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Praise for Dave Zirin
"With Zirin no topic is sacred, no argument is ever evaded, no search for real truth is ever suppressed."
- Kevin Powell | Author of Someday We'll All Be Free

"Dave Zirin shows us not only that sports can be a window through which we can examine the complex workings of race and class in this twisted, commercialized culture, but that it can also be a site of resistance."
- Peter Rachleff | Author of Hard-Pressed in the Heartland

"Dave Zirin is the thinking man's sports fan and the sports fan's thinking man."
- Mickey Z. | Author of The Seven Deadly Spins

Praise for the Film
"Race, Power & American Sports is powerful and the perfect media tool for any class that focuses on critical race theory in American sport. This documentary film, providing narration from Dave Zirin, focuses on important historical events and balances that with a poignant view of the cultural politics of Linsanity. The film touches on race, ethnicity, culture, stereotyping, discrimination, segregation, and political resistance." - Gary Sailes | Associate Professor of Kinesiology at Indiana University - Bloomington

"Race, Power & American Sports is insightful, incisive, and brave. It's a must-see. Dave Zirin is brilliant in tracing the complex intersection of race and sports in this country over the course of more than a century."
- N. Jeremi Duru | Professor of Law at American University

"Full of excellent and instructive historical footage, Dave Zirin provides a detailed overview of the history and current state of race, sport and power in American society that will be useful for teachers and students, coaches, athletes and the wider public seeking to understand the place of sport in our society and culture."
- John Nauright, Ph.D. | Professor of Sport and Recreation Studies and Professor of History | Co-Director of The Center for the Study of Sport and Leisure in Society | George Mason University

"Candid, provocative, and important. In Race, Power, and American Sports, cultural historian Dave Zirin and communication scholar Sut Jhally offer viewers an expansive and nuanced tour of the intersections between race, politics, and sport in America from the 19th century through the present. Regardless of how you arrive at the topic, whether you are a sport fan, a student of sport, and/or someone who is committed to understanding race in America, this is a DVD well worth watching and talking about."
- Ellen J. Staurowsky, Ed.D. | Professor of Sport Management at Drexel University

"Race, Power, and American Sports is an important film, unlike any other currently available. It provides an urgently needed counter-point to prevailing understandings of sport and society, offering viewers powerful tools to challenge media coverage, commercial images, and staged spectacles. Indeed, in a moment in which sport has become a common language to talk about human possibilities, social arrangements, and American uniqueness, Race, Power, and American Sports introduces a novel vocabulary to describe and deconstruct its social significance. Dave Zirin, in dialogue with Sut Jhally, interrogate the deeply entangled histories of racism and sport in the United States, offer a critical reassessment of renowned athletes -- from Jack Johnson and Jesse Owens to Jackie Robinson and Muhammed Ali -- that emphasizes the not only the complex social contexts in which they played, but the ways in which political, economic, and social factors have shaped how we remember them. Pushing back against the depoliticized narratives common to the sport-media-industrial complex Zirin highlights the linkages of play and power, athletics and ideology, and sport and struggle. While hopeful and engaged, this film is neither naive nor hagiography. It has a deep appreciation for sport but not at the expense of its disturbing force. Race, Power, and American Sports should be watched by anyone concerned with racial politics, social structure, or U.S. history, even those who think they do not have an interest in or affinity for sport. An excellent opening or addition to broader conversations about race and racism, cultural politics, and collective memory no less than in depth meditations on sport in American life. Highly recommended as a resource to develop critical literacy that embodies the best elements of MEF critical engagements."
- Dr. Richard King | Professor of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University

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