: Cultural Aspects, belonging to a particular group – religion, 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: • Black people are naturally good at sport • 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

Race, Culture & Sport