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Un-Covering Stories You Never Heard Of: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s On the Shoulders of Giants and The History of (African-)American Basketball

Désinvisibiliser le Passé : Kareem Abdul-Jabbar et le documentaire pour réécrire l’histoire du basket-ball (afro-)américain
Desinvisibilizar el pasado: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar y el documental para reescribir la historia del baloncesto (afro)americano
Yann Descamps

Résumés

Dans une perspective d’histoire culturelle et d’études communicationnelles, cet article propose d’étudier le film documentaire On the Shoulders of Giants : The Story of the Greatest Basketball Team You Never Heard Of, écrit et produit par Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, ancien joueur de la National Basketball Association et auteur de nombreux ouvrages à dimension politique. Cette œuvre, réalisée par Deborah Morales, permet de percevoir l’effort de réécriture de l’histoire du basket-ball américain entrepris par certains athlètes afro-américains, une réécriture qui passe notamment par le film documentaire. Après un retour sur la vie et l’œuvre politisées d’Abdul-Jabbar en lien avec à l’histoire américaine des XXe et XXIe siècles, ce travail propose de déconstruire la démarche de mythification de l’équipe des New York Renaissance adoptée par le documentaire. En effet, le film transforme cette équipe alors largement mise au ban de l’histoire officielle du basket-ball américain en véritable mythe politique, tissant un fil rouge entre la Harlem Renaissance et l’Amérique d’Obama. Enfin, il s’agit d’interroger la démarche transmédiatique d’auto-représentation entreprise par certains athlètes afro-américains dans une perspective d’affirmation identitaire et politique, et pour laquelle le film documentaire incarne une étape signifiante. En somme, il s’agit d’explorer le film documentaire comme outil politique au service d’une « auto-représentation totale » de la communauté afro-américaine et de son histoire, et de montrer le rôle-clé joué par les athlètes dans ce processus aux racines profondes.

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Texte intégral

"America’s Informal CNN"

  • 1 Public Enemy is a hip-hop group formed by Chuck D and Flavor Flav in 1985 in Long Island, New York. (...)

1When discussing his art in his autobiography, Public Enemy1 leader Chuck D wrote:

When PE first came out, we used to say, "Public Enemy, we're agents for the preservation of the Black mind. We're media hijackers". We worked to hijack the media and put it in our own form. [...] Initially Rap was America's informal CNN because when Rap records came out somebody from far away could listen to a Rap record because it uses so many descriptive words and get a visual picture from what was being said (D. Chuck and Y. Jah, 1997: 256).

2The idea of counter-balancing the discourses produced by mainstream media has been decisive in African-American history. From literature to cinema and television, the African-American community has a long history of being framed by mainstream discourses. This is why the hip-hop group Public Enemy considered themselves "media hijackers" and compared their art form to "America’s informal CNN". In African-American history, popular culture has taken on this role, from Motown singers (Gaye M., 1971) and hip-hop figures (Public Enemy, 1988) to Spike Lee movies (Lee S., 1989) and outspoken professional athletes (Ali M. and R. Durham, 1975). Some entertainers like Chuck D have made a conscious effort to "tell it like it is" to move beyond the clichés conveyed by others. Fourteen years after writing these words, Chuck D took part in another artistic project which shared a common goal—de-invisibilizing African-American history. This time, this project was headed by another politically-conscious cultural icon—former basketball superstar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

3Just like entertainers, from the Harlem Globetrotters’ games-turned-comedy to LeBron James being asked to "shut up and dribble" (Sullivan E., 2018), African-American athletes have a long history of being covered by the mainstream media as apolitical, thoughtless bodies only meant to perform for the pleasure of white audiences (Baker A. and T. Boyd, 1997). Even though the 20th century saw the end of segregation and the Jim Crow laws as a result of the Civil Rights Movement, and, prior to that, the integration of the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1950 and the rise of African-American iconic star athletes, some latently racist stereotypes have endured, along with the simplification of sports history, with the integration of African-American athletes being the near-magical result of a moral awakening on the part of league commissioners and franchise owners, and the celebration of counter-examples. In American basketball history or mythology, prior to the integration of the NBA, one African-American team, the Harlem Globetrotters, prevailed, and showed that a "Black" team could be loved by "white" audiences in 1920s America, a country which was deeply split over issues of race (Christgau J., 2004).

