Race, Islamophobia, and U.S. sporting cultures: The case of South Asian America

2^nd International Conference on Sports Medicine and Fitness

April 18-20, 2016 Dubai, UAE

Stanley Ilango Thangaraj

City College of New York, USA

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Sports Med Doping Stud

Abstract :

As sport has often been problematically legitimated as a site structured only through meritocracy, the lives of the athletes and their experiences of marginalization, exclusion, and violence are glossed over. This talk derives from my book, Desi Hoop Dreams: Pickup Basketball and the Making of Asian American Masculinity, and critically looks at the lives of South Asian American men and their co-ethnic sporting cultures. Through the venue of basketball and American sport, we can decipher the parameters of citizenship and racialized politics of exclusion. While these young men of various religious backgrounds are interpellated as â�?�?Muslim-lookingâ�? and â�?�?terrorists,â�? their lives on the sporting courts demonstrate their challenge to that stereotype. In the process, the young menâ�?�?s sporting pleasures unpack the racial politics of sport while showing the policing of citizenship both in the nation and in diasporic communities. In a moment of the heightened â�?�?global war on terrorâ�? and the rise of Islamophobia, this talk normalizes and illustrates the diversity of Muslim American lives.

Biography :

Email: stan.thangaraj18@gmail.com