In this episode, Derek is joined by national sports columnist Kevin Blackistone to talk about the sports industrial complex, social and political upheavals and rebellion in the sports world, and how sports media upholds, contributes to, and silences racial violence, racism, and white supremacy. Kevin Blackistone is a long-time national sports columnist now at The Washington Post, a regular panelist on ESPN’s “Around the Horn,” a contributor to National Public Radio and co-author of “A Gift for Ron,” a memoir by former NFL star Everson Walls. He is also Professor of the Practice in the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, where he teaches courses on sports reporting and on sports, protest and the media.
The episode begins with Kevin’s take on the place of sports media in considering wider cultural and social implications of sport and sporting culture. They talk about the complicity that sport media have in contributing to, reinforcing, and suppressing white supremacy and racism, which Kevin has written about in his piece “The Whitening of Sports Media and the Coloring of Black Athletes,” published in the Wake Forest Journal of Law and Policy. The two then shift the focus to the powerful role that athletes have in mobilizing social and political change and specifically address recent statements made throughout professional sports leagues, including the brilliant work done in the WNBA by athletes like Rebekkah Brunson, Maya Moore, and others. The episode concludes with a discussion of the exploitation of predominantly black athletic labourers in the NCAA, which Kevin has written about in The Washington Post, and some of the futures we can envision for both the NCAA and higher education more generally.
You can keep up with Kevin at The Washington Post or on Twitter @profblackistone. Please also check out the documentary Kevin is producing on Native American mascotry in sport called Imagining the Indian, and perhaps refresh with our own discussion with Jacqueline Keeler on the same topic.
After listening to the episode, check out our recent piece "Canceling the College-Football Season Isn't Enough" published in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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@Derekcrim
@JohannaMellis
@Nkalamb
@EndofSportPod
www.TheEndofSport.com
Episode 120: Another College Sport Apocalypse
Episode 119: The End of College Football (A Preview)
Episode 118: What is Hockey Culture? with Kristi Allain
Episode 117: Decoding Racist Representation in Sport with Kelly Wright
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
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