2026/01/01 by Charles D.T. Macaulay, Aquasia Shaw, Ajhanai C.I. Keaton +1
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Critical Race Theory in Education #Rhetoric and Communication Studies #Sports, Gender, and Society
paper · doi:10.1123/ssj.2025-0125
openalex publication_date 2026/01/01 · openalex created_date 2026/05/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
Using Curry’s Man-Not genre , we analyze a promotional video of a college athlete being recruited shared via social media. We argue that the video reflexively captures the modern white supremacist state and cultural apparatus in operation. The video depicts excesses of luxury and desire shilled onto Black male athletes, as they enter an athletic center. Through a multimodal critical discourse analysis, we draw on our knowledge of the historical and contemporary context to situate the video’s content as a scene of political power and control. We argue that the scene is a profound public display of social coercion, overtly reasserting white supremacist dominance. It depicts the intentional separation of Black culture from the people producing it. It is a display of subjugation. It is racial castration.