4As John Fiske noted, with media discourses, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar saw basketball history as another "site of struggle" (Fiske J., 1999: 4). After writing a book on the story of the New York Renaissance team of the 1920s (Abdul-Jabbar K. and R. Obtsfeld, 2007), and turning it into an audiobook (Abdul-Jabbar K., 2008), he decided to enter a different field—cinema. Opening the documentary film he made with director Deborah Morales and co-writer Anna Waterhouse using the very media narratives he wanted to hijack, Abdul-Jabbar tells the story of this semiologically signifying African-American basketball team in the complex historical context of 1920s America (Morales D., 2011). By doing so, he participated in a deeply-political effort to allow the silenced voices to finally express themselves (Trouillot M-R., 1995) and thus embody some kind of countervailing power in the process of production of history in America—something African-American figures from all fields have done by any means necessary (Ashe A. R., 1988; DuBois W.E.B, 1903; Haley A., 1977; Lee S., 2011). To lead this battle for the rewriting of basketball history, Abdul-Jabbar chose to write and produce a documentary film—a mass media which was historically turned into a deeply political instrument by others before, like Earl Monroe with Black Magic, a documentary dedicated to African-American basketball at large (Klores D., 2008). Yet, this time, even though it uses the traditional elements of the genre (the expository mode, talking heads), this film reflects a deeper movement and gives it its proper form anchored in Black aesthetics and culture, from its soundtrack to its visual identity and quoted literary works. The question is, to what extent does Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s documentary film reflect the politics of the transmedia effort of self-representation by African-American athletes?

5First, this article focuses on Abdul-Jabbar’s signifying life and works in relation to politics, and especially his conscious effort as an amateur historian to highlight forgotten stories and give them back their historical dimension. Then, it shows how his documentary film On the Shoulders of Giants turns the New York Renaissance team into a political myth which crystalized the politics of their time—the 1920s—as well as the new political concerns and efforts of the African-American community in 2010s America. Finally, it questions the part played by documentary films in de-invisibilizing the history of African-American athletes in a less Disneyfied way than fiction films do (Bryman A., 2004), their filiation with autobiographies, and the politics of self-representation as a tool of power.

6To study this documentary film in all its complexity, this article draws from various disciplines from cultural history to semiology and communication studies, especially by studying documentary films as representations (Hall S., 1997), and is based on the study of Abdul-Jabbar’s work as a whole—from his autobiographies to his history books, political essays, children’s books, and his game itself. It questions the writing of history using Trouillot’s criticism of issues of power (Trouillot, op.cit.) and Girardet’s work on political myths and mythology (Girardet R., 1986), while cautiously adapting these works to an (African-)American context. It uses the cultural, social and political history of the African-American community to relocate both the New York Renaissance and Abdul-Jabbar’s work in a genealogy of political discourses and artistic projects (Grossman J. R., 1997; Harding V, Kelley R. and E. Lewis, 1997; Kelley R., 1996; Trotter J.W., 1996). It considers film as an "agent of history" (Ferro M., 1977), both as a reflection of its time and a tool to write the history of the society which produces it. Regarding the specificity and politics of documentary film between entertainment, information and education, it follows in the footsteps of David Lipson’s work on Michael Moore and documentary film in general (Lipson D. and Z. Baqué, 2019). It uses art history (Bindman D. and Gates H., 2014) and semiology (Barthes R., 1985) to conduct a visual, textual and musical analysis of the film to uncover its deeper meaning, and potentially questioning the notion of the Black gaze (Campt T., 2023). Finally, it calls on media studies to put Abdul-Jabbar’s work into perspective in relation to discourses, the production of history, and a potential transmedia effort (Jenkins H., 2008) to send political messages.

On the shoulders of a giant: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, from athlete to historian

7Throughout the history of sports in America, some athletes have been more political than others. Yet, the case of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is particularly important, as he has lived a political life, from his days as a student and professional athlete to his current post-retirement life and his new status as amateur historian, essayist and commentator of American society and politics. To truly understand the depth and meaning of his documentary film, one has to delve into his story—and African-American history.

