You Mad, Bro? A Conversation About Race In Sports
Amateur and professional sports bring out the fan, and sometimes the fanatic, in people worldwide. Athletes are modern-day gladiators. So it shouldn’t surprise us when Bellevue College professor Eric Davis says that “sports is essentially a reflection of the best of who we are and the worst of who we are.”
At its best, sports raises us up and breaks down barriers, at its worst it can trigger violence and treat athletes as commodities to be used up and discarded.
In this episode of Speakers Forum, we look at how we go about educating, training and employing athletes in the U.S., and at how race factors into the equation. Sports Illustrated recently estimated that 80 percent of retired NFL players go broke within three years of retiring. Does the world of sports exploit or empower minority athletes?
Humanities Washington presented this "Think & Drink" event on April 20, 2015, at The Royal Room in Columbia City.
Journalist Tonya Mosley moderated this discussion with Bellevue College sociology professor Eric Davis and former University of Washington basketball star Donald Watts. Thanks to Anna Tatistcheff for our recording.
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John O'Brien
Producer
John O’Brien is a KUOW newsroom producer. He works with the Morning Edition and All Things Considered teams to schedule, record, and edit interviews and stories on a variety of topics, from politics and public health to arts and culture. He learned to make radio in 2006 as an intern on KUOW’s The Conversation and is a former host of KUOW's Speakers Forum.
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