Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-sdd8f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-12T18:29:08.386Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Black on Black

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2025

Joseph Darda
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
Get access

Summary

In the 1970s, Black and white media raised an alarm over “Black-on-Black crime,” drawing a line between law-abiding Black citizens and criminals who were making their neighborhoods unlivable. The narrative of Black-on-Black crime would become one of the leading alibis of the wars on crime and drugs, and it originated not with the Nixon or Reagan administrations but in boxing. Chapter 3 follows a cast of magazine writers – John Lardner, A. J. Liebling, Norman Mailer, George Plimpton – who taught the nation to root for the right kind of Black fighter against the wrong kind. Their stories showed advocates for the wars on crime and drugs how anti-Blackness could survive civil rights: It had to come wrapped in pro-Blackness.

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
Gift and Grit
Race, Sports, and the Construction of Social Debt
, pp. 85 - 115
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Black on Black
  • Joseph Darda, Michigan State University
  • Book: Gift and Grit
  • Online publication: 26 May 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009584074.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Black on Black
  • Joseph Darda, Michigan State University
  • Book: Gift and Grit
  • Online publication: 26 May 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009584074.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Black on Black
  • Joseph Darda, Michigan State University
  • Book: Gift and Grit
  • Online publication: 26 May 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009584074.004
Available formats
×