The Black scholar baller: utilising visual elicitation to examine White students’ perspective on the legitimacy of the Black college athlete

The pervasiveness of Whiteness is embedded within and reproduced through the perceptions of White students within university communities. Eurocentrism is especially salient in sports and sport-related films displaying the Black athlete’s journey, particularly depicting the intersections of Blackness/anti-Blackness, ‘athlete culture’. There is insignificant literature that explores the perceptions of White traditional students about Black college athletes within the university classroom. To understand such internalized, this qualitative study (N = 149) analyzes White students’ reactions and attitudes about the representation of Black college athletes in predominantly White institutions of higher education, employing visual elicitation to explore White students’ judgments of a Black male college athlete’s presence and belonging in the university classroom. Findings confirm remnants of the “dumb jock” stereotype steeped within whiteness. Constructs of whiteness support and reproduce racist ideological structures found within higher education, further threatening the legitimacy of Black college athletes within their academic role.