Sports: Race & Ethnicity

Racism has been an issue in the United States since the country was founded. People have always been judged on the color of their skin and their ethnic background. This is an issue that has always stirred up controversy, and when Anthony Federico wrote a controversial headline about Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks and was fired because of it, it only proved that it’s still an issue to this day.

“A stereotype is a generalization about a category of people that is negative and/or misleading. Stereotypes are used to predict and explain the behavior of a social category; in doing so they obscure the variability within such categories,” (Wenner 157). Stereotypes exist for every race, but the media plays up the stereotype at African American are ‘natural athletes.’ According to Wenner, the media plays up that African Americans are naturally quick, good at jumping and are lazy because of it. As well as just being lazy due to natural ability, they are also depicted as self-centered, selfish and arrogant while European-American athletes are known as team players.

One instance where the media accomplished both of these things was with NBA star Allen Iverson. There was a point in time where he missed practice, and the media brought it to his attention. The video is funny to us viewers and it also was to those in the conference room, but it really had a negative depiction of Iverson. It was especially bad at the end when he said, “how the hell can I make my team mates better by practicing?” Therefore, he played right into the media’s hands and allowed them to show him in a selfish matter.

The media tends to show this side of African American athletes much more than that of European-American athletes. We’ve seen it with Terrell Owens, Randy Moss, and more recently Tiger Woods to name a few. While one would think this negative connotation toward African Americans is bad enough, media also attacks their intelligence and leadership abilities.

“‘Blacks run like horses and jump out of the gym, but they rarely think it all through’ (Harris, 1991, p. 160),” (Wenner 159). What this says is that African Americans are more athletic than their counterparts but don’t really use their brains. Could that possibly be the part of the reason Andrew Luck is considered the consensus No. 1 overall pick in the upcoming NFL Draft over Robert Griffin III? Or why there are more white quarterbacks and head coaches? The coaches’ part had gotten so bad that it became a rule in the NFL that teams were forced to interview at least one African American for a coaching vacancy.

Overall, you may not realize it but the media plays a major role is the American view of African Americans in sports. Even after all the advances is diversity, the media continually gives them this negative representation.

NHL All-Star Game

If it wasn't for NBC, would anybody even know about the National Hockey League? For those of you who hadn’t noticed, the NHL held its All-Star weekend in Ottawa. I hadn’t seen it advertised anywhere leading up to the weekend, yet the NHL executives made the game more interesting than ever before.
Only Major League Baseball’s All-Star game is ‘important’ because it affects who will have home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Therefore, all other sports need to find a way to make their game more interesting. The NFL holds their game in Hawaii, but who can honestly say they enjoy watching it? The game just features a game of pitch and catch between the quarterbacks and wide receivers. You never see a defensive player laying out on opposing offense player – except for the game a few years ago when Sean Taylor laid out the opposing punter – or much activity between the linemen. They might as well not even be there.
This year, the NHL held a fantasy draft dubbing two All-Stars captains. It turned it into a pick-up-like event, which anyone who played any sports on the playground can relate to. This created a buzz because there was no longer just the boring game of East versus West.
Since the game was in Ottawa, Daniel Alfredsson (the Senators’ captain) was automatically a key storyline throughout the game. Team Alfredsson ended up losing the contest to Team Chara 12-9, but Alfredsson supplied the hometown fans with two goals and an assist. He even gave a glimmer of hope that he’d be back for one more season in Ottawa.
The game itself wasn’t your typical hockey game. The defense was pretty much non-existent, but it created a wide-open style game that featured nifty passing plays, odd-man rushes and even a penalty shot.
Even though the hockey sense of the game was all good and fun, NBC had a few players mic’d up to make things more interesting. I found it awesome that the announcers were having full out conversations with Tyler Seguin and Claude Giroux while they were on the ice. This even let the general public watching the game know all about Scott Hartnell’s charity. Someone on Twitter has created ‘#HartnellDown,’ which counts the number of times anything other than Hartnell’s skates or stick hit the ice. Hartnell has embraced this by creating a website for it and said that during the All-Star game, he’d give $X amount to charity each time #HartnellDown occurred. While talking to the announcers, Giroux kept saying he was trying to force his teammate to the ground for the laugh, and to help the cause.
All these little twists made the NHL All-Star game a great show for all fans. But what did it do for the league? I’d really like to hear how the ratings for the game were. It just so happened that the Pro Bowl was on the same day, and it’s interesting to see which game had a greater viewership. All I know is that ESPN must have forgotten the NHL even existed since Sidney Crosby is still sidelined with his post-concussion syndrome. Their clip on ‘SportsCenter’ of the NHL All-Star game was all of 1:30. Any other sport, (especially the NBA) would probably get a minimum of five minutes with an additional half hour of analysis.