Millions watched as 24-year-old National Football League (NFL) player Damar Hamlin performed a seemingly routine tackle during the highly anticipated Monday night football game. . Shortly after, Hamlin stood up and collapsed. Players from his team, the Buffalo Bills, and opposing team, the Cincinnati Bengals, crowded around him on the field as medical personnel attempted to resuscitate him. I know what happened. His heart suddenly stopped beating.
This scene was terrifying in both its regularity and its exceptionality. ABC’s Matt Gutman murmured The scariest part about this is that the hit wasn’t actually scary – it looked terrifyingly normal. The banality of men running into each other at full speed represents the normalized, even streamlined, violence that is commonplace in this American game.
This regular violence has always plagued the sport and affected all players. But black players are disproportionately affected.Although black men are not in positions of power across football organizations, whether it be coaching or management, they are overrepresented on the playing field. Non-white players make up his 70% of his NFL. Nearly half of Division I college football players are black. Additionally, through a process called racial stacking, coaches segregate players racially by playing position. These demographic discrepancies put black athletes at higher risk during play.
As an anthropologist, I have spent the past decade learning how black college football players navigate the exploitation, racism, and anti-blackism that underlie our current system. Emphasizing the violence inherent in American football is nothing new. The sport requires extraordinary athletes who are otherwise ordinary men to achieve extraordinary feats on the field. We liken these men to gladiators and warriors. The leagues, organizations, teams, coaches, spectators and fans who benefit from their performances expect them to survive when they get hurt and applaud when they play through these injuries. increase.
Football is a spectacle where excessive violence is banal. Because there is a constant stream of blows that cause injury, and spectators are desensitized to it. Consumers of sports assume that players can tolerate physical insults and are therefore shocked when they exceed their physical limits, often on very public stages. people with rationalize excessive violence in this structured space, and anything that includes college, high school, and pee-wee play. Because all of this assumes that there are rules, facilities, and regulations to prevent death. But this is false protection. While this form of entertainment has been normalized, Hamlin’s injuries demonstrate that ordinary violence can have deadly consequences, and how black men’s sporting work can turn this brutal system into a reality. It highlights how it supports the
These arenas, argued by sociologist Billy Hawkins, are never far from plantation fields in theory, and financiers value black bodies for their productivity and physical prowess. The league encourages and promotes rigorous training and discipline so players can perform seemingly impossible physical demands. All of this is done for entertainment, money making, and insatiable fandom. In the words of sociologist and activist Harry Edwards, “black athletes are used like tools.” I’m not aware of any studies comparing injury rates in black and white football players, but heat stroke, ACL and labrum tears, ankle sprains, fractures, and concussions are just a few of the consequences of these body uses. department.
The NFL benefits culturally and economically from black athleticism. It is the most popular sports league in the United States and the most valuable professional sports league in the world. It’s also a league that has exploited black players for decades. League officials have acknowledged that they use racial norms, the assumption that black players have lower baseline cognitive function than white players and suffer less from concussions in reconciling concussion-related injuries. Former head coach Brian Flores is suing the league for racism in hiring. The NFL’s success and popularity cannot be separated from its persistent anti-black practices.
Despite negative arguments from critics that high salaries pay well for the injuries NFL players are likely to experience, athletes at other levels don’t have this luxury. Kathleen Baczynski details the risks that have always existed in youth tackle football, but professional and collegiate play cannot be separated, as this is where professional talent is nurtured. The university system thrives on unpaid athlete labor through a power dynamic that sociologist Erin Hutton called “status coercion.” The coach manipulates and utilizes the work of the players to extract value that ultimately leads to revenue for nearly every entity involved except the players themselves. College players suffer the same injuries as pros, and some end their careers before they even begin. But often there is little support to help players imagine themselves outside of their sporting identities and carve out alternative careers.
The latest exaggerated example occurred in the fall of 2020, during the first season of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since March 2020, the campus has had few students, classes have moved to a virtual format, and social distancing has become the norm. However, the team and conference decided to continue playing football. Players in all five major Division I conferences have had their health compromised by an unpredictable and sometimes deadly virus, playing high-contact sports in near-empty stadiums to wreck not just colleges but audiences. It satisfied TV fans and broadcasters who use it. Had these players not been on the field, the sports department could have lost at least $4.1 billion in revenue for him.
In a way that recalls the meat theorizing by black feminist scholar Hortense Spillers, these situations show how organizations, administrators, and fans dismiss each player’s personality, stripping them of their humanity and turning them into mere bodies. No football player deserves this treatment. After enduring, experiencing, and witnessing physical trauma, they should not be expected to play. The anti-blackness of the system is inevitable.
Despite the severity of Hamlin’s injury, the current NFL season will continue. The Bills-Bengals game is officially canceled and the playoffs are set to change, but predictably, following the Super Bowl in February, he’ll be scouting his combine in March, the draft in April, and over the summer. The team followed his training with his camp. , all ready for the season to start again in the fall. But let’s not forget that the game can’t last without the players themselves. The elaborate infrastructure of the entire system relies on their continued participation. If we expect these everyday gladiators to return to the field, as men who happen to play the game of soccer very well, structural changes are needed so that they are actually cared for in a way that respects their humanity. must occur.
This is an opinion and analysis article and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily Scientific American.
