Cyber Racism Toward Black Athletes: A Critical Race Analysis of TexAgs.com Online Brand Community

Abstract

While athletes in the 21st century have strategically leveraged technology and social media to disseminate their powerful truths (e.g., narratives) and to use as tools for organization, empowerment, and the disruption of hegemonic norms, sports fans have also found refuge on the internet and in cyberspace—namely, within online brand communities (OBCs). In this study, we draw from critical race theory (CRT) to interrogate cyber racism against Black male athletes in the http://TexAgs.com OBC. The primary purpose of this study was to conduct an exploratory collective case study of fan-generated discourse about Michael Bennett, Mike Evans, Myles Garrett, and Von Miller. Content analysis was used to examine and uncover the racially charged language directed toward these athletes. Three salient, interrelated themes were (1) good Aggie versus bad Aggie dichotomy, (2) dumb/misguided, and (3) thug. In line with the counter-narrative/storytelling tenet of CRT, we present Michael Bennett’s (2018) personal narrative from his book to directly counter the racialized discourse about his peers and him on TexAgs. Based on the findings, we conclude with implications for sport communication and social justice in both the public sphere and cyberspaces.

Who Says Shut Up and Dribble? Race and the Response to Athletes’ Political Activism

“…The results here suggest that a fair critic must acknowledge that political activism could come at a cost to athletes of product endorsements (McDonald, 1996), public approval (Lacina, 2020;Sanderson et al, 2016;Schmidt et al, 2019), and even their place on the team (Niven, 2020). Even still, it is no Adjusted r 2 = .380 small thing to ask an athlete to accept the consequences of political activism that could include exacerbating already existing levels of race-based vitriol (see, for example, Oshiro et al, 2020). Why, of all issues one could highlight, did Donald Trump castigate NFL players for kneeling during the anthem in a September 2017 appearance in Alabama?…”

‘Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!’: Sport as a site for political activism and social change

“…10). Ongoing research that the second and third authors have conducted on cyber-racism against Black athletes who engage in activism provides additional insight into this macro-level issue (Oshiro et al, in press).…”

Understanding Sporting Social Media Brand Communities, Place and Social Capital: A Netnography of Football Fans

“…On a more cautionary note, Coles and West (2016) point towards online trolling on such SMBCs and suggest that they offer a platform for ‘fruitless argumentation’ and other nefarious communications activities. Whilst SMBC pages will present positive exchanges, equally, digital placemaking initiatives will also provide unsavoury moments and can be the sites of abuse towards players (Cleland et al, 2019; Oshiro et al, 2020). Finally, it is noteworthy how football clubs advocate for their associations with community roots, which underlines the need to understand more about the nature of the communities themselves and the significance of digital placemaking, which we will now discuss.…”