In the first set of readings race is defined as emerging from the capitalist and colonist experiences of Europeans who sought to justify their dominance and control foreign resources, land and people. The concept of race defined individuals according to physical characteristics and implied a certain disposition and character that would be unchangeable for the individual and their descendants.<\/p>\n
The \u201cscience\u201d behind race though proved to be shaky and ever changing based on individual circumstances and a non-uniform number of classifications across the world. Some societies, such as the US used the \u201cone drop rule\u201d which classified a person with any African ancestry as black, while the South African government under Apartheid would classify mixed race individuals as colored. Some racial theorists would also break down groups even further and consider the white race to actually be a collection of races.<\/p>\n
This disparity in definitions and classifications along with a lack of biological evidence in favor of a biological differential between the popular concepts of race led modern scientists to discard the classification in the physical sciences but the concept lives on in the social sciences. The beliefs people still hold about race and its implications continue to affect modern societies despite its lack of scientific grounding.<\/p>\n
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The first set of readings also discussed how race affected soccer. The reading discusses how soccer came to Latin America and Africa through colonization where local games were deemed pagan and locals were taught to embrace European customs like soccer. Over time these populations fully embraced the sport and many even made it their national sport.<\/p>\n
After this happened though by embracing and mastering the sport of the Europeans skilled players undermined the institutions of white supremacy by outcompeting and defeating white players. Racial thinking then evolved from a strict white supremacy to a belief that certain races are predisposed towards certain sports or positions on teams, leading to stacking where individuals of certain races are steered to certain sports thus leading to racial disparities in sports.<\/p>\n
The final concept that the first set of readings dealt with is nationalism. The concept of a nation is addressed and can be defined as a group of people with a shared identity and history who can be attached to a certain territory. The readings discuss the various problems of nationalism and the various conflicts that can arise when nationalist aspirations are used to justify conflict and conquest. Groups without power also use nationalism to demand their own governments and representation.<\/p>\n
In terms of soccer nationalism is expressed by fans who come together and support their national team and their players as an extension of their nation.<\/p>\n
The second reading dealt with the international soccer and the intersection of national teams, club teams, international governance, fans and how they all relate to social justice.<\/p>\n
The article discusses the rise of club teams who can get the best players from all around the world through high salaries and then market their brand to the world, rather that just their home country, to the determent of local teams.<\/p>\n
The club teams have a different model then the national teams and focus more on money and individual skill than national pride. A small number of clubs, due to monetary advantages, dominate all competitions and take skilled players away from other countries.<\/p>\n
Fans still want club players to play for national teams but clubs do not want to put their assets at risk. Lastly because of corruption in national soccer many of these teams also have social justice programs where they use soccer to help the less fortunate and improve their image and brand.<\/p>\n
In the first set of readings race is defined as emerging from the capitalist and colonist experiences of Europeans who sought to justify their dominance and control foreign resources, land and people. The concept of race defined individuals according to physical characteristics and implied a certain disposition and character that would be unchangeable for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":708,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[44,43,46],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/708"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":450,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions\/450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/sportshistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}