Indentured servants. Slaves. Call them what you want. The fact is that despite the millions they earn or the lucrative full-ride scholarships they may receive in college, these athletes nevertheless remain powerless in a nation where power is valued above all else. In this book there has been an attempt to strip away the myth of "freedom" that far too many black people have bought into. Although ante-bellum enslavement may be over, a new and more insidious form that is both de jure and de facto remains in full bloom to control the lives of black people all over America. And the result is the spate of "house negroes" who are clearly in the overwhelming majority in America and in many parts of the world. The issue of the "control freak" attitude that serves as the basis of on-going control through discrimination is addressed and it is seen most clearly in sports at all levels. This book concentrates on the collegiate level and the professional ranks, where black athletes dress up like clowns and follow the orders of the suit-wearing coach and perform their "acts" on plantations that cost hundreds of millions of dollars and carry the names of corporations that in most cases won't even hire black people. College sport is the seasoning process that prepares the athlete for his more intensified "house negro" role at the professional level. Using the façade of attending class, homework and discipline, society actually thinks that scholarships mean something. What a scholarship is represents a way to get huge numbers of future house negroes onto campuses and keep them there in exchange for their labor. The book explores the concept of blacks having a "higher pain threshold" that whites and this is used to maintain the house negro's status of enslavement. From there the book provides examples of how effective the seasoning process has been by delving into professional baseball, professional basketball and professional football. Case studies are provided to show how servile, immature and childish many professional athletes are and the role that "conspicuous consumption" plays in keeping them locked down as the "play the game." Other sports such as boxing and track are analyzed, and he book concludes with a section titled, "What Slavery Hath Wrought."
About the Author: Matthew C. Stelly is a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee working on a degree in Urban Education and Community Policy. He holds three Master's degrees: Urban Studies (1982), Urban Education (1983) and Political Science (2000). He is the former editor of the Milwaukee Courier newspaper, former director of the Great Plains Black Museum and the Plano (TX) African American Museum, and lead archivist for The Black Academy of Arts and Letters (TBAAL) in Dallas, Texas. Stelly has more than 2,500 articles in print and has won two national essay competitions. He is the founding director of the largest African-American neighborhood group in Nebraska, the Triple One Neighborhood Association and Parents Union. He is the father of five children - Mandla, Malik, Clariece, Charisse and Shannon -- and remains actively involved in community organizing and neighborhood development in several cities, including Milwaukee and Omaha.