Black Lives Matter in Sport…?

In this invited professional insight paper the author draws parallels between recent debates on racism, Black Lives Matters, and related research in sport and cognate domains. Drawing on Critical Race Theory (CRT) the paper contends that a) sport is a contested site, b) sport is a microcosm of society c) ‘race’ and everyday racism are central to our understanding of sport. It overlays this critique with a recognition of the dynamic and multi-dimensional nature of racisms. While the deaths of Black lives are being mourned it is argued that our attention can also become distracted by narrow manifestations of racism (overt). Such approaches leave key stakeholder efforts focused on the individual to the detriment of challenging systemic policies, practices, and dispositions that entrench racism. The colour-coded racism of past decades is still with us but in addition to this, our critiques and activism require continued surveillance of cultural, institutional, and structural arrangements in the everyday that remain nebulous, complex, and difficult to challenge. This is a viewpoint paper. The author draws on previous original empirical work and current insights to draw parallels between sport, Black Lives Matter, and broader social contexts. Due to limitations in the extant literature in regard to cycling and ethnicity, examples are drawn primarily from the US and UK. This focus on sport and leisure past times demonstrates that the Black experience of ‘race’ and racism transcends social boundaries and cannot be perceived as restricted to narrow social domains. This paper draws on the author's original published research and current insights. The paper makes a contribution to the development of critical race theorising to the sociology of sport, and broader ethnic and racial studies.