R.A. Buford, Living Through the Hoop: High School Basketball, Race and the American Dream

The media depictions of successful African American males participating in sport is fraught with myopic images that boarder on redundancy. These African American gladiators, as Harry Edwards coined them, always appear to emanate from communities struggling with poverty, high crime rates, low educational achievement, and single parent female headed households. The media is quick to highlight those African American gladiators who make it out of America’s harsh ghettoes and who proclaim how their sport participation changed and invariably saved their lives. It is this success story that white America, and even African American society, crave. It is a story line that has prevailed in the media since African American athletes were presented in sport’s media highlight reels. These survivors represent the bastions of opportunity that exist in the United States for its underserved and underprivileged minority populations. America loves a motivational story where someone overcame their harsh upbringing and became successful and significant. The problem with these media stories and depictions are they often leave out the gruesome details that portray a more accurate picture of just how differently harsh, inhumane, and dangerous these neighborhoods actually are. These story lines hide the harsh reality of failure and perpetuate the lie that sports success will open the doors of opportunity that lead to wealth, fame, prestige, and the adoration of women. …