This week I chose to focus on African American male athletes. Hyper-surviellance is the extremely detailed tracking and monitoring of an individual, group or faction. With that being said, this weeks read was from a chapter in a book dedicated to the hyper-surveillance of division 1 African American athletes.
This article does a great job at speaking on structuralism and functionalism. An argument in the article was that, “surveillance is a driver of structural racism and and that the radicalized nature of the college athletics enterprise exploits the athletic labor of Black male athletes while rendering them disposable.” Since systemic racism does in fact exist I think I should also take a look at that. Both systemic and structural racism are deep rooted practices that lie beneath the surface but are still relevant today. This type of racism can pertain to different systems and but not limited to laws that cause the oppression of people of color. In my paper, I think it will be interesting to look at the factors of systemic and structural racism and what leads to hyper-surveillance. Black male athletes for years, have always been at the height of stereotypes or prejudice actions used against them especially at PWIs.
Being as though Temple is a PWI, I think this will be great to look at in regards to how and if these athletes have ever been victims of systemic and structural racism. If so, what was their approach to handling it?
Comeaux, E. (2018). Stereotypes, control, hyper‐surveillance, and disposability of NCAA Division I Black Male Athletes. New Directions for Student Services, 2018(163), 33–42. https://doi.org/10.1002/ss.20268
Braveman, P. A., Arkin, E., Proctor, D., Kauh, T., & Holm, N. (2022). Systemic and structural racism: Definitions, examples, health damages, and approaches to dismantling. Health Affairs, 41(2), 171–178. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01394
