On November 19, 2004, a struggle among NBA avid gamers Ron Artest and Ben Wallace escalated right into a melee concerning numerous different gamers and plenty of lovers. The “Palace Brawl,” writes David J. Leonard, was once a seminal occasion, person who dramatically altered outdoor perceptions of the game. With commentators decrying the hip hop or gangsta tradition of avid gamers, the blackness of the NBA used to be either highlighted and disdained. This was once a harsh blow to the league’s narrative of colorblindness lengthy cultivated by means of Commissioner David Stern and powerfully embodied within the cherished determine of Michael Jordan. As Leonard demonstrates, the league considered this second as a probability desiring intervention, quick adopting rules to manipulate black gamers and forestall them from embracing kinds and personas linked to blackness. This attention-grabbing publication discloses connections among the NBA’s discourse and the wider discourse of antiblack racism. specific coverage alterations that appeared aimed toward black avid gamers, akin to the NBA gown code and the controversy over a minimal age requirement, are explored.

David J. Leonard is affiliate Professor of severe tradition, Gender, and Race reports at Washington nation college and the writer of Screens Fade to Black: modern African American Cinema. he's additionally the coeditor (with C. Richard King) of Commodified and Criminalized: New Racism and African americans in modern Sports and of Visual Economies of/in movement: activity and Film.