Darwin's Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race - Hardcover

Hoberman, John M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0395822912 ISBN 13: 9780395822913

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1997

Synopsis

Argues that the prominence of African-American athletes contributes to social divisions, provides fuel for painful racial stereotypes, and encourages a de-emphasis on academic achievement in black communities.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Darwin's Athletes zeroes in on our society's fixation on black athletic achievement. John Hoberman compellingly argues that this obsession - one shared by both blacks and whites in the media, in corporate America, and even by athletes themselves - has come to play a disastrous role in African-American life and a troubling role in our country's race relations. The sports fixation originates in the painful century-long exclusion of blacks from every other path to high achievement. The scarcity of other kinds of "race heroes" has conferred messianic status on the most popular black athletes, fostering a delusion of integration while contributing to deep social divisions. Ironically, Hoberman argues, the decline of European empires and the rise of the black athlete helped to preserve rather than undermine the inferior status of nonwhites.

About the Author:

Hoberman, the author of Mortal Engines: The Science of Performance and Dehumanization of Sport, lives in Austin, Texas.

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0395822912
• ISBN 13: 9780395822913
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 341