Gift and Grit - Race, Sports, and the Construction of Social Debt

In 1998, Bill Clinton hosted a town hall on race and sports. 'If you've got a special gift,' the president said of athletes, 'you owe more back.' Gift and Grit shows how the sports industry has incubated racial ideas about advantage and social debt since the civil rights era by sorting athletes into two broad categories. The gifted athlete received something for nothing, we're told, and owes the team, the fan, the city, God, nation. The gritty athlete received nothing and owes no one. The distinction between gift and grit is racial, but also, Joseph Darda reveals, racializing: It has structured new racial categories and redrawn racial lines. Sports, built on an image of fairness, inform how we talk about advantage and deservedness in other domains, including immigration, crime, education, and labor. Gift and Grit tells the stories of Roger Bannister, Roberto Clemente, Martina Navratilova, Florence Griffith Joyner, and LeBron James - and the story their stories tell about the shifting meaning of race in America.

Product details

• Authors: Joseph Darda, Joseph (Michigan State University) Darda
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 31.05.2025
• EAN: 9781009584067
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0958406-7
• No. of pages: 305
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > General, dictionaries; Media Studies, Cultural Studies, 20th Century, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, HISTORY / United States / 20th Century, 21st Century, 21st century history: from c 2000 -, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, Sociology: sport & leisure, history of sport, Sociology: sport and leisure, History of the Americas, Early 21st century c 2000 to c 2050, Black & Asian Studies, Cultural and media studies, Relating to African American / Black American people