Playing While White : Privilege and Power on and Off the Field

David J. Leonard

ISBN 10: 0295741872 / ISBN 13: 9780295741871

Published by University Of Washington Press Jul 2017, 2017

About this Item

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Seller Inventory # 9780295741871

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Playing While White : Privilege and Power on and Off the Field
• Publisher: University Of Washington Press Jul 2017
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0295741872
• ISBN 13: 9780295741871
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu

About this title

Synopsis

Playing While White argues that whiteness matters in sports culture, both on and off the field. Offering critical analysis of athletic stars such as Johnny Manziel, Marshall Henderson, Jordan Spieth, Lance Armstrong, Josh Hamilton, as well as the predominantly white cultures of NASCAR and extreme sports, David Leonard identifies how whiteness is central to the commodification of athletes and the sports they play.

Leonard demonstrates that sporting cultures are a key site in the trafficking of racial ideas, narratives, and ideologies. He identifies how white athletes are frequently characterized as intelligent leaders who are presumed innocent of the kinds of transgressions black athletes are often pathologized for. With an analysis of the racial dynamics of sports traditions as varied as football, cycling, hockey, baseball, tennis, snowboarding, and soccer, as well as the reception and media portrayals of specific white athletes, Leonard examines how and why whiteness matters within sports and what that tells us about race in the twenty-first century United States.

About the Author

David J. Leonard is professor and chair in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He regularly writes about issues of race, gender, inequality, and the criminal justice system. He is the author of After Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness (SUNY Press, 2012). He is also author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema (Praeger, 2006); he is co-editor of Visual Economies of/in Motion: Sport and Film (Peter Lang, 2006), and Commodified and Criminalized: New Racism and African Americans in Contemporary Sports (Rowman and Littlefield, 2011). His work has appeared in Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Cultural Studies: Critical Methodologies, Game and Culture, as well as several anthologies. Leonard is a past contributor to NewBlackMan, Feminist Wire, Huffington Post, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Urban Cusp.  His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Gawker, BBC, The Root, Ebony, Slam, Racialicious, and several other outlets.