Racism and Stereotypes Essay Sample

“Sport provides a peculiarly public show of dealingss of laterality and subordination… . The point of athletics is to expose publically the procedures of challenge and battle between two sides alleged to get down in equal footings but determined to bring forth and prolong dealingss of laterality vis-a-vis one another. Furthermore. athletics as a meritocracy based on accomplishment softly reaffirms our national common sense ; persons who work hard and possess the right material will ever predominate. Turned on its caput. this lesson becomes even more insidious: those who are at the top must hold risen to the top through just agencies and therefore merit their place. In contrast. those non at the top bash non possess the needed endowment for such privilege. Even the second best is a loser” ( Wulfemeyer & A ; Rada. 2005 ) . Sport provides an nonsubjective step to measure the public presentation of a participant and/or a squad. There are infinite statistics for jocks in every athletics.

which are evaluated on a day-to-day footing. Statistics show how good an jock performs and how good of an participant they genuinely are. As an jock. endowment is all that should count and be looked at when doing a judgement of whether they are good or non. unluckily this does non ever keep true today. Pigeonholing. racism. sexism and all those negative facets of life. which were thought to hold diminished over the old ages. are still outstanding and portrayed through the media to this twenty-four hours.

Pigeonholing is the procedure of enforcing features on people based on their perceived group rank ( Harrison. 2001 ) . Based on stereotyped beliefs. we make societal premises and do judgements on our cognition of the sensed traits of those that fit into societal classs. Sing groups in footings of stereotypes is the brain’s manner of make fulling in losing information about persons we know small about by superposing sensed traits of the group to which they belong. This is an efficient version of the human head to let us to acquire out of “getting to know” everyone we encounter. Worlds have neither the cognitive capacity. clip. nor the desire to treat all of the information available to us. We therefore use our cognitive infinite every bit expeditiously as possible by categorising and compacting information in an effort to hive away more ( Rose & A ; Christina. 2006 ) .

When stereotypes are based on a wealth of accumulated societal and factual cognition and are non used to do trait premises about single group members. they are by and large accurate and pose few jobs. It is when stereotypes are based on false. misleading. or limited information that they become debatable. While most stereotyping. even the debatable assortment. can be considered harmless it holds possible for speedy activation if fortunes and state of affairss present themselves ( Harrison Jr. . 2001 ) .

Sport and physical activity provide an abundant land for the development. use. and protraction of stereotypes. Racial stereotypes sing the abilities of African Americans and Europeans are really much prominent in the kingdom of athletics and physical activity. These stereotypes have been fueled historically by theories developed to explicate the sensed public presentation differences between African Americans and European Americans. Many old ages of theorizing and speculating about the natural physical abilities of African American jocks have shaped the thought of full populations. These apparently scientific theories and hypotheses have formed the beginning of today’s African American jock stereotype ( Armstrong. 2011 ) . The former United Nations’ Secretary General. Kofi Annan was quoted stating “sport is a cosmopolitan linguistic communication that can convey people together. no affair what their beginning. background. spiritual beliefs or economic status” ( United Nations. 2005 ) but this was non ever the instance.

Major barriers have been conquered over the old ages to convey equality to this state and formalize the former Secretary General’s above statement. One of the biggest issues that was dealt with was racism. This is a topic many like to tippytoe around and believe is nonexistent in American. the alleged thaw pot of the universe. Cultural groups are equal if non more dominant in professional athleticss today in their engagement in athletics but the same can non be said for the coverage of the events that they participate in. Research shows that there are still priming racial stereotypes made by athletics announcers ( Westerfield. Johnson. Hallian ) . “African American jocks. one time excluded from take parting in professional and intercollegiate athleticss because of institutionalised favoritism. now participate in many athleticss at a rate that equals or greatly exceeds their representation in the population. This is particularly true in the instance of intercollegiate and professional football and basketball” ( Center for the Study of Sport in Society. 2001 ) .

