IJSEP, 2009,^7,323.341
(Re)examining Whiteness in Sport Psychology
(RE)EXAMINING WHITENESS IN SPORT PSYCHOLOGY THROUGH AUTONARRATIVE EXCAVATION TED M . BUTRYN San Jose State University
.\BSTRACT After an introductory of the recent work in whiteness studies, in this paper, I revisit the issue of whiteness in sport psychology and critique my earlier, overly optimistic, assessment of future confrontations with white racial identity and privilege in the lield. In addition to theoretical and empirical work in critical race studies and whiteness studies and its application to sport contexts, I draw from the recent work within and outside of sport psychology on autoethnography and present several brief outoethnographic vignettes that illustrate moments of tension in my own negotiation of issues related to whiteness and privilege as an early career academic teaching and doing research in sport psychology and sport sociology. Following the work of Smith and Sparkes (2009), I attempt to write in varying styles and voices to engage the reader on multiple levels. I conclude with an attempt to tie these narratives to larger issues of pedagogy and possibilities as they relate to an active, progressive, anti-racist mode of addressing whiteness and sport psychology. Keywords: autoethnography, whiteness, racial identity
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Recent work by sport studies scholars has argued for a move toward a cultural sport psychology (Schinke & Hanrahan, 2009). One aspect of cultural sport psychology is a vic)orous engagement with issues such as identity politics and the importance of racializod identities. In addition, a cultural sport psychology also advocates the use of what Ryba and Schinke (this issue) call "decolonizing methodologies." In this paper, I revisit th(5 issue of whiteness in sport psychology and critique my earlier, overly optimistic, assessment of future confrontations with white racial identity and privilege in the field (Butryn, 2002). In addition to theoretical and empirical work in critical race studies and whiteness studies and its application to sport contexts, I draw from and present several brief reflexive autoethnographic vignettes that illustrate moments of tension in my own negotiation of issues related to whitehess and privilege as an early career academic teaching and doing research in sport psychology and sport sociology within a department of kinesiology. I conclude with an attempt to tie these narratives to larger issues of Ccirresponding author: Ted M. Butryn, Pti.D., Department of Kinesiology, San José State University, One Washington Square, San José, CA 95192-0054. Tel: (408) 924-3068, Emoil:
[email protected]
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T, M, Butryn pedagogy and possibilities as they relate to an active, progressive, anti-rocist mode of addressing whiteness and sport psychology. Over the post decade, the interdisciplinary scholarship on whiteness studies has grown significantly. As opposed to the problematic practice of examining the experiences of minority groups, or the "racial other," from a supposedly "neutral," color-blind perspective, whiteness studies "reverse the traditional focus of research on race relations by concentrating attention on the socially constructed nature of white identity and the impact of whiteness on intergroup relations" (Doane, 2003, p, 3), Whiteness studies, then, acknowledge that what we mean by "white" is contingent on sociohistorical and political contexts and recognize the need to "mark" whiteness as an "organizing principle in social and cultural relations" (Lipsitz, 1998, p, 1), It is important, however, to recognize that whiteness studies did not emerge out of thin air in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Rother, the origins of whiteness studies and writings about white privilege can be traced to numerous African American authors, such as W,E,B, DuBois, Langston Hughes, and Ralph Ellison, who, in 1970, wrote, "Since the beginning of the nation, white Americans have suffered from a deep uncertainty as to who they really are" (Ellison, 1998, p, 165), Part of this uncertainty relates to the transparency, or invisibility, of white racial identity. As bell hooks (1998) wrote. In white supremacist society, white people can "safely" imagine that they are invisible to black people since the power they have historically asserted, and even now collectively assert over black people, accorded them the right to control the black gaze. As fantastic as it may seem, racist white people find it easy to imagine thot black people cannot see them if within their desire they do not want to be seen by the dark Other, (p, 41) An important component of whiteness studies, then, involves the process by which the transparency of white identity, and the privileges associated with whiteness, are foregrounded, made visible and tangible, and thus better able to be critically analyzed (Dyer, 1997), One means of making whiteness visible is to partake in what Mclntosh (1988) colls the unpacking of the "invisible knapsack of white privilege," Mclntosh argues that whites, and white men in particular, carry with them a host of unexomined, unearned privileges across many social spheres simply becouse they are considered "white," Listing these privileges, literally writing them down, is a potentially effective method by which to begin to confront, denounce, and ultimately eliminate these privileges that would otherwise continue to exist. Importantly, the privileges Mclntosh writes about do not simply benefit whites. They necessarily oppress people of color, and thus, we can say that white privileges are both unearned and antithetical to racial equality. Another of the more prominent types of work in whiteness studies has dealt with the ideas of the "crisis of whiteness" and the rise of a backlash of whiteness. According to Graham (1997), among others, the collective worldview of whites, especially white
