May 19, 2021
"A
good, hard working kid." "A 4.0 student." "He's asking for too much
money." "They get paid to play a child’s game." "He shows up and
does his work and never complains."
Despite the fact that the concept of paying college
athletes has gained some mainstream support in recent years, much
of the ideological scaffolding that exists to justify their lack of
fair compensation is still very popular and widespread in sports
punditry and writing, AM radio and play-by-play
broadcasts.
Scrutinizing GPAs and work ethic, talking about how
"kids" are "becoming men," racialized claims of lazy or ungrateful
players, and wildly different double standards for players and
owners for when they attempt to maximize their economic interests
all prop up a system that, despite liberal hand-wringing and box
checking concern for not paying players at the highest levels,
still relies on withholding compensation from college athletes for
their labor.
The
stakes go beyond just sports. This conservative cultural contempt for athletes as a
whole mirrors and informs that of other workers as well. Whenever,
say, nurses organize for better pay and safer working conditions
or, in the era of COVID, teachers unions seek to continue virtual
rather than in-person classes for the sake of public health,
they’re dismissed as self-interested and domineering.
On
this episode, we parse the racist, anti-labor characterization of
athletes in media, how they are both scary threatening men and tiny
children whose should be paid and breakdown how this topic has
cultural implications to other labor struggles, by informing and
reinforcing anti-union tropes across the board Our guest is Penn
State professor Amira Rose Davis, co-host of
Burn It All
Down.