Clemson University football players lead protest after death of George Floyd. (Photo by Maddie ... [+]
On May 25, George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, was brutally murdered at the hands of Minneapolis police. The extreme terror and anguish conveyed by this videotaped state killing is being felt by so many, all across the globe, and it is exacerbated by the recent killings of Nina Pop, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, among too many others. This ongoing, inhumane police terrorism and violence serves as a painful reminder that, as a nation, we have an incredible amount of work ahead to adequately respond to structural forms of antiblackness.
I use the term antiblackness here because Black people have to endure a coordinated and relentless assault on their bodies and human existence. There is a fundamental and strong opposition to Black people, and they do not have much, if any, human value through the white gaze. The result is what I characterize as the humanity gap.
In the wake of George Floyd’s last breaths, as waves of protests and rebellions sweep the nation, major sport organizations are tweeting out varied statements of support and solidarity, condemning antiblack racism. NCAA President Mark Emmert said that Floyd’s killing “laid bare the continued existence of inequality and injustice in America.” He added that “we must, therefore, commit ourselves individually and collectively to examining what we can do to make our society more just and equal.”
The NCAA statement—like so many others—is just a start. Without a clear and explicit call to action, statements are empty and not nearly enough. We cannot blindly, naïvely, and uncritically think that the NCAA and its member institutions—and other externalities, such as corporate sponsors—have not benefited quite handsomely from antiblackness and from the exploitative, structural arrangement in college athletics.
Despite the fact that Black college athletes—who, in 2016–2017, made up 55% of NCAA Division I football teams and 56% of Division I basketball teams—devote a significant amount of time to practices, travel, team meetings, and competition, often exposing themselves to life-threatening and life-altering injuries—they are not fairly compensated for their labor or for the economic value they create. They are also not adequately prepared for life after sports or school-to-career transitions: In one recent study, only 55.2% of Black athletes graduated within six years, compared to 69.3% of athletes overall.
The NCAA and its member institutions have an obligation to go beyond hollow performative statements and commit wholeheartedly to an agenda that understands organizational problems in radically different ways and that advances racial equity and justice in practical and thoughtful ways.
Some changes will require minimal labor and costs; others will certainly require heavy lifting, short- and long-term resources, and financial investments. To enact the collective values and aspirations represented in the statements issued by the NCAA and its member institutions, schools must be willing to devote and even reallocate adequate funds to addressing racial inequalities within their organizations, particularly in this moment of state budget cuts and financial woes. And, if racial equity and justice is truly a priority, schools must also be willing to make necessary changes in leadership positions and roles.
“We have not done enough: we can do better,” admitted NCAA President Emmert in his statement.
Rather than vague promises and hypocritical statements, the NCAA and its member institutions have the potential to follow through. These organizations can develop and enact crucial—and measurable—organizational and policy changes to begin to address rampant antiblackness, including structural norms, values, and cultures that produce and re-produce inequitable outcomes. The time is ripe for schools to reimagine their commitment to and collective support for Black people.
Here are five shared commitments that the NCAA and its member institutions can and must make to respond to antiblackness and advance racial equity and justice in college athletics:
1. Understand and acknowledge antiblackness, rather than disregard its existence and its effects on policy decisions and practices in athletics.
Athletic personnel must share a similar passion and interest in the fight for racial justice, as they do for the recruitment of elite Black athletes. Complex engagement aimed at understanding the history of antiblackness and the racialized harm experienced by Black people is imperative. Stakeholders in the affairs of athletics and advocates of Black people must understand, acknowledge, and actively work to disrupt various forms of deep antiblack structures, which have been intentionally designed to protect, amass, and sustain the power of primarily white men.
There should be an urgent push for stakeholders in the affairs of athletics to work closely with educators and professionals—those who are racially literate—to initiate and design professional development trainings and workshops that include sessions on the Black college athlete. Interactive and experiential sessions on Black athletic bodies and their histories, blackness, and what it means to exist as fully human, for example, would facilitate intergroup dialogue and foster cross-cultural understanding of the types of conscious and unconscious prejudices and discriminatory attitudes directed toward Black people in athletics. Trainings and workshops alone are not the answer to addressing antiblackness; rather, they must be viewed as a phase of this important work.
2. Prepare Black athletes for quality school-to-career transitions.
Black athletes have fewer opportunities than their non-athlete peers to achieve their academic goals and engage in the broader academic community with other students. Research shows that athletes devote an average of 50 hours per week during the season to sport-related activities. These sport demands structurally inhibit purposeful engagement in educational activities that are central to receiving a meaningful education. Engagement activities can include (but are not limited to) first-year seminars, internships, study abroad, undergraduate research projects, meaningful interactions with faculty, and community-based learning.
3. Enable college athletes to monetize the use of their names, images, and likenesses.
The current athletics model does not fairly compensate athletes for their labor and forbids them from earning money from their names, images, and likenesses. The research is compelling: White people tend to express more oppositional views than their nonblack counterparts when it comes to paying or increasing financial compensation for Black college athletes. At a minimum, an equitable, evidence-based model must be implemented that allows athletes the same rights as all other college students who enjoy basic economic freedom.
4. Increase Black representation in coaching and senior-level leadership positions.
A recent study revealed that in the 2018–2019 academic year more than 80% of athletics directors were white, 86.2% of head football coaches were white, and 80% of Power Five conference commissioners were white. The lack of Black coaches and senior-level leaders, including Black women, sends the signal to Black campus members that schools are not sites of belonging, inclusiveness, and affirmation.
5. Ensure that Black athletes have a voice in NCAA governing board decisions.
Critics claim that the NCAA has used amateurism ideals to justify athletic scholarships as sufficient compensation, yet college athletes have little to no voice in the decision-making process. Black athletes would benefit from a seat at the table. Greater representation would allow active participation in NCAA governing board decisions for opportunities to challenge NCAA decisions and to improve the quality of their experience as students who participate in athletics.
These bold, equity-minded commitments are the start of a long, ongoing process for the NCAA and its member institutions. By centering the needs of Black people, schools can offer a more complete picture and analyses that name and challenge structural antiblackness, while creating new transformational possibilities for racial equity and justice in athletics. When the protests and collective resistance against police terrorism and racial injustices slow down, and the public media turn their attention to other news stories and features, NCAA and member institutions must pledge to carry on and transform the present.
My next book is Organized Captivity: Control, Hyper-Surveillance, and Disposability of Black Athletes in the Corporate University.