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men, has been disrupted by the slow reolizotion thot they are not the only players on the world's stoge ond thot the normative status of whiteness in the US has been, and continues to be, challenged. According to Giroux (1997), "The discourse of whiteness signifies the resentment ond confusion of mony whites who feel victimized and bitter, while it masks deep inequalities and exclusionary practices within the current social order." Writing specifically of the growing discourse on whiteness ond privilege in the 1990s, Giroux further states that, "As whiteness came under scrutiny by various social groupssuch as Black and Latina feminists, radical multiculturalists, critical race theorists, ond others-as an oppressive, invisible center ogainst which all else is meosured, mony whites begon to identify with the 'new racism' epitomized by right-wing conservatives..." (p. 2). hooks (1998) noted that other whites took a different approoch and took on o sense of white guilt and an "Ok, we're sorry! We're the oppressors of everybody!" attitude thot was ultimately uncritical and unproductive. Both of these conservotive strotegies, backlash and guilt, ultimately reify whiteness and further solidify the entrenched noture of white privilege and racial inequality. Finally, as has already been alluded to, privileges associoted with white rociol idf.'ntity and lorger systems of white supremacy are always and already woven into the existing power dynamics of other lines of identity, in particular gender, social class, and sexual orientation. Indeed, as significant as my white privileges are within and outside of academia, os on upper middle-class, heterosexuol, white man my privileges are compounded exponentially, and there are few times in my life when, consciously or not, I do not "benefit" from being associated with the perceived normative societol group. LOCATING RACE, ETHNICITY, AND WHITENESS IN
Si'ORT PSYCHOLOGY As Lipsitz notes, "cultural practices and products hove often played crucial roles in pnafiguring, presenting, and preserving politicol coalitions grounded in an identification with the fictions of whiteness" (p. 99). The sociol institution of sport and the mostly conservotive sports media thot hove the power to frome issues of race in a way that normolizos whiteness and condemns "problematic" forms of block expression hove certoinly phyed such o role. More relevant to this paper are the comments of Ryba and Wright (2005) who wrote. Sport psychologists [and all sport ond exercise psychology professionols] must confront the foct thot othletes hove fragmented identities and identifications within various discourses of class, gender, roce, sexuol orientation, region, etc., that athletics is a subculture within a larger subculture, and that the institutions within which athletes are locoted ottempt to control and mold their behovior. (p. 205) Unfortunately, sport psychology hos not done a good job of occounting for culture or social identity in the research (Peters & Williams, 2006; Ram, Storek, & Johnson,
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T. M. Butryn 2004), Although o thorough discussion of the reosons for the lack of reseorch thot centrolizes cultural and identity issues is not possible here, I would suggest thot vorious forms of privilege, including privileges of whiteness, could be, unconsciously, ot ploy. Of course, there have been severol notable encouraging exceptions, including the 1991 and 2001 speciol issues of The Sport Psychologist on "working with speciol populotions" ond feminist sport psychology, respectively. However, as Ram and colleogues (2004) found in their investigation of the inclusion of roce, ethnicity, and sexuol orientotion in three top-tier sport psychology ¡ournols over a 14-year period, "In oil, only 15 popers published in the last decade looked ot roce/ethnicity in o substantial way,,," (p, 262), Peters and Williams (2006) stoted. Given the relevonce of on individual's culturol bockground, the void of cultural research within the sport psychology literoture is olarming and in direct conflict with the ideals of scientific inquiry and the need to explore the generolizibility of reseorch findings ocross different populotions (p, 248), I ogree with Gill's (2007) assessment that integration is needed in order for both kinesiology in higher education, in generol, ond sport psychology, more specificolly, to be sustoinable. More specificolly, I see Gill's