Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete

“The paradox and dilemma of virulent racism is that our exclusion became the basis for our unity. The next two hundred years of our existence were defined by reacting to racism.”

Rhoden frequently notes the ironies prevalent in sports. On the one hand, African American players before integration could unify on the basis of their shared, enforced separation. On the other, that same style of resistance—commandeered by white corporate America—was a byproduct of the very systems that held black people down.

“Even as more young white athletes become influenced by urban black mannerisms, there is a fundamental, if subtle, tension between their respective approaches to sport. The tension is an extension of age-old, deeply rooted differences in what sports have meant to survival.”

While trying to emulate black style and attitude, white athletes have gotten lost in their own lack of historical understanding. They simply imitate, using self-celebratory gestures and postures, without an understanding of how those styles and attitudes were essential for the psychic survival of African American athletes.

“As a widening international audience weighed the United States’ deeds against its pronouncements, African Americans—burnt, castrated, strung from trees—became a profound symbol of the nation’s contradictions. But even when bloody evidence of racism diminished or was hidden, black athletes revealed its existence.”

As America established itself as an economic, political, military, and cultural superpower, it faced increasing international scrutiny. Rhoden wonders how American governance could justify its international influence while, at home, black people were being treated with unreserved violence.

“This would be the conundrum that black athletes and promoters would face for decades to come: fighting on the one hand for a level playing field, yet playing on America’s obsession with race to sell tickets and promote events.”

On the one hand, black athletes want to show their might and prowess on equal grounds, relying only on their skills, training, and talent. Unfortunately, in order to generate interest and gain a ticket-buying audience, black athletes have been asked to be just that—black athletes, competing against white athletes. Rhoden concludes that this quandary is elemental in sports history, particularly in America.

“Hysteria over [Muhammed Ali’s] emergence and triumphs created the notion of the Great White Hope, which still exists both as a metaphor and a reality.”

Once Ali, and other black athletes, had asserted their dominance, there was, among some white spectators, the wish for a white man to regain white authority, especially in one-on-one combat. As long as Ali was the champion, hope remained that a white man could prevail and that white athletes could prevail in all competition. Given the white power structure in sports—a theme that Rhoden explores in great detail—this shift in power would prove to be contradictory and elusive.

“Segregation helped maintain a social order, but created a fear that, removed from the gaze of whites, African Americans would become free of the spell of white supremacy.”

Rhoden questions the benefits of desegregation. He argues that desegregation, for all its supposed historical benefits, actually hindered African American efforts to create a solidarity that could be achieved only outside of the white, supervisory position.

“Where [Jackie] Robinson’s presence in major-league sports announced that black players were good enough to compete, [Willie] Mays’s generation announced that black athletes could do more than just compete: They could redefine the very game.”

With the introduction of black style, born of a legacy of brutality and resistance to white-controlled sports, Robinson established himself as a competent player. Mays, however, demonstrated that the game, as it was played, needed some style; otherwise, the standard plays would become boring, and viewers would find routine plays to be stagnant.

“Integration in sports—as opposed to integration at the ballot box or in public conveyances—was a winning proposition for the whites who controlled the sports-industrial complex.”

Participating in organized sports and being allowed to vote are two very different things. There is no financial profit in allowing minorities their constitutional rights, and, as such, little risk is involved. Integrating black players in the high-stakes world of professional sports, however, meant that the controlling owners could claim fairness while still exploiting black talent.

“Many black athletes no longer felt as if the place where they grew up was home. As the profitability of the sports industry—starting at the college level—increased, the disconnection imposed by white institutions on black athletes became more deliberate and pronounced.”

In describing this phenomenon of disconnection, Rhoden explores the issue of black athletes fearing the possibility of having to return to their own, potentially impoverished, communities. Rhoden uses the example of former NBA great Dennis Rodman. Disassociated from his past, and making increasingly large sums of money, Rodman proclaimed: “I go through the projects. That’s not me anymore. No longer part of my life” (179).

“The Achilles’ heel of those Africans who became entrenched in the slave trade, since their initial confrontation with the West, was often the failure to plan and predict. Similarly, the failure of black institutions to anticipate and plan came back to haunt them.”

Just as African Americans felt as if they understood the rules and could adapt their interests to maintain their own agency, they suffered from a lack of foresight. While those successful African Americans felt that they were making strides not only for themselves but also for their communities, their planning, or lack thereof, would ultimately topple and effectively curse any future stratagems to maintain power.

“[R.C.] Owens’s approach to coping with racism was simple—and consistent with the prevailing mentality of many African Americans faced with carrying a burden of proof: ‘Perform.’”

Rhoden frequently remarks upon this trope. In order for African American athletes to succeed, competence was not enough; those athletes would be required to out-perform to the point where rules in the NBA and NFL had to be changed.

“The sports industry is not just a signature aspect of the American way of life, but has also become a major component of the American economy. What distinguishes sports from other industries is the nature of its raw material: For the past fifty years, the prime raw resource in the sports industry has been black muscle.”

Sports are a crucial aspect of American society, Rhoden argues. With billions of dollars at stake and athletes used as short-term investments, black athletes in particular must consolidate their financial success to change the power structure in favor of fairer practices in which brains and solidarity replace simple physical power.

