Sport is a contested racial terrain, not simply progressive or oppressive

Evidence

In the pages that follow I will explore such tensions in the context of a review and critique of existing ways of understanding the relationships between race and sport in American culture. These can be usefully divided into two schools of thought: those which see sport as a positive, progressive racial force and those which see sport as thoroughly implicated in the maintenance and reproduction of existing racial stereotypes and hierarchies. Rather than trying to resolve them completely, I will argue that the tensions between these two camps constitute the defining characteristic of the American sport-race nexus. More specifically, I want to suggest, borrowing from Stuart Hall (1981, see also 1996), that sport is best understood as a “contested racial terrain,” a social site where racial images, ideologies, and inequalities are constructed, transformed, and constantly struggled over. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2750

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the term ‘contested racial terrain’ from Stuart Hall as a way to hold two opposing views of sport simultaneously.
• SEED: The two-camps framework and the refusal to resolve them could anchor an article about why public debate on race/sport keeps cycling.