scholarly journals Corporate Colonization of Blackness – The Representation of Blackness in the National Basketball Association from 1984 to 2005

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 175-189
Author(s):  
Till Neuhaus ◽  
Niklas Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Marketing Strategies ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Basketball Player ◽  
Black Athletes ◽  
Predominantly Black ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Black Bodies ◽  
Historical Contextualization ◽  
Racial Lines ◽  
Corporate Colonization

In light of current social justice dynamics, this article examines marketing strategies employed by the NBA (and associated companies) to sell predominantly Black athletes to a chiefly White audience. Through historical contextualization and critical analysis, the NBA’s development from a non-profitable and scorned circus to a multi-faceted and multi-billion-dollar global attraction is explored. From the earliest league structures until the 1980s, a dichotomy between Black and White players (and the values/stigma they embodied) dominated the sport of Basketball. This however changed with the rise of Michael Jordan to fame. Jordan became the first basketball player who transcended these racial lines in terms of associated values and/or stigmas. Simultaneously, His Airness’ rise to global fame let the NBA’s popularity soared into astronomical spheres. A shiny Black Superhero was born, yet his public image is predominantly inspired by corporate considerations – a case of corporate colonization of Black bodies. Black players’ transgressions and the NBA’s reactions to those – as happened in the Malice in the Palace (2005) incident – highlight the conflicting lines along which the NBA constructs and presents its players with a clear tendency towards corporate colonization, a concept which will be outlined in the paper. Through critical historical reading of past corporate efforts, this article re- and deconstructs the strategic illustration of Black athletes.

scholarly journals Racial Ideology and Discourse in the NBA

1969 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Hogarth
Keyword(s):  
Racial Ideology ◽  
Basketball Player ◽  
Black Athletes ◽  
Sports Fans ◽  
Predominantly Black ◽  
Professional Basketball ◽  
The Invisible

This paper examines white spectatorship of the black athlete's body through an analysis of NBA basketball player Ron Artest's 2004 suspension. In examining the discourse surrounding the event, there emerges a covert ideology of simultaneous idealization and denigration of black athletes. While most in the sports world would claim to be colour-blind when evaluating talent or watching a game, the discourse surrounding Artest and the NBA in general seems to suggest that the invisible lens of white superiority shapes the perceptions of sports fans when viewing a predominantly black sport such as professional basketball.

A DOUBLE SERMOCINATIO AND A RESOLVED DILEMMA IN CICERO'S PRO PLANCIO

2014 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 214-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Grillo
Keyword(s):  
Public Image ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
Historical Contextualization ◽  
Self Defence ◽  
Imaginary Dialogue ◽  
Main Strategy

In the litigious world of ancient Rome patroni were often torn between conflicting bonds of loyalty, and this is the dilemma that Cicero laments in the exordium of the Pro Plancio (5). Both the prosecutor, Laterensis, and the accused, Plancius, were personal friends, and Cicero bemoans the quandary: either upsetting Laterensis by comparing him unfavourably with Plancius, or letting down his client. A second problem for Cicero was that the prosecution also took the opportunity to impugn him as the creature of Pompey and Caesar, so that Cicero had to defend himself as much as his client. Two examples of sermocinatio (an imaginary dialogue with a personified entity) helped him to face these challenges: these sermocinationes are Cicero's main strategy for getting out of the conundrum but, in spite of their relevance to his line of argument, they have received very little attention. In this article, after a brief historical contextualization, I analyse each sermocinatio, arguing that Cicero cunningly sets aside the dilemma of comparing two friends by constructing an alternative comparison between Laterensis and himself, and that such a comparison, which is highly selective, re-establishes his own positive public image. The two sermocinationes, moreover, also display some meaningful textual references which have remained unnoticed: in the final part of this paper I set them against the backdrop of Plato's Crito and of Cicero's letter to Lentulus (Fam. 1.9), arguing that the reference to the Crito supports Cicero's strategy of contrasting himself with Laterensis and that comparison with Fam. 1.9 illuminates the connection between the Pro Plancio and Cicero's broader post reditum self-defence.