8First, his life reflects the multiple political issues faced by the African-American community since the second half of the 20th century. A young Black man from Harlem, Lew Alcindor covered Martin Luther King’s trip to the iconic New York neighborhood as a reporter for the Harlem Youth Action newspaper, and he ardently supported Harlem’s own Malcolm X and the actions led by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) (Abdul-Jabbar K. and P. Knobler, 1983). When he became a household name at UCLA, he boycotted the 1968 Mexico Olympics to organize a basketball camp in New York in spite of the death threats he received then (Streeter K., 2023). Also at UCLA, he converted to Islam and changed his name three years later to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, thus facing racism and islamophobia. Still at UCLA, he developed a complex, interesting relationship with his college coach John Wooden, between mutual respect and intellectual disagreements over sensitive political topics such as interracial dating, haircuts and clothes, among others (Abdul-Jabbar K., 2018). Later on, he made several statements celebrating his African-American cultural identity and African-American culture, in particular jazz (Abdul-Jabbar K. and M. McCarthy, 1990). Finally, throughout his life, he has been in conflict with white, mainstream media, which have portrayed him as aloof, when he was weary of not being portrayed as another performing black body in a race spectacle (Abdul-Jabbar and Knobler, op.cit.). All these aspects of his life are related to issues faced by the African-American community in general at this time in history, from a widening gap with white America to an insistence on African-American culture.

9Beyond these aspects, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar also played basketball in a way which reflected his politics. Indeed, in American basketball history, dunking has been a powerful symbolic gesture reflecting not only physical dominance, but also carrying a latent sexual and racial dimension (Houck D., 2000). As a result, Abdul-Jabbar’s dominance of college basketball—a sport which was still widely white at the time—led to the creation of a new rule banning dunking, later nicknamed "the Alcindor rule". In other words, the NCAA prevented young Abdul-Jabbar from dunking over and humiliating white players in the context of 1960s America. As a result of this ruling, Abdul-Jabbar changed his game and developed a new move—the "Skyhook"—a type of hook shot which became his lethal weapon on the court and his go-to move in the NBA, on his way to the title of the league’s all-time best scorer—until LeBron James dethroned him in 2023. In other words, in the face of oppression and control over his body and gestures from predominantly white institutions, Abdul-Jabbar pointed out efforts to "discipline the Nigger" (Abdul-Jabbar and Knobler, op.cit.) and then "flipped the script" (Boyd T., 1997: 112) and dominated the game anyway. The Skyhook is a symbol of dominance for the African-American community and an athletic play with a strong political undertone.

10Beyond his athletic days, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar took on another deeply political role—that of historian. First, he wrote several books on basketball, from his book on the history of the New York Renaissance (Abdul-Jabbar and Obtsfeld, op.cit.) on which the documentary film is based (Morales, op.cit.) to his memoir dedicated to his many playing and coaching experiences, especially in relation to the Native American community (Abdul-Jabbar K. and S. Singular, 2000). Second, he wrote history books to highlight the part played by African-American soldiers (Abdul-Jabbar K. and A. Walton, 2005) and thinkers in the construction of the American nation (Abdul-Jabbar K. and A. Steinberg, 1996; Abdul-Jabbar K. and R. Obtsfeld, 2013), moving away from sport to discuss (African) American history in general. Third, he wrote multiple political essays on issues of race and patriotism (Abdul-Jabbar K. and R. Obtsfeld, 2016), on top of his many op-eds published in Time magazine. Finally, he also published a few children’s books related to sports and issues of identity (Abdul-Jabbar K. and R. Obtsfeld, 2015, 2018). All in all, he has been eager to share stories otherwise not found in textbooks or (white) mainstream media. More importantly, his move from athlete to intellectual is also very much political, as Black athletes have been historically stereotyped as mere physical beings. By becoming a praised historian and deconstructing racist stereotypes, Abdul-Jabbar has made a strong political move.

11Beyond the story of the New York Renaissance, the identity of the storyteller is key to the understanding of the politics behind this artistic project. This political project of de-invisibilizing the story of the Rens, "the greatest basketball team you never heard of", as Abdul-Jabbar calls them (Morales, op.cit.), is carried by a truly political figure who has always been outspoken on and off the court, which led to Barack Obama awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. His project reflects his politics. And so does the myth he constructs through it.

