Darwin's Athletes

Although the sociology of sports looks at sports, as a social activity, influences our ideas about social life, the psychology of sport is also a realm in which to view sports. Sociology and psychology can be easily understood as the difference between the public and private sphere. Since sports takes places within a public setting, it is the private setting of sports that becomes more difficult because it is hidden. When I say private setting, I am referring to that which is  internal. This internal realm exists within the individual. The internal realm works as a way of defining Sports in African American culture. It is significant because society uses sports to define African Americans as “superior when it comes to physical abilities in certain sports” (Coakley 286). Due to this, African American’s see/feel as though sports is their gateway into society or at least as an activity that allows them to climb the social ladder. 

The commercialization of sports has allowed this to become a socially accepted norm. Due to the rags to riches mentality that America uses to illustrate it’s national identity as a land of opportunity. In Hoop dreams, this is seen because it shares topics and tropes that makes blackness out to be this superior trait that is crucial to winning in the game. This is a form of scientific racism. This idea was used a long time ago to prove that the white race was superior and to justify issues around slavery. Here, sports is being used as another form of scientific racism in the sense that the black race is superior within the sporting culture. The players in Hoop Dreams are African American subjects that are successful because of the pursuit for basketball stardom. The images in the film are ones of the inner-city. This is similar to the athlete in The Blind Side, a movie in which there are frequent images of inner-city life. Due to these Hollywood portrayals, society sees African American’s in sports as a group whose success is because they came from nothing. 

I believe that sports is not necessarily damaging Black Americans but it is the media and Hollywood who is to blame for these reinforced ideologies.  However, with that said, I do believe Hoop Dreams does a good job with using this type of portrayal as a way to reference the situation at hand. The characters hardship are a course of events that leads them to this suburban school. In this way, the movie and The Blind Side could also be making a comment on White American culture. Our failure to see this issues and the how the notion of being “color blind” is false.