Sport’s failures undermine the ideal of sport as a model for race relations.

Evidence

Exposing the deeply racialized character of sport has implications far beyond the world of sport. These are closely connected with the popular ideology that sport is a model of, and institutional symbol for, race relations in the United States. If even sport doesn’t live up to liberal-democratic ideals, what does this suggest about their limits as defining standards for racial progress and justice? — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2766

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘sport as colorblind meritocracy’ ideology connects to arguments in ‘The Blind Side’ and general critiques of meritocracy as racial alibi.