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(More customer reviews)Hoberman has written a masterful account of not just racism in sport but in general, from the social, biological, cultural, political and international perspective. He makes convincing arguments that sport, rather than being the great equaliser between the races, actually has retarded black social advancement by creating an acceptable alternative to white intellectual achievement. Indeed, a plague currently afflicting black education makes any black scholastic accomplishments of the non-physical variety "white" and therefore nerdy and uncool. The imagery of Michael Jordan seduces young blacks, most of whom have no chance of ever attaining professional athletic status, into abandoning academic study for the glamor, girls and glory associated with sport. Hoberman shows how whites, who originally denigrated blacks as being lazy and shiftless, have come to regard them as athletic supermen, against which no white man would be able to legitimately compete. More insidiously, many blacks are all too willing to accept that their natural athletic genius exempts them form having to compete with whites in the intellectual sphere. The pride shown with the black athletes that have overcome white racism, such as Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali, winds up hurting the overall black goal of full social integration when it serves to be the end-all-and-be-all of the black experience in America. Hoberman also makes the point that blacks achieving wealth and fame in sport still are prisoners in a gilded cage created for the profit and entertainment of the white power structure. Without taking the same level of pride in intellectual, artistic and political prowess as with sports, blacks will continue to function on the margins of white controlled society. His observations with respect to shibboleths about racial biology and superiority are scathing indictments of the perpetuation of mythology that justifies this or that racist neurosis. Indeed, it still pervades the racial discussion, and even affects the way blacks see themselves. The invidious process of the physicalization of the black man started with slavery and continued into athletics, so that even if blacks showed superior speed or strength, they were always criticized by whites for their lack of intelligence, courage or endurance. Those lies were made manifest with the likes of Muhammad Ali, black soldiers in both world wars, African distance runners and intellectuals like DuBois, but the mindset did not change. Only until very recently have black quarterbacks in the NFL been seen as capable of doing the same job as white QBs, after years of "common" knowledge that black QBs didn't have the mental chops as whites. Sadly, it seems like sports is the only forum that blacks acknowledge they can compete with the white man. It appears only some brave black women have the courage to criticize the obsession with black prowess, which even among black intellectuals is revered and used as standards by which black achievement is measured. Charles Barkeley, he of large frame and larger mouth, is an outspoken critic of the undue emphasis that sports has in the black community, but of course we pay attention to him because he is a famous wealthy athlete, not because he is a man of letters or scientific achievement. Hoberman's book is sobering, thought provoking and only racists of either color would condemn him for his exemplary tome, that should be required reading in high schools throughout the nation. Alas, because he does skewer the black community with the painful truth, his whiteness will be used against him. Diogenes, come hither and shine your light on Hoberman. Diogenes, of course, is incapable of adjudging his color.
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