The Power, Protest, and Politics of Sports
Sports have become a powerful platform for athletes and fans to express their identity, politics and culture
Welcome to my weekly collection of links from literary and cultural magazines. Each week, I’ll cover a different topic and provide interesting perspectives on it through essays and reviews. I invite you to explore these articles, gain new insights and learn something new. Be sure to check back each week for a new set of articles to read and discuss!
Ball Don’t Lie (NYRB, 2020)
Robert Scoop Jackson’s ‘The Game Is Not a Game: The Power, Protest, and Politics of American Sports’
Kaepernick Was Right (LRB, 2022)
Colin Kaepernick's 2022 Netflix series, Colin in Black and White, highlights the former NFL quarterback's struggle against the racial hierarchy of American football while raising the question of why he loves the sport so much, even though it is gladiatorial and intensely violent.
Lancelot v. Galahad (LRB, 2022)
The Last Dance, a documentary about the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls, evoked nostalgia for the '90s and highlighted the generational shift in the way basketball is played. These days, the analytics crowd tend to focus on statistical abstractions to measure success, while Knicks fans can relate to the difficulty of competing with an unbeatable opponent.
Better on TV (LRB, 2020)
From its humble beginnings as a game played against a wall at Eton College to its modern form popularized by Walter Wingfield, tennis has come a long way. Although the game has been exclusionary at times, it has been kept alive by enthusiasts, celebrities, and even the British Empire.
The players and the Games (TLS, 2021)
Tales of a legendary Japanese volleyball team
THE WITCHES OF THE ORIENT (streaming)
