Black Ballers, White Gazes, and the White Explanatory Frame

• In Event: 1284 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 16. Theories of Race/Ethnicity

Abstract

Researchers know that race and racism remain resilient while the discourses surrounding them have changed (Bonilla-Silva, 2010; 2017). Drawing on a meta-framework of social theory (sociology of knowledge, social epistemology, and phenomenology) I explore the ways in which sport is implicated in schemes and narratives that construct racialized bodies vis-à-vis social and natural sciences. I posit that the institution of sport is susceptible to and informed by explicit and implicit racial ideologies, brought to bear through a discursive scheme I dub the White Explanatory Frame. The White Explanatory Frame is a framework used to explain those incidents of racialization that confront, confound, and contradict existing racial logics while preserving a “natural” racial hierarchy. These analyses work under the supposition that because sport is a seemingly benign social institution, sport has the power to construct and perpetuate racist ideologies without significant critique.

Author

• Kurt Polkey, University of North Florida