ABSTRACT
Th e popular negotiation and representation of race and racialized identities has long been a favored instrument within popular sporting fi gurations for perpetuating a White capitalist patriarchal hegemony. Th is is revealed most notably in relation to a slew of recent cinematic endeavors such as He Got Game (Lee, 1998), Hoop Dreams (S. James & M arx, 1994), Remember the Titans (Howard, 2000), and Love & B asketball (Prince-Bythewood, 2000); the rising prominence of a new class of Black entrepreneurs as signifi ed by former National Basketball Association (NBA) star Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Black Entertainment Television (BET) f ounder and current Charlotte Bobcats (NBA expansion team) owner Rob ert Johnson (s ee Giardina & Cole, 2003); a nd t he public-private investment in t he f uture o f (White, middle-class) American girlhood as located within the alleged pro-family, pro-empowerment, pro-girl rhetoric of both the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA; see Metz, this volume).
