Bad Blacks: The Contingent Acceptance and Essentialized Blackness of African (Im)migrant Athletes

• In Event: 390 - Section on Race, Gender and Class Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 09. Race, Gender, and Class in Sports

Abstract

While the immigration policies of Western countries continue to reflect a racial bias, the exploitation of African athletic laborers by Western sports organizations has been called a form of ‘neoslavery,’ and a ‘second scramble for Africa’ (Bale 2004; Darby and Solberg 2010). As sport continues to globalize it engages a greater number of individual actors working in various capacities. It is within this environment that highly skilled athletes now exist. Though migration for sports purposes seems unproblematic, the migration and life of the athlete is caught in a web of power relations. These relations consist of political, cultural, economic, and geographical issues which intersect with actors in sport, including owners, administrators, agents, and media personnel (Maguire and Falcous 2011). This paper uses discourse analysis and a cultural studies approach to analyze archival news data and the contingent nature of the 'acceptance' of black African athletes. Though they are often represented as model minorities, the athletes in my study are at times represented along stereotypical notions of blackness as it regards competence, demeanor, deservedness and respectability. In this paper I emphasize the often tenuous position of the black immigrant in Western societies and the salient reinscription of native black communities as deviant. When black Africans fail to adhere to Western norms, they are not only derided for their blackness, but their foreignness as well. Because of their foreign alterity, these athletes are always at risk of both literal and symbolic expulsion, even when they are citizens of Western countries.

Author

• Munene Mwaniki, Western Carolina University