Race, Affect, and Running: A Decolonial Reflection on School Athletics

• In Event: 43.063 - Crossing the Chalk Line: Perspectives on Sports Culture and K–12 Education

Abstract

Recently, neoliberalism and racial-inequity have shaped education (Giroux, 2012), problematically positioning youth and teachers and constructing athletic participation as an indulgence, regulated by whiteness (King, et al., 2007). Yet often overlooked is how ostensibly marginal activities—like sport—can have profoundly different and significant meaning to its participants, particularly when those individuals are themselves marginalized (Rosaldo, 1993). As a Chicano athlete in secondary school and the NCAA, this was certainly the case for my experience, as sports—running, particularly—formed the core of my educational identity. Competitive running lead me to and through college, and then to my own classroom as an educator and coach. Yet the real significance of athletics, why it mattered socially, culturally, and educationally, remained elusive until I met Noah.

Noah was a late-arrival immigrant, a young Black man, and an incredibly talented athlete. In school, where his language deficits and academic weaknesses defined him, Noah struggled. But in athletics, he thrived: on the track, running fueled his confidence, empowering his learning, and providing him access to an expressive literacy the classroom never had. It was a joy to watch as Noah’s experiences echoed and intersected with my own as an athlete and educator; and it was with incredible grief that our stories diverged, and the dissonance between the person Noah could be in sport compared to how he was positioned in school erupted with traumatic results when he took his own life. In the wake of tragedy, Noah’s experience drew attention to how the brilliance and assets of racialized youth often go unrecognized in schools (Kirkland, 2013). Yet it also became clear in that moment of grief and affect (socio-emotional intensity), that sport had been and continued to be an important space of healing, imbued with decolonial potential.

In this paper, I employ a testimonio methodology (Huber, 2009)—personal narrative infused with critical analysis—to recount Noah and my intersecting athletic and educational stories, and locate them within the affective geography (Ahmed, 2004) of neoliberal schooling. Framed through critical-race and decolonial theory, our narratives help weave together literature on culturally-sustaining praxis, critical literacy, and sociopolitical development in education (e.g. Paris, 2012; Sanchez, et al., 2015) with scholarship on racial identity in sport and society (e.g. Eitle & Eitle, 2002; van Sterkenburg & Knoppers, 2004). Informed by this work, I examine athletics as a space of profound learning, identity development, and ontological healing (Sanchez, et al., 2014) for racialized youth. Particular attention is given to the implications for teachers and teaching; considering how educators might more thoughtfully read, or witness (Zembylas, 2006) the significance athletics holds to youth—culturally, existentially, ontologically—and how this witnessing can enrich our teaching, research, and advocacy work.

Driven by a compelling narrative, this paper offers a unique, critical lens through which to reflect deeply on the intersections of race, equity, and athletics in neoliberal schools amidst the volatility of the present moment.

Author

• Michael C. Dominguez, San Diego State University