“The conveyor process makes a future star feel he is above the fray from an early age […] The end result is often as evident on the crime blotter as they are in the sports section.”

There have been many examples of black athletes being expelled, disciplined, even imprisoned, as a result of the fact that they have been exploited by a system. In fact, Rhoden contends, the system asks nothing from athletes other than to perform, with no other accountability for their actions. As such, some athletes figure that they are beyond reproach and will never be prosecuted even upon having committed a crime.

“‘As black men we can’t say what’s on our mind. You can never do that. I think you learn that on the Conveyor Belt, you learn you got to shut up, you learn you got to be politically correct.’”

Chris Webber, the highly recruited basketball player quoted here, finally came to terms with his arrangement. In effect: Play, perform, be grateful for your salary, and don’t speak out about injustices. Because white players don’t feel the need to constantly express gratitude, Webber implies, they are freer to speak their minds without fear of repercussions.

“The fact that so many of the athlete’s closest advisors are not African American means that they’re never around black models of leadership, a situation that undermines their own ability to become leaders, rather than pampered, passive followers.”

Once young African American athletes engage in an economic exchange—performance for a white audience, in exchange for some economic freedom—they separate themselves from the very communities that supported them. This is a common theme in Rhoden’s work—the divorce between young black athletes and their initial influencers. As such, these athletes are being paid not to engage but, instead, to follow the money, most or all of which comes from white ownership.

“To really honor the struggles of the past, however, the ultimate goal must be to create a new and better model, not to replace an old form of oppression with a new one.”

There are always opportunities for exploitation; Rhoden criticizes those African Americans who might seek to reverse the balance of power by taking advantage of young black athletic talent. Instead, a completely new system must be created.

“The point is that [Michael Jordan] was always on the plantation, he just didn’t know it or acknowledge it because he was flying too high to notice.”

Using the plantation as an ongoing metaphor, Rhoden concludes that Jordan, one of the most visible African American athletes, chose a commitment to personal, financial empowerment. In doing so, Jordan refused to acknowledge the fact that he was in fact contributing to a nearly irreversible trend of exploitation.

“Today the dilemma for black woman athletes is played out graphically in a bourgeoning women’s sports movement that has seen white women gain and black women languish.”

While white female athletes have, over time, made some gains and inroads into a more inclusive and welcoming sports environment, women of color have yet to reap the benefits of their own athletic prowess due to both racism and sexism. This is evident in the case of Lucia Harris. Rhoden does, however, by the end of the book, cite other black female athletes as counterexamples to this trend.

“African American male athletes benefited from the Civil Rights movement in sport, whose focus on integration and other boundary-breaking rights were extended to or symbolized by achievement and opportunity in mainstream, male-dominated sports. Black women have largely had to go it alone.”

Even though one might conclude that African Americans, in particular athletes, have been able to find success and a level of comfort in American society, African American women—in this instance, athletes—have faced a doubled scrutiny that has left them suffering from a lack of empowerment and a scarcity of unity, making it nearly impossible to maintain their dignity as black women and difficult to propel their own athletic careers.

“Many white players never thought of themselves as being on a plantation or as being only so much chattel. But the legacy of black people in sports had sensitized [Curt] Flood; that history had tuned him into a different frequency than white players had access to. He used the insight born of that legacy to help all players, black and white, fight a corrupt system.”

Curt Flood essentially sacrificed his career so that other Major League Baseball players, regardless of color, could refuse to be traded. Since Flood already understood the power system that treated athletes as property, he could challenge the Reserve Clause, paving the way for the free agency enjoyed by today’s sports figures.

“Fans and the sports press often deride athletes for not ‘getting involved,’ but at the same time they show extreme wariness when an athlete seems too willing to stay intimate with old friends and neighborhoods in a way that goes beyond league-sanctioned, drive-by volunteerism.”

For Rhoden, this is an on-going and ridiculous irony. Fans, and ownership, mostly white, expect highly paid African American athletes to make some contributions, financial or otherwise, to their old, frequently impoverished neighborhoods. However, these same fans and owners fear that the black athlete might get too involved with the people from their own communities. As such, sports ownership asks for tidy, neat, viewer-friendly interactions when it comes to publicizing these kinds of events.

“‘For a black man here in America, there is a struggle and you’re either in it, or you’re not.’”

Larry Johnson, former NBA great, was castigated for speaking his mind. He suggested, in his own words, that, while he had made a lot of money, the neighborhood where he grew up had gotten no better. Johnson asks for larger communal participation in the struggle to empower poor black families in underserved communities.

“Given a shot at reclaiming the black image from this history of distortion and insult, Bob Johnson only proved that a black man could put on a minstrel show as well as anybody.”

Bob Johnson, who owned an NFL team, used his leverage as a black man to sell advertising space on Black Entertainment Television (BET). Johnson, as a businessman first, was guilty, Rhoden argues, of selling out his identity as a black man by broadcasting a low-rate, hackneyed form of entertainment that reinforced stereotypes not only for white viewers, but for black viewers as well.