notion of "integrotion os inclusion and social justice" as o vitol charocteristic and proctice of o sport psychology thot seeks to confront whiteness. Gill orgues thot "oil have a right to physical octivity os o public health and sociol justice issue, ond it is our professional responsibility in kinesiology to secure that right" (p, 283), She further contends thot with regords to integration os inclusion and sociol justice, sport ond exercise psychology scholors have made no substontiol progress, I concur with Gill on this point ond second her call for researchers to more thoroughly ond rigorously consider issues of externol validity and generalizibility, to continue to brooden our research approoches, ond to use more ethnic comporisons in our reseorch to better understond the psychological meaning of roce ond ethnicity in sport ond exercise. In oddition to Gill's ossertion to "widen the lens to include multicultural issues ond critical analyses" (p, 283,), whiteness studies scholors would odd that it is also important to criticolly exomine the culturol bockgrounds, beliefs, and biases of predominately white researchers, A growing number of scholars hove begun to sketch out whot a more critically informed sport psychology might look like (Fisher, Butryn, & Roper, 2003; Ryba & Wright, 2005), and although there ore differences in theoreticoi opproach, they oil oddress the issue of race and other lines of sociol identity in their work. For sport psychology professionols interested in o move toword o progressive field, it will be important to confront how whiteness relotes to the field, os well os to the lorger culture of sport. As one of the major social institutions in the US and elsewhere, sport has much to do with rociol formotion, racial ideology, ond whiteness. Indeed, within the lost decode the ocademic work on race and processes of rociolizotion ond practices of racism have prompted scholars to address, among other things, the ploce of whiteness in sport (King, Leonard, & Kusz, 2007), Further, os Walton ond Butryn (2005) stote, "the growing body
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of research on sport and whiteness has attempted to better understand the ways that sport resists or maintains institutionalized racism through the mostly uninterrogated norm of whiteness, and the ways that race, class, gender and sexuality are often intimately intertwined" (p. 5). The sport studies scholarship on whiteness and white supremacy in sport has taken the discourse well past the individual renunciation of white privileges and toward the ways that racial inequality and racism are reproduced and experienced in what BonillaSilva (2003) calls the "new racism" (p. 272). Bonilla-Silva argues that although US society has certainly progressed a great deal since the Jim Crow period, when racial segregation was a legal institution, new strategies have emerged that are, collectively, every bit as effective in perpetuating racial inequality and racism. These elements include a more covert discourse on race, an avoidance of racial terminology, claims of reverse racism by whites, and the incorporation of "safe minorities" such as Colin Powell and, within sport, Michael Jordan to show how race is really less important than in the past. Some work, though not directly related to sport psychology, has also begun to qualitatively examine not only the experiences of whites and their own understanding of their racial identities and privileges but the experiences of those who experience marginalization and discrimination that, to some degree, is a result of whiteness and white racism. For example, within the field of kinesiology. Burden, Harrison Jr., and Hodge (2005) examined the perceptions and experiences of nine African American faculty in predominately white kinesiology departments. One of the themes in their results dealt with the presence of double standards in the retention, tenure, and promotion process, the morginalization of faculty of color as scholars, particularly where mentoring, and perceived biases against "black" scholarly work. Although the authors did not draw directly from the work of whiteness studies scholars, they clearly found evidence of "new racism" in kinesiology, at least at the institutions their participants worked in. The marginalization of scholarly work dealing with issues related to people of color is especially troubling given the aforementioned study on the lack of research on minorities in sport and exercise psychology. More recently, two special editions of sport sociology journals devoted to whiteness and sport [Sociology of Sport Journal, 2005, no. 3) and white power and sport [Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 2007, no. 1) were published, both of which included picices that offered pointed critiques of the sport studies work on whiteness and white racism. King (2005), for example, discussed several issues related to the research that he viewed not as progressive but as potentially antithetical to anti-racist sport studies work. He questioned whether whiteness studies work would really alter any lives or account for individuals' racialized daily lives outside the ivory tower and expressed doubts about the ability of the individual unpacking of privileges as a means of enabling any recil redistribution of power on a micro or macro level. Finally, he raises the question of wfiether or not whiteness studies can actually contribute to and reassert the privileges it seiäks to disrupt. Another problem with the sport studies scholarship is that, as Crosset (2007) argues, some of the work allows the theoretical framework to drive the analysis and thus "whiteness research risks reifying whiteness" (p. 175). Crosset also sees a lack of historical 327
