Evidence of Racism and Discrimination in Sports
The purpose of the essay is to focus on the influence of racism and ethnicity in the accession and experience of sports. Racism and ethnicity have been a common issue in the international sports. Racism is a form of discrimination based on a specific belief that claims superiority of a specific culture. Racisms and ethnicity create inequality in sports speciality while minority community participates in the sports events. Racialised discrimination is observed within or across ethnic groups and influence experience and participation in sports. There is debate in this proposition regarding relationship between race, ethnicity and participation in sports. This proposition has been examined in this paper critically.
As stated by Theeboom, Schaillée and Nols (2012), Athletes and sports person faces barriers in sports participation regarding income, culture, socio economic background, age, gender, religion. However, evidence of racial discrimination experienced by black and minority group is greater than other barriers. As highlighted by Cooper, Cavil and Cheeks (2014) that black college participation in sports has increased in 2013. Prior to mid twentieth culture, enrolment and participants from Black student was non-existent. There are other examples, where scholar argued against racism in sports and highlight the practice of racism in United States.
Lapchick (2017) has mentioned that racism is increasing in US at san alarming rate. He has mentioned that the act of racism and discrimination has increased from 11 in 2015 to 31 in 2016 as per the data of University of Central Florida Institute for Diversity and Ethics and Sport. Van Rheenen (2013) mentioned that before 1950, there were a few numbers of non white sports organisation. Black people played sports but played their own. Performance of non whites were ignored or declined even if the black sports person were better performers. Carrington (2012) pointed out that post civil war reconstruction period and post World War II experienced increasing rate of racism in sports. As per report of Human rights and Equal Opportunity Commission 2007 that racial abuse and defamation is widely observed in sports in America, Australia and Europe (fra.europa.eu n.d).
There are instances, where professional sports person belonging from minority group has been excluded from participation in the national sports. Jackie Robinson was a baseball players, who participated in other sports also. He joined Montreal Royals during 1946 in a all white minor league team. He faced ample racial comments and rude unaccepted behaviour from his own team members (Hallinan 2015). Another bright name from minority player group is Tiger Woods, who has dominated Golf for a decade, while 83% golf participants were white. Despite his remarkable success, he has to tolerate racial comments. During 2011, former golfer Steve Williams created debates and racial tensions by describing Tiger Woods as ‘black arse’ (Davies 2016). Mario Balotelli, the Liverpool,has been a victim of online abuse (Kilvington 2014).
Critical Race Theory and Sports
As stated by Van Sterkenburg and Knoppers (2012), boxing has been an avenue for the success of the ethnic group. During 1900’s champions were Irish, ’36 was for Italian and black people or Hispanic group has been champions since ’48 (Deaner et al. 2012). The sense that discrimination in sports is irrelevant grew up since 1970s as a significant number of black sportsperson were in major team. The participation increased in the team of different sports with ‘quotas’. There are many games, where minority community gets less opportunity in team. The sports are hockey, badminton, skating, swimming, gymnastics, cycling, tennis, where minorities have underrepresentation (Shakib and Veliz 2013). However, Jeanes, O’Connor and Alfrey (2015) argued that blacks over represent three sports such as baseball, football, boxing, track & field and basketball. However, most of the researchers have agreed that percentage of black participants is less compared to white participants while considering all sports.
The report of European Union has highlighted minorities and migrants are under represented in the sports of EU. Participation of women with minority or migrant background in management level is also low. A reason pointed out by Kuhn (2015), unavailability of the sport facilities, low income reduces the participation rate of minorities in sports. The human rights chapter of EU has suggested to extend and elaborate the anti racism regulations and equality measures in sports (fra.europa.eu n.d).
The analysis of racism and ethnicity can be explained using Critical Race Theory. Critical Race theory examines society and culture considering the factors such as race, power and law (Delgado and Stefancic 2017). This theoretical movement was started in US. Central aspects of this theory are centrality of racism in the society, challenge to dominant ideology, centrality of the experimental knowledge. CRT theory challenges the neutrality, objectivity, and colour blindness of the society. Giulianotti (2013) pointed out that CRT was propounded in the social justice ground in order to remove several forms of discrimination of subordinate people.
CRT can be applied in sports as sports are described in terms of physical and psychological terms. The concept of superiority and inferiority present in the sports world. There has been a belief in the twentieth century that genes and cultural background are factors influencing the powers of the individual sports person. In the view of Carrington (2013), although race is a social construction, acts and effects of racism create divisions among people. As highlighted by Kanters et al. (2013), racism in sports occurs at every stage starting from exclusions at the local club to discrimination in the policies of sports and practice. CRT theory encourages exploring the actual meaning of sports to those, who inadequately represent the conceptions of sports policies. This theory encourages raising voice for the socially marginalised, black people.
