Race at the Top: Media Discourse around Athletes of Color

Why does the topic of race emerge frequently in the world of sports?  Why, nearly 50 years after enactment of the Civil Rights federal legislation, are we still talking about racial disparities?  As a white person, I can really only speak about this issue from my position as someone who has been endowed with unearned advantages because of my whiteness.

But, from the studies I've conducted and researched, I argue that racial disparities and tensions are partially due to a legacy of legislated separation, but, more importantly --- especially as applies to the world of sports --- media messages about sports and race through language play a large part in the way that we as fans understand athletes of color.  

 

Let's look at some ways that the media separate athletes according to race via their language use and, in doing so, how the media perpetuate stereotypes about athletes of color and racial divisions in the U.S.

Understanding language use

Until LeBron James led the Miami Heat to a NBA championship, he was often derided as being egotistical.  His defenders tend to include the positive connotation "articulate" as they outline his community altruism, his focus on family, and his "demonization... by the "97% white" media (Groves, 2012).  Why do we often hear of athletes of color whom the media feel are worthy of admiration deemed to be "articulate?"

Potential tensions exist in our society between the diverse sociocultural and linguistic resources of our population.  There is an unstated emphasis on a better way to use words that refers to privileging white ways of speaking and writing.  When media composers use the word "articulate" to refer to athletes of color, they are referring to the surface level of language, or how they determine a proper voice should sound and how a written sentence should look on the page. 

Most European-based languages have their root in common Latin languages. Language is a reflection of a people. If a group is considered to be lesser in sophistication, culture, heritage, or even intelligence, then their language is attributed similarly. If African American people and people of color around the world are perceived by dominant societies to be inferior, so, too, is  their language perceived in a similar way (Hamilton, 2005, p. 35).

By extension, when athletes of color speak with syntax drawn from standard English, media composers comment on that choice of language use in accolades instead of focusing on the ideas embedded in that language use.  The effect is to Other athletes of color, or to separate and isolate athletes of color from white linguistics and culture.  Such labeling stigmatizes worthy individuals and lessens our society as a whole.

 English as normative language

English is often used as a global means of communication.  In 1999, 668 million persons spoke English and at least one other language; that number has certainly risen over the last decade plus.  Conversely, only 443 million persons in 1999 spoke English as their sole language (Graddol).  Monodialectical speakers lack the skills to negotiate different forms of words, idioms, and grammatical structures when they interact with multidialetical speakers.  This has a negative impact on monodialectical speakers' interactions, specifically, but it has significant ramifications if English is privileged by the multidialectical speakers as the only language worth knowing and speaking.   

According the The Root, "racial and ethnic minorities make up more than half of all children born in the United States." What is the potential consequence for our society if we do not embrace multidialectical nuances?

Athletes of color communicate via rich and varied linguistic sociocultural heritages.  However, we all have been educated in U.S. public schools in ways that normalize but do not contextualize language variation, whatever the communicative mode, oral or written.  As a result, we come to understand language use through one and only one way to express ourselves through oral and written words. Media composers remind us of that normalization of language use every time they refer to athletes of color as "articulate."

It's all in the name

Steven A. Smith discussed race on ESPN's First Take in February, 2012 but, later in the year, became the object of controversy when he seemed to accidentally refer to another person of color through historically derogatory language about persons of color. 

Why was Smith's comment so insidious? Does Smith, as a media icon who is a person of color, have a social responsibility to restrict his public language use only to that which celebrates culture and heritage?

Perhaps we can look to literature to help us navigate this difficult terrain of language use.  In Maya Angelou's autobiographical essay, "What's Your Name, Girl?," the protagonist explains why maintaining one's essential identity is important for persons of color in the U.S.

 "Every person I knew had a hellish horror of being 'called out of his name.' It was a dangerous practice to call a Negro anything that could be loosely construed as insulting because of the centuries of their having been called niggers, jigs, dinges, blackbirds, crows, boots, and spooks" (p. 35).

If media messages portray groups of athletes negatively based on race, such as through spoken commentary by on-air broadcasters or through production practices of media covering sports, audiences may infer negative impressions of race and of individuals different than they. When the media reinforce stereotypes in society ---such as those about race ---misconceived beliefs, knowledge, and skills transfer outward to amateur and professional sports.

Considering language use outside sports

It's not just in sports that the topic of race becomes part of our public discourse.  President Obama found himself discussing race and barriers as a person of color as he toured the country on campaign stops, and he continues to do so while on official business.  The Roper Center at the University of Connecticut surveyed people in relation to their perspectives about the current status of race in the United States. Race and its sociocultural constructs in daily life continue to permeate our national discourse.

It's important to return to the choices of media composers around race in their own discourse.  When media composers remind us of linguistic markers of our sad, segregated past, they reinforce other, negative notions of persons of color.  Let's not teach a new generation of citizens to demonize persons of color, and let's not use the excuse of vernacular African American English to negate individuals who live moral, intellectual, and spiritual lives because of an artificial, socially-constructed category that includes some and precludes others from sharing in the opportunities inherent in our country and democracy.

Sources

Angelou, M. (2012). "What's your name, girl?" In The Writer's Presence:  A Pool of Readings.  Edited by McQuade, D. and R. Atwan.

Green, G. C. (1963). Negro dialect: The last barrier to integration. Journal of Negro Education, 32, 81–83.

Groves, R. (2012.) The demonizaton of LeBron James.  Center for Sports and Social Entrepreneurship. 

Hamilton, K. (2005, April 15). The dialect dilemma. Black Issues in Higher Education, pp. 34–36.