Black Men on the Blacktop: Basketball and the Politics of Race

What is it about basketball that makes it “the black man’s game”? And what about pickup basketball in particular: can it tell us something about the state of blackness in the United States? Reflecting on these questions, Rafik Mohamed presents pickup games as a text of the political, social, and economic struggles of African American men. In the process, he tells a story about race in its peculiarly American context, and about how the politics of race—and resistance—are mediated through sports.