Ensaio sobre o campo artístico contemporâneo. Johnny Rotten VS John Lydon = KO

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 120-128
Author(s):  
Ondina Pires
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Black And White ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
American President ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Sex Pistols ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Cultural Gaps

One of the figures that stood out the most in the British punk counterculture scene, from 1976 to 1978, was the charismatic vocalist of Sex Pistols, Johnny Rotten, who shouted "Anarchy in the United Kingdom" or "There is no Future". As soon as the musical project devised by the late Malcom McLaren ended in 1978, Johnny Rotten returns to his baptismal name, John Lydon, and starts the experimental musical project Public Image Ltd, better known as PIL.Meanwhile, after about forty-one years of PIL's existence, John Lydon, residing in Los Angeles, USA, in 2020, made public his opinions about former American President Donald Trump, which were a reason for scandal and shock, especially among punk aficionados, most of whom are anti-racists and of left-wing political tendencies.Through this text and the caricatures we can observe a decadent trajectory of a musician who, apparently, is located in the antipodes of 1977. However, this turning point is legitimized by the political and cultural “gaps” of Democracy, a system that is always in danger precisely for its openness to different political views and to the continuous dialogue between ideological forces, often opposed. By using an “anarchy-fascism” dialectic, the author's points of view, based on films, songs and thinkers, evolve throughout her analysis. The aim is to open doors for broader analyzes in relation to democracy that do not contemplate the “black and white” view of the majorities in relation to current politics.

scholarly journals An analysis of the intersections between race and class in representations of Black and white gay men in QueerLife

Image & Text ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kudzaiishe Peter Vanyoro
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Gay Men ◽  
Gay Identity ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Shape Representations ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Black And White ◽  
White Middle Class ◽  
Black Bodies ◽  
Gay Identities

ABSTRACT This article seeks to critically analyse how intersections of race and class shape representations of Black and white gay men in QueerLife, a South African online magazine. It focuses on QueerLife's '4men' section and how its content represents classed and raced gay identities. My argument is that QueerLife forwards racialised and classed representations of the gay lifestyle, which reinforce homonormalisation within what is known as the "Pink Economy". Using Critical Diversity Literacy (CDL) to read the underlying meanings in texts and images, the article concludes that QueerLife is complicit in the construction of gay identity categories that seek to appeal to urban, white, middle-class gay-identifying communities in South Africa. The article also demonstrates how, when Black bodies are represented in QueerLife, exceptionalism mediates their visibility in this online magazine. Overall, the findings demonstrate how Black and white gay bodies are mediated online and how their different racial visibilities are negotiated within the system of structural racism. Keywords: Class, gayness, Pink Economy, QueerLife, representation, racism.

Black Girls and Lady Police

2019 ◽  
pp. 236-254
Author(s):  
Robin Hackett
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
First Century ◽  
Care Homes ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Social Justice Advocacy ◽  
Black And White ◽  
The Future ◽  
Black Bodies ◽  
Ethical Response

In this epilogue, Robin Hackett begins to theorize the future of the affective ecology of the modernist body as a raced body. Hackett’s essay reaches into the realm of twenty-first-century social justice advocacy in the current political climate—a climate in which the supremacy of white bodies and segregation of black bodies are constituted by spaces of access and exclusion—to ask of the modernist body, what’s next? Drawing on a framework of emotions that have been mobilized for critical activism, love, rage, and shame, and reading the spaces of schools and restrooms, care homes and gyms, Hackett questions the logic of how public affects circulate between black and white bodies and suggests instead that a blank affect may produce an ethical response that truly matters despite how it may make us feel.

God’s Messenger Boy

2020 ◽  
pp. 139-158
Author(s):  
Vaughn A. Booker
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Religious Literature ◽  
Religious Music ◽  
The Public ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Public Consumption ◽  
Celebrity Status ◽  
Racial Lines

This chapter provides an overview of Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concert tours in the United States and Western Europe to showcase the promise of ecumenical and interracial fellowship. These occasions served to affirm belief in God in the late 1960s, a time when the public questioning of God’s existence animated the anxieties of many white mainline and liberal religious communities. Duke Ellington’s three Sacred Concerts were interfaith projects in which his musical professions of faith lived and came to acquire religious authority due to his prominent celebrity status. His personal religious reflection ultimately resulted in the production of religious music for public consumption. Ellington’s theological explorations marinated in a world saturated with popular religious literature that he studied to compose his Sacred Concerts. Moreover, the presence of Ellington in houses of worship across theological and racial lines also revealed differences in the ways that black and white religious audiences were receptive to his musical work.

scholarly journals Pray the White Way: Religious Expression in the NFL in Black and White

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 470
Author(s):  
Scholes
Keyword(s):  
National Football League ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Football Players ◽  
Religious Expression ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Media ◽  
Theological Debate ◽  
Racial Lines ◽  
African American Theology

Athletes, particularly players in the National Football League, have repeatedly invoked God in order to glorify, praise, or even credit the divine with success on the field. This essay examines the ways in which different types of religious language used to bring God onto the gridiron are received and evaluated along racial lines. I seek to show that speech by athletes, in particular black football players, that communicates a God who is partisan and intervenes in action on the field is routinely dismissed by fellow players, the media, and religious authorities who favor a God who either intervenes softly and generally or is above the game altogether. I contend that a double standard is applied to this theological debate due to a disregard of historical African American theology and to hegemonic white evangelical norms that police such discourse.

