Race, Power & American Sports

"Full of excellent and instructive historical footage, Dave Zirin provides a detailed overview of the history and current state of race, sport and power in American society that will be useful for teachers and students, coaches, athletes and the wider public seeking to understand the place of sport in our society and culture."

"Race, Power, and American Sports is an important film, unlike any other currently available. It provides an urgently needed counter-point to prevailing understandings of sport and society, offering viewers powerful tools to challenge media coverage, commercial images, and staged spectacles. Indeed, in a moment in which sport has become a common language to talk about human possibilities, social arrangements, and American uniqueness, Race, Power, and American Sports introduces a novel vocabulary to describe and deconstruct its social significance. Dave Zirin, in dialogue with Sut Jhally, interrogate the deeply entangled histories of racism and sport in the United States, offer a critical reassessment of renowned athletes -- from Jack Johnson and Jesse Owens to Jackie Robinson and Muhammed Ali -- that emphasizes the not only the complex social contexts in which they played, but the ways in which political, economic, and social factors have shaped how we remember them. Pushing back against the depoliticized narratives common to the sport-media-industrial complex Zirin highlights the linkages of play and power, athletics and ideology, and sport and struggle. While hopeful and engaged, this film is neither naive nor hagiography. It has a deep appreciation for sport but not at the expense of its disturbing force. Race, Power, and American Sports should be watched by anyone concerned with racial politics, social structure, or U.S. history, even those who think they do not have an interest in or affinity for sport. An excellent opening or addition to broader conversations about race and racism, cultural politics, and collective memory no less than in depth meditations on sport in American life. Highly recommended as a resource to develop critical literacy that embodies the best elements of MEF critical engagements."