As equality became more apparent in athletics. particularly football and hoops. so did the media coverage of these athleticss. The development of engineerings. such as the telecasting or Internet. allows people all over the universe to watch a turning addition in the popularity of athletics. Over the old ages athleticss coverage has given a larger sing population to the webs and the sporting entities have used that coverage to increase their gross. Even though both equality for the minority participant and the media were turning at the same clip they were non turning together. It was true that inkinesss were acquiring more rights to play but they were non being broadcasted out to a larger audience by the media. For old ages African Americans and the African American community have been underrepresented in telecasting coverage. When African Americans did look they were frequently pigeonholed into take downing. stereotype ridden portraitures. demoing them as “bestial. brutish. buffoonish. amusing. condemnable. dependent of authorities entitlements or support. ignorant. lazy. menacing. oversexed. and prone to out-of marriage births” ( Wulfemeyer & A ; Rada. 2005 ) .

The inquiry of prejudice in athleticss coverage is neither new nor limited to race. To day of the month. several research undertakings have uncovered bias across race. gender. and ethnicity ( Wulfemeyer & A ; Rada. 2005 ) . The presence of prejudice has non been limited by locale either. Research has found bias across a broad scope of featuring events runing from professional and intercollegiate athleticss in the United States to international events such as the Olympics. Research has besides demonstrated that prejudice can take many signifiers. from what is heard from the spoken commentary on-air to what is seen from the game coverage ( Wulfemeyer & A ; Rada. 2005 ) .

One signifier of racial prejudice that research workers have systematically uncovered is the muscle versus brains descriptions directed toward the participants. It would look as though congratulating an jock for his or her athletic ability and physical properties would look positive and promoting to a participant but that is non ever the instance. Sometimes these apparently positive remarks have an implicit in prejudice that is revealed by the commentary’s positions of the participants. This image that is made by the media that African Americans are of course athletic and are blessed with God given endowment can portray the negative creative activity and perceptual experience of the lazy jock who does non hold to work hard or at all at his/her trade. Many times it was besides portrayed that inkinesss were more animalistic and farther off from being civilized than the remainder of the population every bit good. These stereotyped looks were put into the unfastened in 1989 when Jimmy Snyder. an on-air personality for CBS Sports. openly told the populace that the success of African American jocks was the consequence of selective and effectual genteelness on the portion of the slave proprietors. Announcers negate non merely physical and rational ability ; mind and character were besides commented on. further contradicting the African American jock.

These stereotypes are non merely targeted towards African Americans ; they apply and are present for all races. Examples of these stereotypes are things such as inkinesss don’t feel hurting. have no ethical motives. are non team participants have carnal inherent aptitudes. etc. Caucasic participants can’t leap. they are hickish. and they are excessively loud or to opinionated and are really naif to mundane life. Peoples of Asiatic decent are ever good at math. cant thrust well and are really rigorous with their kids. Native Americans are lazy and sometimes alkies. and merely populate off the casinos. Spanish americans are non loyal. they all drive trucks ; they are all-good at yard work and like to hold a batch of kids. All of these are illustrations of stereotypes that are out in society today and the list could go on to travel on and on.

These stereotypes that are portrayed by the media have outstanding consequence of the athleticss that athletes choose to take part in. in many instances it likely even consequence what place they play. Since media has become such a large portion of today’s society and is incorporated into our mundane lives immature jocks watch athleticss on telecasting and listen to what is being said about certain jocks and are likely to establish what they want to make on the athletics that they best fit into. For illustration if you are black you best tantrum in playing either hoops or football. if you are white you best tantrum in playing baseball or swimming. if you are of some kind of Latino decent you should play association football or possibly even baseball. Even though racism is suppose to be a subject that was squashed long ago it still lives really much through stereotyping and is successfully denying full integrating throughout the spectrum of athletics.

These same stereotypes that are made by the media towards the male functions of athletics besides apply to females every bit good. Even though adult female around the universe now take part in athletics they are still non held to the same criterion as males. “When female jocks transgress gender norms and boundaries. even in a “Post-Title IX” minute. they are still held to antiquated social criterions of emphatic muliebrity and feminine visual aspect by the mainstream intelligence media” ( Waches. Messner. Dworkin. Cooky. 2010 ) . A great illustrations of this taking topographic point is the Don Imus contention in 2007 when he made stereotyped. male chauvinist and violative remarks about the Rutgers University woman’s hoops squad.