T. M. Butryn context as a weakness of whiteness studies research in sport and demonstrates how, at times, scholars have perhaps glossed over arguably important issues in their attempts to focus on race. The challenge of whiteness scholarship, he states, "is to make concrete connections between racial framings and racial inequality" (p. 176). Thus, part of what the narrative vignettes in this paper try to do is demonstrate how whiteness has real consequences in research, teaching, and applied settings. Crosset (2007) also states that, in order to understand racism in sport, American sport in particular, it is "imperative to examine the practices of those involved in the creation and consumption of sport that inform the racial projects that operate in and around sport" (p. 174). Where does sport psychology fall here, and where do the sport managers, coachers, owners, players, and fans fall? My point here is that, by not understanding how whiteness relates to the sport and the sport psychology, the field might be complicit in the perpetuation of white privilege and, perhaps, racism through the collective silence of the field.
PURPOSE AND METHOD As King (2005) notes, "At its worst, whiteness studies encourages a return to whiteness, a realignment of research around the identities, actions, and ideologies of Euro-American subjects and subjectivities" (p. 402). Thus, reflexivity is an important part of this project because it works against the possibility of (unconsciously) re-inserting dominant paradigms and epistemologies into the work. In an attempt to demonstrate reflexivity and to address issues of racial identity, whiteness, and privilege in sport psychology using non-traditional research methodologies, this paper first presents a critical, albeit brief, engagement with the recent work in the area of whiteness studies and sport. Next, I draw from the work in sport psychology and sport sociology on narratives, specifically autoethnography, and alternative representational strategies in a presentation of a series of autoethnographic vignettes, or what Richardson (2000) has called narratives of self, thot reflect my own engogement with whiteness ond whiteness studies ocross time and contexts. Although personal, the vignettes ore meant to be open to interpretation and dialogue and read in ways that engage the reader's own understandings of race and whiteness and the ways that they intersect with other lines of social identity. Indeed, depending on the reader's gender, social class, and sexual orientation, the norratives may evoke different thoughts and emotions. As scholars such as Sparkes (2000) and Denzin (2006) have noted, autoethnographic work is one viable means of working toward new ways of representing research and of representing the author's own voice within the text. In addition, Richardson (2000) reminds us that, "writing in traditional ways does not prevent us from writing in other ways for other audiences at other times" (p. 15). Indeed, much of the autoethnographic work within sport sociology, and to some extent sport psychology, has employed different representational strategies within a single article, with the author shifting between what Sparkes (2002) calls "scientific tales" and more rich, perhaps even poetic, forms of voice (Tsang, 2000). Tsang (2000) describes this shift in the following manner:
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My voice also vories, sometimes intentionally, and other times unintentionally. There are my experiential voices through which different identities announce/foreground themselves and others regress. There is my reflexive/inner voice that critiques my other voices even as they are in the midst of telling. There are also my sense-making stories that get told by my formal, ocademic voice, which is the one I am using right now, (p, 47) In addition to shifts in voice, autoethnographic accounts are also characterized by shifts in writing style, and I made little attempt to conform to APA style. Although Sparkes (2000) wrote that the entrance of such alternative forms of representation into the social sciences, including sport studies, has not been "trouble free" (p, 22) over the past severcil years, mainstream sport psychology journals have published works using different forms of narrative inquiry, including autoethnography (e,g,, Holt& Strean, 2001; Smith & Sparkes, 2008; Sparkes & Portington, 2003; Tonn & Harmison, 2004), This paper builds on this small but growing body of work. In particular, I struggled (perhaps unsuccessfully) to stay true to Ellis & Bochner, who wrote, Autoethnography shows struggle, passion, embodied life, and the collaborative creation of sense-making in situations in