You Mean, There’s RACE in My Sports?: The Complete Guide for Understanding Race & Sports in Mainstream Media

Have you ever listened to sports radio? Or watched sports on TV? Or read what someone wrote about sports in the media? If so, then you are in the right course! In this dynamic class, we start with the principle that sports perform an important social function, and consequently so do the images and commentaries generated within and around it. We interrogate relationships between the psychological, social, cultural and political components of human communities by keenly observing how they all conveniently intersect within our beloved sporting arenas. We start by examining why sports hold such an important place in our culture and explore its mass-market global appeal. With historical context as a backdrop, we then explore how race intersects with and affects mainstream portrayals of sports in America. After taking this course, students will be able to effectively screen out biases and stereotypes subtly conveyed within media and will better comprehend the systematic components and dynamics of contemporary human societies - especially as expressed through the human activity of sport. Students will also develop a heightened appreciation for the major dimensions of variation in contemporary human experience along racial lines by studying the power that racial images in sport can generate nationally and internationally. The essential skills required in this course include critical thinking and critical reading as you will never see sports the same way again!