Sexism is the belief or attitude that adult females are inferior to work forces. the application of masculine stereotypes to adult females or the hate of one gender or sex ( Griffin. 1992 ) . “In collegial athleticss. sexism can attest itself in several ways including unjust support dedicated to women’s athleticss. media coverage of women’s featuring events. women’s college training wages. positions on elect female jocks and bias and favoritism against lesbians” ( Whiteside & A ; Hardin. 2009 ) . Sexist positions on female jocks originated in the 1920s. from medical constitution concerns about the masculinizing effects of athletics engagement on adult females. From a modern-day point of view. football. men’s hoops and most male college athleticss draw more involvement and gross than women’s college athleticss. This world provides the foundation for beliefs about female athletic lower status ( Griffin. 1992 ) .

Sexism appears most frequently in women’s hoops. in portion. because the game draws the most attending among women’s college athleticss and because women’s hoops is more similar to a men’s athletics than any other college athletics. In add-on. women’s hoops is non one of the socially sanctioned feminine athleticss like tennis or golf. Traditionally. priggish athleticss like tennis. golf and gymnastic exercises are viewed as more feminine and these athleticss are. coincidently. inundated with White adult females. Black adult females have customarily participated in hoops and path. which have long been considered as masculine athleticss.

Sport contentions can estrange and suppress Black female student-athletes who already confront isolation. media unfavorable judgment. bias and stereotypes. Neglecting race and gender contentions in athletics can impact athletic department’s trade name name acknowledgment. alumni contributions. corporate sponsorships and game attending. More of import. race and gender contentions besides can negatively impact minority and female student-athletes’ enlisting. student-athletes’ societal development and societal justness for all student-athletes. “Inquires should bring out sociocultural deductions that can be used to craft recommendations in cases when race. gender. and athletics adversely intersect” ( Waches. Messner. Dworkin. Cooky. 2010 ) .

It is said that racism is something of the base on balls and in today’s society it is non-existence but harmonizing to Gill ( 2011 ) there is a modern type of racism called new racism. New racism is based on the widespread belief that racism no longer exists and civil rights statute law created an equal playing field. New racism includes experiencing a manner of life is threatened by others and different civilizations are assumed to be incompatible. The traits that genuinely distinguish new racism from historical racism are: racial ambiguity. faulting Blacks for their jobs. and the usage of the media to ease racism. Racial ambiguity refers to seting forth a non-prejudiced account for what might be considered as a prejudiced statement. For case. when Don Imus was asked to explicate his remarks about the remark he had made about the woman’s Rutger squad he stated that his remarks were intended to be a gag. Present in new racism. unlike historical racism. is the belief that the jobs Blacks experience are non a consequence of societal disadvantage. but instead a consequence of some predisposed aberrance in Black civilization ( Gill. 2011 ) .

It is apparent that racism. sexism. bias. stereotyping and a deficiency of equality are still really much nowadays it sport today. Even with all the equality Acts of the Apostless and Torahs that have been passed the playing field has yet to be leveled amongst different races. cultural groups. and genders. Even though many athleticss have been intermingled there are still many athleticss that are dominated by one specific minority and that is non how it should be. The media needs stop seting accent and specific facets of certain people’s life because in making this they are generalising a group. Through generalisation the media is connoting that a certain group of people are all the same and therefore should wholly be expected to move the same manner. This brings a really negative facet to feature. Since athletics is such a large portion of American civilization I believe that the media should truly get down to alter their ways and remain every bit indifferent as possible to let the sing population to do their ain judgements and sentiments on people based on their endowment. non on what generalized group they have been placed in.

Mentions

Armstrong L. . Ketra ( 2011 ) . ‘Lifting the Veils and Lighting the Shadows’ : Fostering the
Explorations of Race and Ethnicity in Sport Management. Journal of Sport Management 25. 95-106.

Gill Jr. L. Emmett ( 2011 ) . The Rutgers Woman’s Basketball & A ; Don Imus Controversey
( RUINUS ) : White Privlages. New Racism. and the Implications for College Sport Management. Journal of Sport Management 25. 118-130.