Negotiating white normativity in sport

Abstract

Student-athletes of color navigate white normativity daily, yet it is a form of racism rarely examined in sport psychology. Examining people of color’s daily experience can be instructive to understanding how whiteness gets normalized and challenged in various contexts. Moreover, as white normativity is ubiquitous, research methodologies themselves must explicitly acknowledge and challenge white normativity. This study examined (a) manifestations of white normativity in the daily lives of student-athletes of color, (b) student-athletes of color’s processes of negotiating and navigating whiteness, and (c) methodological designs for creating safe spaces for student-athletes of color to make meaning of race. Seven women student-athletes of color engaged in group and individual interviews during which the interviewer foregrounded race and racism and facilitated participants’ meaning-making. Specifically, building from humanizing research and heeding the call for empirical spaces to be culturally-responsive, participant storytelling was encouraged and stories were reexamined through critical lenses. Through our findings, we illustrate how women student-athletes of color are not merely passive recipients of dominant (white) culture but, in different ways, active agents negotiating their status as athletes, women, and people of color within white normative contexts. Conscious of their deviance from the white norm, participants engaged in continuous negotiation processes of normalizing, nuancing, and resisting whiteness.

 Lay summary: Racism is often thought of as racist people harming people of color with malintent. In this paper, we show how racism is upheld and maintained even without individual racists through the normalization of whiteness. We also examined the everyday experiences of women student-athletes of color navigating, negotiating, and resisting white normativity.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

1. Racism is not limited to overt actions perpetrated by individuals with intent to harm but, rather, through the normalization of whiteness. Thus, we must all critically examine the racial implications of our everyday assumptions

2. Studying race must be done thoughtfully and explicitly as racial consciousness is subverted due to white normativity in academia, research, and society

3. There are diverse positions women student-athletes of color can take as they navigate daily racism and white normativity. Sport and exercise psychology (SEP) professionals should hold space for student-athletes of color to consider their perspectives as there is no single right way to dismantle racism. SEP professionals must also actively seek for strategies to agitate and disrupt white normativity