Black Girls Swim

Ongoing debates about how digital technologies impact children’s health and well-being often frame sports as the opposite  or even antidote to sedentary screen time. For centuries, children’s sports have served as a symbol of a “good” childhood -- one that privileges some children while historically excluding many others, especially girls, Black children, and children of colour. In this episode, Dr. Sara Grimes (Director of the KMDI) chats with Dr. Samantha White, Assistant Professor of Sport Studies at Manhattanville College (New York), about her work on children’s sporting cultures at the intersection of race and gender, and how mapping the history and politics of children and sports is crucial for understanding contemporary ideas about childhood. The discussion focuses on two of Dr. White’s recent articles, “Ebony Jr! and the Black Athlete: Meritocracy, Sport, and African-American Children’s Media” (Journal of Sport History, 2020), and “Black Girls Swim: Race, Gender, and Embodied Aquatic Histories” (Girlhood Studies, 2021).

Type of research discussed in today’s episode: sports studies; historical research; archival research; textual/media analysis; communication studies; Black studies; gender studies; children’s studies.

Keywords for today’s episode: Black girl athletes; child athletes; children’s sporting culture; media representation; meritocracy; spectacular sports; embodied respectability.

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