The institutionalization of racism against black people and racial slurs in professional sports: The international context

Abstract

Racism is a sociocultural phenomenon with remarkable expression in sports. This study analyzes scientific works on racism in professional sports published between 2008 and 2018. Searches were performed on two databases: Portal da CAPES and journals indexed on the Sucupira Platform’ evaluation area of ‘Physical Education.’ Sixty-five articles were selected and divided into the categories ‘racial slur’ and ‘institutional racism.’ Several cases of racial slurs are analyzed and illustrate how racism has hampered black athletes’ careers in several sports. At institutional level, campaigns against racism are analyzed, as well as racist forms of discrimination present in sports such as football, basketball, baseball and American football. We highlight the variety of approaches, the relevance of the studies and the importance of the topic for addressing racism in the studied sports fields.