Controversial book brings Black intellectuals together to discuss whether African Americans are preoccupied with sports

New York -- If African Americans have become overly obsessed with sports, the engagement or lack thereof by Black intellectuals on the subject should not be blamed, contend a group of scholars who attended a symposium held here earlier this month.

The scholars convened to critique a controversial book that argues that sport is damaging Black America by helping to preserve racial myths and stereotyping. The book also contends that African Americans are encouraged to be overinvested in sports.

The scholars took issue with numerous observations made by Dr. John Hoberman, author of Darwin's Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth out Race. Described by the organizer as a "wake-up call" urging Black scholars to begin addressing sport issues, the symposium left little doubt about the willingness of Black intellectuals to answer criticism leveled by Hoberman, an University of Texas scholar whom several symposium participants depicted as an "uninformed" observer of African American life.

As Dr. Donald Spivey, chair of the department of history at the University of Miami, said, "It is not that I find fault with everything that he writes in his book; I find fault with most of it.... Professor Hoberman's thesis is spurious, historically anti-contextual, unsubstantiated by research, and indefensible."

Another symposium participant simply declared at the end of his presentation, "F--John Hoberman."

The book, published in 1997, has stirred controversy among scholars, the sports industry, and the public for alleging that sports are doing more harm than good to the African American community. While a number of Black scholars, such as Dr. Gerald Early of Washington University, have said the book raises important issues, many others have faulted it for its attack on the Black middle class and Black intellectuals.