Within the limits: racialized student labor and racial capitalism in “colorblind” intercollegiate sports

• In Event: Racial and Ethnic Minorities Section Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table Ten: Racialized Ideologies, Epistemologies, and Social Discourses

Abstract

While capitalism was established early in the development of predominantly White and wealthy intercollegiate sports, unprecedented levels of accumulation were attained during the era of integrated sports starting in the 1970’s in which Black college students were increasingly racialized as basketball and American football athletes. Civil Rights era contestation forced a shift away from Jim Crow racism, along with residual biological racism; however, racial domination in intercollegiate sports in the form of White profiteering, especially as newly integrated into the Athletic-Industrial Complex (AIC), is argued to have been maintained through colorblind racism. The year 2020 was a period of racial contestation centered on the COVID-19 global pandemic and civil unrest in response to police murder and brutality of unarmed African Americans. During this time, as well, institutional racism in the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) arm of the AIC, which permitted the economic exploitation and educational neglect of African American college athletes disproportionately, was contested and resulted in the establishment of a new NCAA policy, the Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) policy, regarding amateurism and college athletes earning income. I argue, however, that this contestation occurred within the landscape of colorblind racism, which constrained the extent to which institutional change in the NCAA was allowed. Future research will focus on elucidating, in greater detail, the specific mechanisms by which racial capitalism has been maintained in the post-2020 NIL era of the AIC, especially considering the ongoing convergence or coexistence of colorblind and color-conscious racial regimes in present society.

Author

• Sheron L. Mark, University of Louisville