3
Section One: The Fundamentals
A) Keywords
Exercise 1:
Briefly (in 100 words or less) define one of the keywords in the padlet (including one that you. may have added yourself).
|
Neoliberalism feminism is a combination of both neoliberalism and liberal feminism traits and can also be known as highly visible feminisms. Neoliberalism feminism looks to improve success, accomplishments, and empowerment on an individual level and use these to grow, and can be associated with meritocracy. This can tie into their beliefs of retaining power structures where integration and inclusion can occur.
|
B) Representing Race
Exercise 2: Notebook Prompt
In about 50-70 words, consider Joel Bervell’s question: why do we feel the need to extrapolate the athleticism of one Black athlete to all Black people when we do not do the same for white athletes?
Try to think of examples when this happens, making sure to reflect on your own positionality.
|
Based on my positionality as a Caucasian, I have seen this happen personally when it comes to sports. One key memory I thought about involved my grandfather, and him being an avid basketball fan. While his intentions were not intended to be harmful or negative in any way, he said along some lines that they were “built different”. This referred to the valuable traits for the game such as naturally longer wingspans. |
C) Gender, Race & Sport
Exercise 3: Notebook Prompt
What are some strategies for resistance that Rajack and Joseph identify in their article as a means of pushing back against and resisting misogynoir?
| The paper highlighted the use of information and communication technologies, or ICT for short, which social media falls under. The use of these technologies allows for pushback against statements made by the media with the main example involving Naomi Osaka. During which she was able to rebuttal and callout the comments made to her via public events in her own expression and way. Additionally, she was able to use the technologies to show her nationality when repressed by the media.
|
Section Two: Making Connections
A) Athlete Activism
Exercise 3: Padlet Prompt
Do athletes have a responsibility to use their platform for social change? Why or why not? Please remember to record your response in both the padlet below and in your Notebook.
|
I do not believe athletes have a responsibility to use their platforms for social change. I do believe that they should be able to make their own choices on how they use their platforms such as social media presence, but should not be obligated to do so. Furthermore, I believe that they should be vocal about topics and movements of social change they themselves believe in, similarly to how other non-famous individuals such as you and I voice ourselves online. They are where they are because of what they do and their ability to do it. Past their obligations to training, playing, and events they should be able to freely and at their own decide what their platform looks like. |
B) Athlete Activism & Feminism
Exercise 4: Complete the activities
Exercise 5: Notebook Prompt
What do the authors of the article call for as a way of challenging how mainstream sports journalism privileges neoliberal feminist concerns? (50 words max.)
|
They suggest expanding on the sources we use, one that comes to mind is social media such as TikTok and Instagram (where I get some of my information from). This is due to its ability to see different points of view, or how stories are told and allows for disruption of the dominant stories. |
C) Corporate social justice
Exercise 6: Padlet Poll
|
While I believe that it is an important issue that should be talked about and supported, I do not believe that it is the leagues responsibility to decide on these factors. Similarly to my post on social media as platform for athletes on this topic, I believe that it should be up to the players to share and spread support for social justices, such as BLM. I believe that the leagues should stay independent and neutral in these cases. While main focus of this padlet is BLM, it is important to remember movements can go both ways. BLM is could be considered a universally positive movement across both the players and the community, but assuming support for all movements associated with either players or the community could lead to unforeseen circumstances that not every player agrees on or supports. For this reason, I believe that players have every right to express support for movements and social change based on their own merits and beliefs, while keeping sports in neutral and fun for all. Reply: While I believe that what the NFL did was wrong, and the use of retaliatory practises was completely unfair, I believe that it still shouldn’t be a requirement by leagues. I believe that many of these leagues should stay neutral in movements such as these. It’s a very difficult topic to progress through since there are many different views in the world and it makes it difficult for corporations to have policies in place since it’s not one size shoe fits all. As I mentioned in my post, BLM could be considered a generally positive movement, but from what you described as public backlash could go both ways. Assuming support for all movements associated with either players or the community could lead to unforeseen circumstances that not every player agrees on or supports.
|
Section Three: Taking a shot
Module Assignment (submit as part of notebook and separately through Blackboard mini assignment #1 portal)
| Mini Module 3 Assignment
Looking at Colin Kaepernick and his NFL approach, speaking out involved silent protests in opposing oppression and brutality. Production of shows such Colin in Black and White (Kaepernick & DuVernay, 2021), and the one I have chosen, play volumes in efforts to speak out. These allow for visual representations to the issues at hand, or in the case of the show included racialized inequalities such as appearance, racism, and inequalities. While the topics within the series had very minor tones of this, It could be suggested that even in the early stages, it showed how he pushed himself to be better and overcome the hurdles set out against him. He allowed for his work to speak for itself. Athletes use their voices for change in these shows, using colin for example, this is typically broken into two parts. The first and predominant parts involve his own history through his childhood using indirect acting and represents the struggles faced by him growing up and sheds light in this case the racism he faced. The other involves periods where Kaepernick himself was present and voiced important stages and history to inform and explain what was going on to audiences that would not necessarily understand. There are two instances that stick in my head post watching, the first is the explanation of thug relative to current events, and how others associate its definition with a particular race. The second involves his definitions of white deference to give background to the many race based actions seen as he travels across the state for five weeks of tournaments. Throughout the show colin finds himself under pressure to adapt and overcome hurdles set out due to his race. This can be seen throughout his childhood from cornrows and being deemed thuggish and unprofessional to racialized biases in selecting less talented white individuals over him. While colin is able to prove himself, he is required to work significantly harder to achieve a “level playing field”. These events among many others portrayed show the oppressive and race based discrimination leading to activism. Hylton goes on in his article to say how rather than looking at individual occurrences of racism and sports, it more importantly, be looked at as a greater system of racism, making it difficult for these groups to succeed (Hylton, 2010). Connecting to the difficulties that Kaepernick had to go through in order to succeed in his own journey. The show contested the ideas traditionally expressed and stated by sports organizations and teams for years. Colin went on to speak about how success and structure within the industry was and still is race driven. Examples were given such as his initial football tryouts and being placed second even though being better than the Caucasian rivals or during college combines, with selection of Caucasians over colin based on race. He used his voice, in this case, silent, to stand up for what he believed in. similarly to LeBron James statements where he used his platform to bring the light these and justices, furthermore stating “I will lend my passion and my money, I will lend my resources to my youth and my inner city and outside of my inner city to let these kids know that there is hope” (Galily, 2019). Throughout sports there are inequalities and biases that disadvantage individuals every day, well these practises don’t change overnight, it could be hoped that these changes have already begun. References Galily, Y. (2019). “Shut up and dribble!”?athletes activism in the age of twittersphere: The case of Lebron James. Technology in Society, 58, 101109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2019.01.002 Hylton, K. (2010). How a turn to critical race theory can contribute to our understanding of ‘race’, racism and anti-racism in Sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 45(3), 335–354. https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690210371045 Kaepernick, C., & DuVernay, A. (2021). Colin in Black & White. episode, Netflix.
|
