Prejudice And Racism In Sports

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Sporting athletic leagues have been around since 1903, when New York City’s Public School Athletic League for Boys was established creating formal contests between kids and adults. Racism has been around since humans have diversified into different races, ethnicities, and religions and coming together and clashing. How has sports and racism interacted with each other to make such a social uproar? Personally, I believe in playing the game how it’s supposed to be played without politics being involved, regardless of the opponent’s skin color or religious beliefs. The media has portrayed the sporting world in such a negative light to gain more attention to the average viewer, while forgetting what the main aspect of sports is all about, winning. …show more content…

When African-American NBA basketball player, Kendall Marshall, wasn’t getting enough playing time according to his father, he tweeted “I always said there was racism in sports. White guys in basketball are getting every chance to succeed even when they aren’t doing sh!t” (Marshall). Although the father quickly apologized, the media took every chance they could to bring this story to headline news to make the controversy more popular and to cause a bigger commotion. Other professional athletes went public about their feelings regarding racism and sports and the results were not as expected. Fellow African-American NFL football player responded to this controversy in an unexpected manner and goes on to said “…ultimately the problem is not a skin problem, but a sin problem. Sin is the reason we rebel against authority” (Benjamin Watson). With Watson, a professional competitive athlete showing how racism isn’t a problem in sports goes on to say how much media is hyping up racial stories to gain more popularity, when in reality racism shouldn’t even be brought up in the sports environment any