Race, sport and politics: the sporting black diaspora

In Race, Sport and Politics: The Sporting Black Diaspora, Ben Carrington argues that sport is a place where historical representations of racialised bodies are articulated, re-defined and resisted and thus, may act as an important redemptive space for the production of black politics.Carrington introduces the reader to a new racial trope, the black athlete, which, he explains, is a construction made from the repertoire of pre-existing white colonial fantasies about blackness, which are the result of growing imperialistic vulnerabilities and white impotency.Carrington opens Race, Sport and Politics by boldly claiming that 'The black athlete was created on 26 December 1908 in a boxing ring in Sydney, Australia' (p.1).On that day, the black American boxer Jack Johnson defeated the white Canadian Tommy Burns to become the first black World Heavyweight Champion.Carrington declares Johnson's victory as pivotal in the history and development of black sporting diasporic consciousness.The author states, 'The black athlete was created at a moment of impending imperial crisis' (p.3) in that, Johnson's victory took place at the peak of imperialism, social Darwinism, eugenics and Muscular Christianity.Carrington symbolizes Johnson's victory as a potential trigger for a 'black revolution'; explaining how, in the following years