Effect of Racism on Sports and Society
Racism has significant effect on sports and society as this act hurt people emotionally. Sports are played to develop the sense of integrity and disciple in the society. In the view of Carrington (2012), team games are helpful for the development of interpersonal skill so that the player can create positive vibes in work and society and personal life. However, the act of racism hurts this philosophy of sports. Carrington (2015) supported this view that racism can hamper the performance of an athlete as racial comment can lead to serious depression and feeling of retaliation. Continuous incidence of racism abuse on a player can spill over to the society with a negative effect.
It has been seen that representation of different ethnic people has increased. Some reasons can be highlighted. As pointed out by Farrington, Kilvington and Price (2012), selection of team member in a sport depends on the way that a certain sport is organised. When team benefits are considered as an aggregate function of team members, representation of white or black does not matter. Team member in this type of sports is not necessarily required to be friend with each other.
Jarvie (2014) viewed the concept of race and ethnicity in terms of profit and business perspective. In this view, racism in sports can be over looked if sports are organised to generate revenue. Then efficiency and physical power matters only over the racism. People then only act for profit. When team owner finds large profit in sport event, coach or other team members need to give up racial discrimination in order to make profit. This tradition, that employment of blacks was started initially in sports like boxing and horseracing due to high appeal in box office.
Another reason of increasing number of black and minority group is perceived opportunity and skills. Some people think that as black people struggled more than whites to avail opportunities, their potentials are greater than whites. Greater potential ensures greater skills. Skills influence the owners as well as coaches. Edwards (2015) argued that although black people are getting chances in several sports, they are not heartily accepted by other members in the team.
Farrington, Kilvington and Price (2012) argued that racist comments might not be always offensive. A racist comments or make judgement based on skin colour and race. It is often described that success of a talented person is because of natural differences. In the view of Giulianotti (2015), this generalisation that African American can jump higher than Caucasians are superficial and not proven. Racism can occur within a race. Racism can also occur between people belonging to completely different race around the world. Fans of a certain sport taunts towards a player due to prevalent concepts and ignorant act of racism.
Representation of Ethnic Groups in Sports
I can conclude from the above analysis that racism and ethnicity has been a big concern even in the progressive world of 21st century. Racism is highly observed in the culturally diversified nations of North America. Racism is a belief which discriminates human being of different races and deters them from being recognised in the international sports. Racism at the college, league, and club level game restricts players to participate at the national level. Racism often deters players to explore their skills. Although racism is prevalent in the national and international sports, changes have come in the international sports due to the rules and code of ethics set by sports regulatory body. It has been observed that despite racism discrimination some black men and women players have excel in sports. I have understood that representation of minority community in management position and success of the player from minority group over the years has changed the set of belief regarding racism across the world.
Discrimination comes from the belief of superiority or inferiority. The act of racism loosened when the ‘inferior’ group triumph over the social barriers (Thomas 2015). The main three reasons that have been highlighted in the essay for the necessity of removing racial discrimination are skills, profit and concept of game playing. When it is the concept of nationalism and a game is played as a team performance, individual power become less important (Jarvie 2014). Group performance and collective power becomes more important then. Therefore, management and coach want to restrict racism practice within team for the aggregate benefit.
On the other hand, profit motive is a important factor for the intension of removing racism. In my view, the objective of the capitalist society is generation of profit for the sake of power. In the capitalist society, power is envisaged to the people having more money. Therefore, the owner of a team wants to win and spends money for this purpose. They want to fulfil their objectives even if there are black minority group or players from migrant group in the team. Therefore, racial discrimination automatically removed by the choice. Another argument that has been made in the essay that skill creates differences among players not the skin colour. If a player is capable, a good coach wants to keep his/ her in the team even if the player belongs from racial minority group. Therefore, the extent of racism has decreased in sports in this process.
Although, the extent has been reduced, it cannot be said that racism and ethnicity has been eliminated from the society. The regulatory authority has to work more in order to eliminate the evil practice of social discrimination from sports, which represents the social integrity. Racism and ethnicity have significant impact on the society and the behaviour of the team player. While studying the effect of racism on sports and society, I have understood that racism can create negative impact on the performance of the sportsperson and create mental pressure, which is not acceptable in a progressive society. Racism is detrimental to the positive spill over effect of sports on society. As sports person is iconic to the society, their attitudes influences society. Hence, behaviour of a sports player should be decent and respectable, which can be followed by young generation. Hence, in my view, government, school, college, national and international sports authority in every country need to pay attention to the regulations in order to remove racism.
References
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