In this episode, Johanna is joined by repeat guest and close friend of the show, interdisciplinary scholar extraordinaire Kelly Wright. We discuss and compare the media's reactions to Angel Reese during 2023's March Madness to a white German commentator's remark about the Moroccan World Cup team's gesture last summer. After recapping for us what happened with and against Reese, Kelly shares her agreement with and expands upon Letisha Brown's excellent First and Pen analysis: how the incident exemplified the dehumanization of Black people under our white supremacy, as well as how Reese's response could not have addressed sports' anti-Blackness and misogynoir in a better way. We also refer back to Kelly's insights from her prior episode about the white gaze of sports scouts and extend it to the mainstream media landscape that spewed racism and misogynoir against Reese. Kelly emphasizes how speech is an act, and not just words; hand gestures and body movements (and responses to them) are actions too, and we must analyze them as such regarding systemic violence and resistance to it. We pivot to the racism at the 2022 Men's World Cup: when a white German commentator chose to describe the Moroccan player's hand gesture as an "Islamic State gesture " (folks, he held up his index finger to suggest #1, like athletes do worldwide). We discuss sporting nationalism and whiteness in relation to this incident. Considering the German state's insistence that criticism of Israel is antisemitic, we briefly talk about how this fits into Germany's nationalist use of Holocaust commemoration for anti-Arab racism.
Episode 119: The End of College Football (A Preview)
Episode 118: What is Hockey Culture? with Kristi Allain
Episode 116: A Football Life with Zack Furness
Episode 115: The Sport Management Episode, Part Two
Episode 114: The Sport Management Episode, Part One
Episode 113: Political Transphobia and Sport in New Brunswick with Susan Holt
Episode 112: Black Ball with Theresa Runstedler
Episode 111: How Women’s Swimming Got So Transphobic
Episode 110: Floridian and national athletic anti-fascist resistance with Joel Anderson
Episode 109: On The End of Sport, College Sports, Labor, and Exploitation
Episode 108: On Racism in Canadian Sport with Ian Kennedy
Episode 107: Abuse and Harm in Canadian Sport with Jennifer Fraser and MacIntosh Ross
Episode 106: Historicizing and Theorizing Harm in Youth Sport w/ Dionne Koller
Episode 105: Racial Capitalism and Football with Joshua Myers
Episode 104: We’re back!
Episode 103: Sport and Empire
Episode 102: On Critical Sports Fandom
Episode 101: Athletes Reimagining College Sport
Episode 100: Critical Sports Scholars on Parenting and Youth Sport
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