Paper Topic: Relational identities Audience: Professor
Introduction:
In the opening of Desi Hoop dream, we become aware of young South Asian Americans and how they are treated continuously with the game called basketball. By taking a look into the practices that fall within the sports culture, we can better provide an insight into South Asian Americans lifestyle and the formations of identity and how they are formed. So, to take a look we will begin by racializing the gendered process where Asian Americans maleness is questioned along with other racialized masculinities. At the same time we also will be asking the question of how gender, particularly masculinity is being depicted with either corrective or controlling force. To most
The types of plays on the court, the victories, and the losses serve the purpose of producing multiple performances of masculinity.
• Players use a wide range of athletic plays and bodily comportment to decode the parameters of masculinity while showing the numerous athletic possibilities of these brown bodies.
• As they show and take pleasure in physical abilities, the very practice of masculinity also takes relation to certain South Asian Americans who are seen as “blackened” and with the exclusion or policing of certain racialized black men.
Main Point:
What sort of problems may occur?
• South Asian American masculinity takes shape in relation to a wide assortment of racial masculinities.
• Results of the racial ambiguity and racial indeterminacy of South Asian Americans, are in various points of affiliation and identification with the categories of “Latino” and “Asian American
Main Point:
Why is there a struggle?
• Femininity and homosexuality are seen as antithetical to South
Asian American sporting masculinity.
• Femininity and homosexuality, contradictorily, are key governing, structuring, and regulating forces of heterosexual
Overall my goal was to see the function of race and ethnicity and how it relates to the sociological effects of these Afro-Latino groups. As a result, in some cases that I have studied, being an immigrant may mask one’s beliefs and tend to deny their true roots due to social tensions and pressure. Through my experience, in some cases I saw that being “black” or being “African” perceives negative connotations to some individuals and causes one to separate themselves from their roots. For the purposes of my study, while filling out the questionnaire, when an Afro-Latino approached the question in reference to their African roots, as an alternative, they would ignore the African portion of the question and respond by saying they are only Latino or Latina.
Society has always had the idea that males should participate in masculine activities and females in feminine activities. These activities define the lifestyle that person would have. It was also believed that if a male was not involved in masculine activities, that male was not a man. Sports is a field that has been dominated by males in the past years, and more recently has had a lot of females take part in it. But does playing a sport define one’s masculinity? Michael Messner, the author of Boyhood, Organized Sports, and the Construction of Masculinities, discusses the effect sports has on upcoming young men of different races. The effect of being introduced to a sport at a young age allowed males of different races to gain a sense of masculinity,
In Kimmel’s essay “’Bros Before Hos’: The Guy Code” he argues that the influence of society on masculinity is equal to or greater than biological influences on masculinity. In the essay, Kimmel uses various surveys and interviews to validate his argument. He points to peers, coaches, and family members as the people most likely to influence the development of a man’s masculinity. When a man has his manliness questioned, he immediately makes the decision never to say or do whatever caused him to be called a wimp, or unmanly. Kimmel’s argument is somewhat effective because the readers get firsthand accounts from the interviewees but the author does not provide any statistics to support his argument.
In the Newsday editorial “Don’t mix girls, boys in sports” the author examines on why to not mix different sexes in the same sport.
Basketball is a sport that is capable of changing one’s life. This is evident in the story, ‘The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian’ created by Sherman Alexie. The story is told through the eyes of Arnold Spirit Jr., an Indian attending Reardan, a white high school while living on the Spokane Indian reserve. Both sides do not take such a choice lightly, but this all changes when Arnold makes the Reardan varsity basketball team. With basketball, Arnold is no longer shunned for his choices. Basketball is a sport he can play freely, without the constant fear of consequences. Basketball is important to Arnold because it shows him the power of expectation, allows him to build healthy relationships and shows him the impact of support.
...ding white, male superiority. Back in high school, I dated a non-Asian male from my class who often talked about how Asian women are “hot and sexy” yet “more faithful to men and less aggressive than White women.” At the time, I thought this was a compliment and I often tried to conform to this stereotype in order to satisfy my partner. Images of Asian-American women as both innocent and dangerous have legitimized any racist and sexist policies directed at Asians and women.
