ABSTRACT

This chapter explores critical race theory (CRT) as an ontological starting point for the study of sport today. CRT has been described as exciting, revolutionary and an intellectual movement (Roithmayr 1999). It can be summarised as a framework from which to explore and examine the racism in society that privileges whiteness as it disadvantages others because of their ‘blackness’. CRT also confronts ‘race-neutrality’ in policy and practice and acknowledges the value of ‘the black voice’ that is often marginalised in mainstream theory, policy and practice. CRT challenges past and present institutional arrangements in sport that racially discriminate, subjugate and oppress (Nebeker 1998, Delgado and Stefancic 2001). CRT has also been described as a hybrid discipline as it draws from a number of necessarily relevant disciplines to incorporate a transdisciplinary approach to the development of theory and praxis in relation to racism in society (Stovall 2005). Like the law, sport is an institution deemed to lessen or eradicate racist dysfunction when it rears its head within this hallowed cultural construct. Research agendas dominated by what could be viewed as an elitist Eurocentric social science are a target for part of this transformation as critical writers such as Goldberg (1993) reiterate how the success of any standpoint on ‘race’ and racism must depend on its ability to offer resistance to racism(s). CRT has the potential to interrupt and transform social structures and racial power to further an agenda of ‘racial emancipation’ (Roithmayr 1999: 1).