PCS, Public Pedagogy and the Riots in Baltimore

– By Michael Friedman

Dr. Michael Friedman is currently Research Assistant Professor of Physical Cultural Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park.

The tragedy of a young life lost, the absurdity of an empty baseball stadium, and the rage of rioters in the streets of Baltimore…

What does PCS at Maryland have to say in this moment?

Myth Busters: Do Black People Swim? – by Jenny Collins

Do black people swim? Of course they do. I am black and I can swim. Myth busted.

Not so fast.

A 2008 multi-phase study out of the University of Memphis revealed that 58% of black children could not swim, they drowned at 3-times the rate of their white peers and that simply being black reduced your rate of participation in the sport by almost 60% (MSNBC, 2008).

Phase I of the study entitled, The Mythology of Swimming: Are Myths Impacting Minority Youth Participation?, was commissioned by USA Swimming and spearheaded by Richard Irwin (2008), a professor from the Department of Health and Sport Science.  One predominating myth influencing participation that was addressed was the idea that, ‘black women don’t want to get their hair wet’, and although Irwin believes they proved the relation between hair and swimming to be negligible, I beg to differ (p.12) While these studies have been lauded as a landmark investigation of minority swimming participation and a wake-up call to recognize swimming proficiency as a major public health concern, I am left unimpressed as I feel they fall short of understanding this crucial cultural phenomenon.

On Reflexivity and Auto-Ethnography: One Part Race, One Part Hip-Hop, One Part Basketball, Mix… By Ron Mower

I have been recently engaging with the concepts of reflexivity and positionality, in addition to postmodernism’s questioning of the nature of reality, truth, and history. In finding and interpreting meaning, representation, and image, I find myself always thinking about cultural meanings and expressions through the lens of race, and contemplating them in terms of my personal experience and the theoretical paradigms I am now adopting. I love the idea of contextualizing power relations by positioning the researcher’s own identity politics within the realm of the empirical to provide greater depth of analysis and a sense of transparency. As an ongoing project, taking some shape in an eventual dissertation, I want to conduct an ethnographic study of White youth’s appropriation and/or engagement with Black culture in the physical and ideological spaces of basketball and hip-hop. As these topics are central to my lived experiences as well as my research interests, I also want to explore the methodology of auto-ethnography to complement my overall work. What follows in this blog is my first attempt at writing reflexively concerning a few snippets of my life experiences and how they have impacted my ontology and epistemology as a researcher, why I choose to read and write about race, hip-hop, and basketball, and what I hope to accomplish…

“Let’s be honest. All this fascination with hip-hop is just a cultural safari for white people” (Kevin Powell, Newsweek, 2003).

Manny and Kimbo: Two of America’s Most Wanted by Bryan Bracey and Ryan King-White

This entry is a discussion held by Bryan Bracey and Ryan King-White. So we get two blog postings for the price of one.

Bryan Bracey muses:

In the past week two very wealthy professional athletes had their credibility (whatever that means) questioned: Manny Ramirez of the Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers and Mixed Martial Artist Kimbo Slice (Kevin Ferguson) of EliteXC. The funny thing is that the crimes and atrocities committed by these two societal leeches are very different (in fact inverses) yet equally egregious and reprehensible. Given that his moment in the spotlight is almost up, we’ll start with Slice.

“O’ Say Can You See” Racial Tensions and Sporting Nationalisms by Ron Mower

Americans love sport.  We are also very picky about which sports gain prominence within the U.S., how they are viewed abroad, and how it relates to love of country, respect for the flag, and our patriotic responsibilities.  Sport and nationalism represent a dialectically linked and tightly interwoven relationship that can bring out both the beauty of national identities, collective celebration, and social acceptance, but also the ominous threat of jingoistic aggrandizing, racial hatred, and parochial imperialism.  It is one thing when disrespect for the U.S. comes from people abroad (as in the recent booing of the national anthem by British fans at the Floyd Mayweather vs. Ricky Hatton fight late last year) but when it is perceived as coming from within (Becky Hammon was labeled a traitor by her former U.S. WNBA counterparts for signing a contract to play for a club team in Russia) the issue becomes an even more volatile exchange.  Throw in the issue of race in a country steeped in lingering racial disparities in education, employment, health care, overall wealth, and access to vital emergency disaster response, and you have a full blown catastrophe waiting to unfold.  Such conflict, quite literally exacerbated on many angles by rapidly advancing media technologies, has once again surfaced surrounding NBA player Josh Howard.    

‘Ignorance is Bliss’ for FOXSports.com, by Amie Chaudry

While working ever so diligently on my Master’s thesis and conducting an interview with tattoo artist White Trash Matt at Tattooed Heart Studios, I heard much commotion over an article from FOXSports.com that had the entire shop’s proverbial panties in a bunch.  Intrigued, I left THS and looked up the website to see what all of the fuss was about.  Sure enough I found Jason Whitlock’s column, and the subsequent topic for this blog.  Whitlock’s commentary attempted to grasp why the NBA playoffs were causing ESPN, TNT and ABC’s ratings to skyrocket. 

White Girls and Pony-tails by Amie Chaudry

Tonight and tomorrow (November 10^th and 11^th), sixteen of the nation’s elite collegiate field hockey squads will take to the pitches to play in the first and second rounds of the NCAA Division I Field Hockey Championship Tournament. Almost one week later, the four advancing teams will head to the University of Maryland College Park to play in the semi-final games on November 16^th for a shot at the national title game on November 18^th. What the mass of spectators will be greeted with at the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex on the University of Maryland campus is a 20ft banner donning the NCAA 2007 Field Hockey Championship insignia, a woman field hockey player running on an angle, a classic pose seen when players carry the ball at top speed (you can check this out online also at http://www.ncaasports.com/fieldhockey/womens/schedules). More than likely, those spectators visiting the campus will not think to question the underlying details of that logo. I have to admit that even I neglected to take notice until my professor Dr. Andrews brought it to my attention a few weeks back.

The Next Great White Hope? by Bryan Bracey

One interesting, and mildly surprising turn of events over the past two years, has been the assent of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) to the mainstream. While seemingly a new MMA organization crops up daily, there is a clear group at the head of the pack, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Without devoting much time to UFC history, it is worth mention that the popular, regulated sport on cable TV today is very different for its Pay-Per-View only, rules optional, version in the early 1990s. The increase in rules, mostly in regards to safety, has obviously help its cause it terms being sanctioned in various venues. Its popularity, however, has a lot to do with its exposure on the Spike network, and the reality TV show, The Ultimate Fighter (TUF).