Black Bodies/Libidinal Economies in Barry Unsworth’s Sacred Hunger

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-33
Author(s):  
Carolyn Jones Medine ◽  
Lucienne Loh
Keyword(s):  
White Women ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Middle Passage ◽  
Women's Bodies ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Slave Ship ◽  
Black Bodies ◽  
Blacks And Whites

Abstract Barry Unsworth’s Booker Prize winning novel, Sacred Hunger (1992), explores the Middle Passage from the perspective of two central protagonists: Erasmus Kemp, the son of a slave ship builder and owner of the Liverpool Merchant, and Matthew Paris, his cousin and the ship’s doctor. The novel asserts that the “sacred hunger” of the slave trade is the desire for making money, at any cost. In this essay, we argue that one cost, the novel suggests, is the commodification of women’s bodies, particularly black captive women entering the trade. Exploring this libidinal economy, we examine the role of the ship’s doctor, in Paris, as the keeper of the gateway to slavery; the sexual exploitation of both black and white women, and Unsworth’s use of the trace—in this case, the elusive figure of the Paradise Nigger, or Luther Sawdust, who is Paris’ son, Kenke, conceived in a new settlement based on democracy undertaken in Florida and engaged in by both blacks and whites from the wrecked Liverpool Merchant. Capitalism, through human competition, enters that community, which, ultimately, is destroyed as Kemp discovers it and retakes his property. The Paradise Nigger represents a counter-memory and counter-force: a hope that the repetition of master-slave dichotomy in the libidinal economy can be interrupted by something “other” that suggests alternative shapes of human freedom.

Racial Differences in Resolving Conflicts: A Comparison between Black and White Police Officers

2004 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 516-541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Y. Sun ◽  
Brian K. Payne
Keyword(s):  
Racial Differences ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Behavioral Differences ◽  
Predominantly Black ◽  
Black Neighborhoods ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Situational Characteristics ◽  
Black Officers

This study examined the behavioral differences between Black and White police officers in handling interpersonal conflicts. Observational and survey data from the Project on Policing Neighborhoods and the 1990 census data were used. Actions taken by officers are examined along two behavioral dimensions: coercion and support. Findings show that Black officers are more coercive than their White counterparts in responding to conflicts. Black officers are also more likely than White officers to conduct supportive activities in predominantly Black neighborhoods, whereas they do not differ in initiating supportive actions in racially diverse communities. Situational characteristics play a strong role in determining police actions during conflict resolution. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.

A New Scale to Capture the Multidimensionality of Celebrity Image

2020 ◽  
pp. 097215092091959
Author(s):  
Bikram Jit Singh Mann ◽  
Yadvinder Parmar ◽  
Mandeep Kaur Ghuman
Keyword(s):  
Marketing Strategies ◽  
Brand Extensions ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Ethical Responsibility ◽  
Product Positioning ◽  
Celebrity Endorsements ◽  
Movie Stars

The present study aims to develop a reliable and valid scale that measures the multidimensionality of celebrity images and is generalizable across diverse celebrity professions. A survey has been conducted using a sample of 484 respondents to gather data relating to the dimensions of celebrity images of four selected celebrities from two celebrity profession categories, namely, movie stars and sport stars. EFA, CFA and SEM have been used for developing a reliable and valid scale of celebrity images. The scale encompasses seven dimensions of celebrity image: social and ethical responsibility, life and style, professional capabilities, perspective towards celebrity’s profession, orientation towards fans, attractive physique and public image. Marketers can use the scale to identify the dimensions of celebrity images to select appropriate celebrities for their product endorsement. They can also use the identified dimensions of celebrity images to better differentiate, position and extend their brands while designing their marketing strategies related to product positioning, celebrity endorsements and celebrity brand extensions. It would enable researchers and practitioners to bring standardization to celebrity image research in the field of brand endorsements.

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