Left of Black S2:E16

‘Blackness’, Professional Sports and the #Occupy the Academy Movement

w/ Bomani Jones, Professor David J. Leonard and Professor James Braxton Peterson

January 23, 2012

Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype© by David J. Leonard and in-studio by Bomani Jones.  Leonard is an associate professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University at Pullman and the author of the forthcoming After Artest, Race and the Assault on Blackness (SUNY Press).  Jones is a journalist, sports commentator, former host of The Morning Jones and a well-known contributor to ESPN’s Around the Horn and Jim Rome is Burning.  The trio discuss responses and effects of the recent 2011 NBA lockout and how it relates to race.  Leonard and Jones highlight how branding defines basketball’s popularity and the irreplaceable value of the sport’s greatest athletes.  Lastly, the conversation touches on the comparison between how fans value the NFL differently than the NBA. 

Later, Neal is joined via Skype© by James Braxton Peterson, director of Africana Studies and associate professor of English at Lehigh University.  A frequent contributor to MSNBC, Peterson addresses the impact of scholars who reach well beyond the Academy.  Neal and Peterson also discuss the scholarly impact of the  #Occupy Movement as expressed in Peterson’s recent HuffPost Black Voices article, “#Occupy the Academy.” 

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Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

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Episodes of Left of Black are also available for download @ iTunes U