How advertising fuels racist myths in sport
First published in Campaign September 2020
If the Black Lives Matter movement has taught us anything this year it’s that if we are going to make meaningful change it is no longer good enough to be ‘not racist’. We need to be ‘anti-racist’. All of us need to be actively combatting racism all of the time.
To do this we not only need to question our own biases, but also the historical narratives that we have been told. One area of culture where this is particularly important is in sport. A part of our society that has a long-standing and complicated relationship with race.
When sport and race surfaces as a topic, it invariably does so in two forms. Sadly, live sport remains one of the last harbourers of public and overt racial abuse. Whilst progress is being made, it is arguably not being made fast enough. The other more positive story (on the surface at least) is the role of sport as a platform for social justice and empowerment. Whether it’s Jesse Owens, Muhammad Ali, Smith and Carlos in 1968 or Colin Kaepernick and Lebron James today, sport has always provided a global stage to combat racial injustice. Thus, sport and race have ever been intertwined. The best and worst of how we deal with race as a society is exaggerated in sport. This is why it is so worthy of debate.
There is another side of race and sport which is less explored however. It lies deeper beneath the surface but it is worth unearthing as it is possibly the most damaging of all; and that is sport’s role in forming stereotypes and fuelling myths. The consequences of which stretch well beyond the pitch, helping to cement and reinforce many of the broader social injustices we face today.
To truly understand this impact we need to remember that sport, like so many other constructs in our society, was built in what sociologist Joe Feagin calls the “white racial frame”. To be more precise, modern sport as we know it was created at the peak of colonialism. And it was in this furnace of injustice that the myth of ‘the Black athlete’ was forged.
The idea that Black people are naturally more athletic than white may not shock you. In fact, you may have presumed that this was widely accepted as true. Such is the power of this narrative that most people at some level do believe in it. Aside from a few hyper-localised exceptions, no study has ever found any serious evidence to suggest significant athletic differences between races based on skin colour. Yet despite this John Hoberman, author of Darwin’s Athletes, argues that a “fixation about Black superiority has become nothing less than global racial folklore”.
How then did this myth become so widely accepted? In his book Race, Sport and Politics Ben Carrington claims that the “Black athlete” was not only a conscious “invention” but a “political entity and [...] an attempt to reduce Blackness itself”.
Whether you agree that it was deliberately constructed or not, there is little doubt that the idea Black athletes were physically superior to white emerged in the early 1900s and has been easy to trace throughout the 20th century. Jesse Owens’ coach in 1936 claimed “The N**** excels as it was not long ago that his ability to sprint and jump was a matter of life and death”. In 1968 commentator Jimmy Snyder got fired for saying live on air: “the Black athlete is better to begin with because he has been bred that way”. Roger Bannister, record-breaking hero and prominent neurologist, claimed in 1995 that Black athletes have “certain natural anatomical advantages”. Even legendary Jack Nicklaus once dismissed the absence of Black golfers (pre Tiger Woods) by saying Black athletes “have different muscles that react in different ways”. It is shocking that something with so little scientific fact can have been so widely believed by so many ‘experts’ without being challenged.
If you think this myth has been banished alongside other parts of our unsavoury history, think again. Recent AI analysis has shown that the way modern commentators talk about white and non-white athletes is markedly different, with comments about athletic ability being more greatly attributed to the latter, and intellgience or character the former. Similarly, a study by the University of Colorado examining the racial stereotypes of NFL quarterbacks, found, “that the terms physical strength and natural ability were more associated with the Black quarterbacks while leadership and intelligence was more associated with white quarterbacks". There is a reason that Black athletes will often be found playing in peripheral positions whilst white athletes play more central orchestrating roles.
Like so many other dangerous stereotypes this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Young Black athletes at the earliest level in all team sports are still picked by coaches to play in certain positions to take advantage of their athleticism. Over time a pattern emerges where Black athletes will massively over index in certain sports or positions fueling the stereotype further.
The risk is that, despite all the current goodwill to change, this stereotype stays largely hidden. Former rugby league winger Martin Offiah recently found himself at the centre of a debate on whether the singing of Swing Low Sweet Chariot should be permitted at Twickenham. This is the type of conversation that grabs headlines but doesn’t help solve the bigger issue. The part of Martin’s story we should be focusing on is the role of this myth on his career. When we spoke to him this is what he had to say:
“I myself suffered from this very same stereotype as a promising school boy centre I was ushered to the wing in the pro ranks and my 501 career tries are often attributed to my speed rather than my intellect and problem solving brain […] Fear and change is tough to swallow especially after a lie was told and believed”
You may of course argue this is a relatively harmless stereotype. This is just ‘sport’ after all. In the bigger picture there are more urgent battles to fight. The reality however is that it has deep and highly destructive consequences beyond sport.
As we have just seen perceptions of athletic ability and intelligence are inversely correlated. This is the true destructive force of the myth of the Black athlete. Sociologist Harry Edwards, the man who engineered the Black Power protest at the 1968 Olympics explains; “by asserting that Blacks are physically superior…[it creates] an informal acceptance that whites are intellectually superior”. One seemingly positive stereotype leads to another devastating one.
The biases left by this myth run deep. Not just in the fact that coaching and management positions in sport are still vastly controlled by white figures - even in sports that are dominated by Black athletes - but more harmfully in the aspirations of young Black people who see athleticism as their main route to success. As Hoberman puts it “revering Michael Jordan and rejecting intellectual role models only increase the environment-based Black-white differential”.
Advertisers are far from innocent in the creation of this myth. Carrington calls us out specifically saying it is “defined by common folklore, sports discourse - most powerfully within the sports media - and by the advertising industries”. If we are going to help reverse its potency we need to respond on two levels: On a personal level as fans and spectators we have to challenge our own biases. We have to question the narratives we’ve been told. We need to look at eight Black athletes competing in the 100m final and not explain it as genetic difference, but instead understand the self-fulfilling power of this myth. I can admit from personal experience that despite being passionate about this cause and open-eyed to the dangers, I still find myself having to regularly battle these biases.
As an industry we need to do more to avoid any stereotyping of Black athletes. We need to resist calling out their ‘natural’ talent. We need to champion their broader achievements and qualities. We need to create campaigns that actively attack this myth and open our eyes to the biases around us. We need to help tell an alternative narrative and help a future generation understand the only differences between us on the pitch and in life are the ones we ourselves have created.
