Tenth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

This paper examines the intersection of sports and politics and does so while employing Social Conflict theory, Critical Race theory and Erving Goffman’s ideas on stigma, deviance and master status. The central focus of this paper considers sports-based sporting activism in the 21st century and looks to Lebron James and Colin Kaepernick as two of its leading voices. Additionally, this paper looks to social media as an ally of this social activism, but also as platform hosting dissenting voices wherein social media agitators, or the colloquially regarded “troll”, actively seeks to disrupt legitimate social activism and in doing so employs consciously inflammatory language, racism, race-baiting and mischaracterizations of history in seeking to stall, rupture or delegitimize what this paper refers to as New Sporting Celebrity Social Activism. Lastly, this paper positions New Sporting Celebrity Social Activism as a key and influential voice amidst the culture wars wherein discordant views on race, gender and sexuality are increasingly debated. For example, the voices of James and Kaepernick are contested via oppositional and reactionary political commentators, including US President Donald Trump, as they take to traditional conservative media and social media to forward and entrench the retrograde belief that sports and politics are to be inherently sealed off from each other.