Darwin's athletes
Subtitle: how sport has damaged Black America and preserved the myth of race
By: John Hoberman.
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co.
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 341
Subjects: African American athletes -- Public opinion; Public opinion -- United States; Stereotype (Psychology) in sports; African Americans -- Attitudes; United States -- Race relations
Description: Darwin's Athletes zeroes in on our society's fixation on black athletic achievement. John Hoberman compellingly argues that this obsession - one shared by both blacks and whites in the media, in corporate America, and even by athletes themselves - has come to play a disastrous role in African-American life and a troubling role in our country's race relations. The sports fixation originates in the painful century-long exclusion of blacks from every other path to high achievement. The scarcity of other kinds of "race heroes" has conferred messianic status on the most popular black athletes, fostering a delusion of integration while contributing to deep social divisions. Ironically, Hoberman argues, the decline of European empires and the rise of the black athlete helped to preserve rather than undermine the inferior status of nonwhites.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [297]-319) and index.