which people have to cope with dire circumstances and loss of meaning, Autoethnography wants the reader to core, to feel, to empathize, and to do something, to act. It needs the researcher to be vulnerable and intimate, (p, 433) It is also important to point out that the autoethnographic section of this paper has no road map, so to speak, in terms of telling the reader how to interpret the stories and dialojjue contained in it. Further, although, as previously mentioned, privileges associated with whiteness ore always and already interconnected with those associated with other lines of identity, I consciously focused mostly on times in my life when race, and my own understanding(s) of whiteness, was figurai. Having said that, I did attempt to explicitly tie my experiences as a white individual with those of being a heterosexual, middle-class, male, as well. Throughout the paper, including the brief concluding section, I attempt to tie the narratives to larger issues of research, pedagogy, and politicol possibilities as they relate to an active, progressive, anti-racist mode of addressing whiteness and sport psychology, I highlight several ways in which whiteness and white supremacist ideologies might intersect with sport psychology and then, hopefully, provide useful suggestions for the fi€ild if it is to advocate more than a "cultural competence" understanding of racial and ethnic diversity and move toward an explicitly progressive, anti-racist paradigm. Indeed, this 1960s activist Jack Scott recognized this decades ago, when he argued in his 1971 book. The Athletic Revolution, that sport psychologists are in a prime position from which to work with insensitive, racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic coaches and help them bi,'come more open, tolerant, ond understanding individuals.
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SITUATING THE AUTHOR Given the attempt at experimental autoethnogrophic text in the second port of this paper, it is appropriote to provide some bockground. As a white reseorcher and professor, I hove a great deol of privilege in doing research on multiculturolism in sport psychology and teaching students in my psychology of coaching and sport sociology classes about white privilege and institutionalized forms of inequity within the hierarchies of sport. These privileges have been outlined elsewhere (Butryn, 2002), but a few of them are relevant to the purpose of this paper. My introduction to whiteness studies did not come until I begon work on my Ph.D. in sport psychology and cultural studies and read the often cited paper by Peggy Mclntosh (1988) on white ond mole privilege. Drawing from this paper and the work on whiteness by scholars in critical pedagogy, I conducted a study, not published until o few years later, on critically examining white privilege in the applied domain of sport psychology. The method involved a three-way interview and discussion with a prominent white male sport psychology consultant and professor ond on African Americon mosters student in sport psychology. Throughout the interview, which followed o short semi-structured interview guide, the consultont related and reflected on his racial formotion ond the ways that he came to understand his own white ond male privileges. The dynamics were interesting, os both myself ond the other student were studying under the consultont in the study. To his credit, the consultant answered every question, as well as the few challenges my fellow grad student and I tossed ot him. It was a very rich experience, for me at least, and the three-way interview and discussion format yielded much richer responses thon on interview between myself and the consultant would hove. Further, it was an example of a quolitotive reseorch study on whiteness that was not simply one white student tolking to a white advisor about whiteness. Despite the strong work done by sport studies scholars, most hos been textual analysis, the so-called "critical reading" (McDonold & Birrell, 1999) of texts.
READING WHITENESS IN THE AUTONARRATIVE HALL OF MIRRORS In the following short vignettes, I engage with whiteness, white racial identity (and when appropriate, my gendered, classed, and sexual-oriented identities), ond white racism as if in o holl of mirrors. The stories of post experiences are fractured and sometimes boomerong back into the present. Some stories are truncated, ended abruptly by my own inadequate memories, but mostly by shifting understandings ond levels of consciousness regarding whiteness. The holl is no funhouse, either. Mirrors often distort my image of myself, ond it is not pleasant. Fractured stories, froctured truths, and fractured politics. Running through the hall of mirrors blurs whiteness, makes it difficult to see. I walk, or slouch, insteod ... approoch slowly, and stare. Traditional research hides much. This is meont to hide less and perhaps help reveal more of how whiteness can, perhaps, be more eosily constructed ond ignored thon confronted, discorded, decontaminated, or permonently decommissioned.
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FASTEST WHITE BOY On the first doy of Pee-Wee footboll practice, I was nervous, mostly becouse I wos shy an
