A Level Playing Field : African American Athletes and the Republic of Sports / Gerald Lyn Early.
2011
GV583 .E26 2011eb
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Title
A Level Playing Field : African American Athletes and the Republic of Sports / Gerald Lyn Early.
Author
ISBN
9780674060869
Published
Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2011]
Copyright
©2011
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource (288 p.)
Item Number
10.4159/harvard.9780674060869 doi
Call Number
GV583 .E26 2011eb
Dewey Decimal Classification
796.092/2
Summary
As Americans, we believe there ought to be a level playing field for everyone. Even if we don't expect to finish first, we do expect a fair start. Only in sports have African Americans actually found that elusive level ground. But at the same time, black players offer an ironic perspective on the athlete-hero, for they represent a group historically held to be without social honor.In his first new collection of sports essays since Tuxedo Junction (1989), the noted cultural critic Gerald Early investigates these contradictions as they play out in the sports world and in our deeper attitudes toward the athletes we glorify. Early addresses a half-century of heated cultural issues ranging from integration to the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Writing about Jackie Robinson and Curt Flood, he reconstructs pivotal moments in their lives and explains how the culture, politics, and economics of sport turned with them. Taking on the subtexts, racial and otherwise, of the controversy over remarks Rush Limbaugh made about quarterback Donovan McNabb, Early restores the political consequence to an event most commentators at the time approached with predictable bluster. The essays in this book circle around two perennial questions: What other, invisible contests unfold when we watch a sporting event? What desires and anxieties are encoded in our worship of (or disdain for) high-performance athletes?These essays are based on the Alain Locke lectures at Harvard University's Du Bois Institute.
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Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Aug 2021)
Series
Alain Locke Lecture Series
In
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Record Appears in
Table of Contents
Frontmatter
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I. Leveling the Playing Field
1. When Worlds Collide: Jackie Robinson, Paul Robeson, Harry Truman, and the Korean War
2. Curt Flood, Gratitude, and the Image of Baseball
3. Donovan McNabb, Rush Limbaugh, and the Making of the Black Quarterback
PART II. Heroism and the Republic of Sports
4. American Integration, Black Heroism, and the Meaning of Jackie Robinson
5. Performance and Reality: Race, Sports, and the Modern World
6. Where Have We Gone, Mr. Robinson?
Notes
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I. Leveling the Playing Field
1. When Worlds Collide: Jackie Robinson, Paul Robeson, Harry Truman, and the Korean War
2. Curt Flood, Gratitude, and the Image of Baseball
3. Donovan McNabb, Rush Limbaugh, and the Making of the Black Quarterback
PART II. Heroism and the Republic of Sports
4. American Integration, Black Heroism, and the Meaning of Jackie Robinson
5. Performance and Reality: Race, Sports, and the Modern World
6. Where Have We Gone, Mr. Robinson?
Notes