Yearwood, Gabby Matthew Harlan
(2018)
Heritage as hate: racism and sporting traditions.
Leisure Studies, 37 (6).
pp. 677-691.
ISSN 1466-4496
Abstract
This paper explains the symbols and rituals of sporting events and how symbols, ritually celebrated and performed through song as school spirit, normalise the incorporation of white supremacist ideologies into the everyday lives of a community. These racialised ideologies become normalised, taken for granted meaning without much critical reflection. This paper asks how racist anti-Black sentiment becomes normalised as heritage or tradition. Black American male football players sang this song to a predominantly white audience, the tensions of power, racism, and sport overlapped in ways that seemed to go unnoticed by many. This paper explores ritual and tradition as forms of institutionalised racism framed within the context of heritage and school tradition. I argue ritual symbols, and ritual practice teaching anti-Black and pro-White sentiment becomes learned and passed on through subtle and unmarked practices. School fight songs and sporting traditions are part of the ongoing interconnectedness of race and sport in American college life. If we are to see sport as part of a complicated and expansive practice of leisure, then we must also recognise that sport and leisure are always political. Sport is an integral component to normalisation of racism even when sport denotes fun and entertainment.
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