Race and Violence in Sports

Yesterday’s post got me thinking a lot about racialized portrayals of criminality. Depictions of black criminality and drug use—be they in pop culture or on the 5 o’clock news—are typically associated with public acts of transgression. From slangin’ on the corner, to shooting each other on the street, public criminality seems like the dominant image. The public nature of these portrayals tends to depict black criminals as much more dangerous than whites, who do their dirt behind closed doors.

I immediately connected this line of thought to a passage I read in Tricia Rose’s The Hip Hop Wars, a book I reviewed last week. Here, Rose discusses racial differences in interpretations of violence in sports:

“The generalized hostility against hip hop impinges on the interpretation of other visible forms of black youth culture. For instance, [the few] black NBA players …who have committed violent or criminal acts “prove” the whole lot of them worthy of attack. In a league that has mostly black players and mostly white fans, this has become a racially charged (and racially generated) revenue problem. Such group tainting does not occur among white athletes or fans. The National Hockey League, a league that is predominantly white (in terms of both fans and players) and experiences far more incidents of game-related violence (they take timeouts to brawl!) is rarely described as problematically violent.”

So, fair point: We don’t problematize hockey the same way we problematize basketball. Also fair: basketball players are overwhelmingly African-American, and hockey players are mostly white and European. This is a pretty common argument, and Rose is certainly not the first to say it. Still, I’m not so sure race is the only answer to this disparity.

Yes, there are “timeouts to brawl” in the NHL. But here’s the thing: Brawling is woven into the codes, regulations, and rules of the game. The fact that there are “timeouts to brawl” illustrates that fighting is a controlled and regulated part of the game. Players are given their time to fight it out, and then the referees step in and send them to he penalty box. All of this happens in an enclosed rink, regulated by the rules of the game, while the players wear heavy padding.

NBA fights are strikingly different. From Rudy Tomjonavich getting laid out in 1977 Rockets-Lakers game, to Jeff Van Gundy being dragged across the court as he held onto Alonzo Mourning’s leg in 1998, to 2004’s infamous Pistons-Pacers brawl, NBA fights are far from regulated. I honestly cannot think of a comparable NHL moment that is anything like Ron Artest leaping from the court into the stands after a fan threw a beer at him. Artest sparked a massive fight that breached the boundaries of the court. Fans were getting decked by athletes, and five players were ultimately charged with assault.

Not all violence is created equal, especially when one form (the NHL) carries with it institutional backing and regulation. There’s been a significant amount of suspensions and technicals during the NBA playoffs this year, so I wouldn’t be surprised if these conversations pop up some more. But race is only part of the answer here, albeit a central part. See, race interacts with issues of public space, violence, and social control to reinforce existing stereotypes.

We don’t cut hockey more slack because it’s a “white sport.” No, we fail to problematize violence in hockey because it’s white and regulated and controlled and in a semi-public, but enclosed space. We freak out about NBA violence because it’s black and unregulated and uncontrolled and crosses from the court and into the stands.

It’s not that race is insignificant; it’s that public space and social control are racialized. The problem with race in America is that it’s no longer just race, but rather a collusion of race and other seemingly race-neutral aspects of everyday life. So yeah, there’s a certain degree of racial discrimination in the way NBA fights are treated as compared to NHL fights. But that’s in large part due to the racialized way in which we view public violence, as compared to private, controlled and regulated violence.

As one wise academic astutely notes, it’s more than just race. And that’s precisely the problem.