Saving/Staging Whiteness: Racial Reconciliation in 42 and FIFA 2017/2018

The sporting fields are often imagined as level playing surfaces that empower those who work hard and those who deliver in the name of victories. That is, sports are the ultimate meritocracy. As a meritocracy, sports are also widely praised as a space that brings otherwise divided communities together, breaking down barriers and borders of race, gender, class, sexuality, and nation. Within this context, this paper enters into the racial sporting pedagogies of both Hollywood films and sports video games, offering a critical discussion of 42 and FIFA 2017/2018, reflecting on their views of sports as a vehicle of racial harmony. Focusing on the ways that each imagine sports as unifier, as a source of racial reconciliation and upward mobility, this paper looks at how sports films and video games both deploy and erase racism in its effort to sell sports as a postracial playground.