Labor sports Oct 14

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Task1Fall2024LaborSports.docx

LABOR/ANTH 120L

Fall 2024

Task #1

Answer all of the following questions. Do not draw from sources outside the class. The exam should be submitted by 5pm (Tuesday, Oct. 15) via Blackboard. Note that the questions are not all worth the same – nor require the same length answer. Do not use the assistance of AI to answer the questions. And remember – there is no class on Tuesday….just finished the exam!

Question 1 (40 points - 3-4 paragraphs): Discuss the “rise and fall” of Jack Johnson as a historical figure whose life was shaped by and challenged a variety of social forces. First, discuss the broader political context of the US in the first decades of the twentieth century. What was the racial climate in which Johnson grew up? What sorts of obstacles did he face as a black man growing up in the United States? Second, situate his boxing career within this broader political context. What obstacles did he face as a boxer? Why was US society threatened by his very presence? How did his success challenge understandings of race and white supremacy at the time? How and why did they ultimately bring Jack Johnson “down”? Finally, briefly compare his life to the “rise and fall” of Paul Robeson – who came of age a couple decades later and was openly political.

Question 2 (30 points – 2-3 paragraphs) In “Heterosexuality as a Factor in the Long History of Women’s Sports,” Mary Anne Case explores women’s participation in sports from the Ancient World to the present. By going back so far in time, what is Case arguing about women and sports – about how we understand women’s participation in sports? Why is this early history important to her argument? What does she mean by a “heterosexual payoff” and how does it fit into her argument about how society understands women’s participation in sports?

Question 3 (30 points – 2-3 paragraph) Who was Curt Flood and why did he sue Major League baseball? To what extent, and in what ways, was his struggle against baseball linked to the broader civil rights struggle? In what ways was it not? Why did he not get much open/public support from other professional baseball players?