"Cause I'm Young and I'm Black and My Hat's Real Low": Race, Hip-Hop, and Transformations in the NBA During the Late 1990s and Early 2000s

<p>Race and racial tensions have long been pressing concerns in professional athletics in the United States. Issues of race have been of particular importance to the National Basketball Association (NBA) since African Americans compromise 77 percent of the league's players. As such, this work examines the ways in which the media and the NBA responded to and managed the new generation of black players during the late 1990s and early 2000s while marketing to primarily white audiences. This time period is important in that it was unapologetically coined the 'thug era' by sports media and basketball fans alike, and the 'thug' label was used almost exclusively to describe young, black athletes who didn't fit the traditional 'black star athlete' mold. During this period, the NBA took several steps to ensure that players returned to being "model" black athletes. By imposing a dress code, levying fines and suspensions, selectively leaving certain players off of Olympic rosters, and creating NBA Cares, league officials asserted what they felt a "respectable" star black athlete should look like. Further, by positing black athletes as role models and questioning their morals, the media presented black athletes in the NBA as a threat to traditional family values. Thus, this research explores the vilification of the new generation of black NBA stars that were coined 'thugs' in the 1990s and early 2000s.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts in American Studies (MAST)

Level thesis:degree_level

Capstone

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

American Studies

Year dc:date.available

2015

Author dc:creator

• DeBord, Christine

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dr. Rebecca Hill
• Dr. Robbie Lieberman

• race
• nba
• hip hop
• neoliberalism
• 1990s
• basketball
• allen iverson
• latrell sprewell
• crime
• thug
• African American Studies
• American Popular Culture
• American Studies
• Sociology of Culture
• Sports Studies

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/etd/667

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu:etd-1672