America is considered to be a county where white privilege is unearned, where social status is dignified and the whites are highly educated. In a society that favors one group, there are some similarities between the “people of color”, like Asian Americans and African Americans, who share an identity of struggle. Broad physical similarities, such as skin color, are now used efficiently, if also often inaccurately, to identify the difference between racial groups. However, economic, political and social forces in the US work to keep these groups separated from the privileged society.
Many Americans watch sports for the fun of the game; it is a form of relaxation or excitement. Becoming an athlete is something many dream about and some strive for a portion of their lives trying to make it a reality. But is it just as attainable for women as it is men? Being able to make a career out of something a person enjoys is something many dream about. Women do not have the same advantages when it comes to being an athlete or upward mobility in employment. There has been some progress in the equality of men and women but not enough. Hegemonic masculinity still affects women’s chances at succeeding in employment and sports because of perceived gender roles, stereotyping, and discrimination.
... to men and sports, people say boys grow up with appreciation of what girls can do. “ Gender equity, at heart, is about an ideal of sport, the ideal of fairness.” (Currie, Stephen) When it comes to women and sports, it has never been the same amount as when men watch it. Tickets to get into women sports are way cheaper compared to men. Fans even say that women basketball is way more interesting to watch. Even the men that appreciate women sports, they attend the games, they see it as excitement. A national magazine says, “women just lack the strive, or the manic sports - spectator gene.”
Wiggins, David Kenneth, and Patrick B. Miller. 2003. The unlevel playing field: a documentary history of the African American experience in sport. Urbana: University of Illinois Press
To satisfy the competitive urge of their students, physical educators held “Play Days” and “Sport Days” for their female students. In a play day, teams from institutions did not play each other, but were comb...
Hegemonic masculinity surfaced as a critique for sex role theory, stating that masculinity may vary depending on ones socialization. This idea became more evident once women entered the workforce, as men felt emasculated after what was once solely a male-based aspect of daily life, was now open to women. As the world continues to develop so do gender roles. A major aspect of sports is the clearly defined gender order, which governs the behaviours of both men and women as a means of preserving patriarch and heterosexuality. This order is instilled in boys from a young age in the hopes that they follow these strict societal norms expected from them. To help preserve this thinking, institutions continuously attempt to better male athletes by focusing their attention on the male population as oppose to splitting this attention on both male and female
Omi and Winant (1986) stated that Racial categories often consolidate its meaning by the particular social relations and history context(p.19). Bonilla-Silva(2003) purported that the early colonizer from the Europe named the people in the land which they invaded as “negro” and “Indian” to distinguish them from the noble European (p.34) In the early stages of United State, the race introduced as the tool for the slaveholder and other white class to legitimized the practice of slavery and disenfranchised the natural rights of African Americans. Even the other white immigrants were considered as an individual race when they first migrate to the United State. Thus the meaning of race are constantly shifting within the change of social relation and political background. For example, in the article written by M.Lee, the 1900 census has only five race categories comparing to the 1990 census which has more than ten race option, which means the conception of race are continuously shifting(p.4). Beside the social relations, we also discern race through the preemptive notion of what each racial groups looks like. The African American are generally portrayed as the people who have thick lips and black skin. An Asian American usually have small eyes and feeble physique. Those stereotypes about the people 's physical appearance forge the content of race and become the common way which we utilize to confirm one 's race
Messner did a study on a diverse group of retired athletes. Through this study, Messner observed how males identified their boyhood through sports. Four broad areas of the lives of the thirty diverse athletes were addressed. The first item of concern was the athletes' earliest experiences with sports in boyhood. Second were the athletic careers of the athletes. Third, was the conclusion and withdraw from their athletic careers. Fourth was their life after their athletic career had been concluded. Messner also compared the athletes that came from a poor background, to those that had come from a higher status background.
People in our modern society, including myself, see themselves characterising men’s masculinity as a mere creation of their look. Isn’t it true we all want a man who has the cliché image of being tall, built and strong? But what most people overlook is that in the home run these masculine traits disappear and these defining stereotypes only exist for a short period of time.