Black Men on the Blacktop: Basketball and the Politics of Race
  • 2017/189 pages

Black Men on the Blacktop:

Basketball and the Politics of Race

A. Rafik Mohamed
Hardcover: $75.00
ISBN: 978-1-62637-666-3
Paperback: $26.00
ISBN: 978-1-62637-678-6
Ebook: $26.00
ISBN: 978-1-62637-717-2
What is it about basketball that makes it "the black man’s game"? And what about pickup basketball in particular: can it tell us something about the state of blackness in the United States?

Reflecting on these questions, Rafik Mohamed presents pickup games as a text of the political, social, and economic struggles of African American men. In the process, he tells a story about race in its peculiarly American context, and about how the politics of race—and resistance—are mediated through sports.
A. Rafik Mohamed is professor of sociology and dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at California State University San Bernardino. He is coauthor of Dorm Room Dealers: Drugs and the Privileges of Race and Class.