Introducing the Rens: Building up a new political myth

12Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s whole point in sharing the story of the New York Renaissance was to reveal its existence, as basketball history in the United States had only recognized and focused on the Harlem Globetrotters, another important Black basketball team. In order to counter the mainstream, apolitical myth of the Trotters, the documentary seeks to build up a new political myth, "the Rens".

  • 2 Minstrel shows were a type of comedy stage spectacle, which relayed stereotyped representations of (...)

13As described by Abdul-Jabbar in the film, the New York Renaissance were playing a "no-nonsense, aggressive" kind of basketball, thus seriously challenging (and defeating) white teams in the process. Also, in style and spirit, they truly represented Harlem, the "unofficial Black capital of America" in the 1920s (Ibid.). All these characteristics were highlighted to draw a sharp contrast with the other African-American basketball myth of the period, the Harlem Globetrotters, who were depicted as a basketball version of the minstrel shows2, catering to negative Black stereotypes, and representing "another Harlem"—a more fantasized one as this team was not even from Harlem, they were based in Chicago. In a conversation with Abdul-Jabbar in the streets of Harlem, while discussing the differences between the Rens and the Trotters, African-American left-wing intellectual Cornel West describes the latter as "exotic, primitive, putting on a show for [white people] and not digging deep into the rich humanity of Black people" (Ibid.). Also, Rens founder Bob Douglas is quoted as saying, "we are not burlesque basketball" (Ibid.). The myth of the Rens is thus built in contrast with the Trotters. In Abdul-Jabbar’s documentary, the Rens are the anti-Globetrotters, and there is great political meaning in their lasting success compared to the relative disappearance of the Rens in the American media and collective imagination. One was less threatening to white hegemony than the other.

14Indeed, this myth is rooted in the racial history of the United States. As a result, the documentary develops anecdotes on the racism of white fans and American society towards the African-American community and its champions who were "barnstorming the South" and proving the racists wrong by "showing pride and dignity in the face of racism and bigotry". Most of all, it focuses on the several clashes between the Rens and the original Celtics, another American basketball myth—a white one, this time. After previous Celtic wins, the Rens’ uncontested final victory against their archrivals in a serious, hard-fought battle turned these world "colored" champions into simply "world champions", as the removal of the word "colored" from their jackets shows, and the embodiment of the possibility of racial equality. In that sense, the story developed by Abdul-Jabbar reflects the political use of Black excellence as an instrument of activism and political equality, while also uncovering systemic issues, thus combining the two main political strategies used by the African-American community in sport (Martin-Breteau N., 2020).

15What makes the Rens’ story so interesting and important to Abdul-Jabbar is that their significance goes beyond their athletic feats. Indeed, they embodied the politics of that time: the heritage of slavery and segregation, the rise of the Harlem Renaissance and the rising celebration of and pride in African-American culture, from literature to music and sport, and the Great Depression and its impact on society at large. From their name to their game, the team reflected Harlem’s history, between racial pride, a desire for emancipation and the use of culture to convey them. To Abdul-Jabbar, the Rens crystalized a cultural revolution, as the team "embodied the excellence of African-American culture in Harlem" (Morales, op.cit.). The documentary gives extra meaning to the team, by linking the artistic with the athletic, especially through a parallel between the aesthetics of jazz and basketball, made of rhythm, jumps, calls and responses, and improvisations (Marsalis W. and G. Ward, 2009, Morales, op.cit.) Thus, the Rens myth becomes more than a mere basketball story but also a link between sports and the Harlem Renaissance cultural movement.

16The celebration of the Rens as an embodiment of the Harlem Renaissance and the New Negro athletically, culturally and politically, by Abdul-Jabbar’s documentary is actually a sign of the resonance this heritage had at the time of the film’s creation. In 2011, in the age of Obama, celebrating Black culture and de-invisibilizing Black history made complete sense. The insistence on the key part played by Rens owner Bob Douglas, who made his team the first all-Black professional Black-owned basketball team, also shows how political issues of ownership, control and achievement were to the Rens in the 1920s as well as to Abdul-Jabbar in the 2010s. A symbol of Black power, pride and ownership, the Rens were a perfect source of inspiration for 2010s players interviewed in the documentary, like Carmelo Anthony or Chris Paul, who were more overtly politicized than the previous generations of the 1990s and 2000s, who were the face of some unreached postracial ideal (Thomas E., 2018). By drawing a link between pioneers (the Rens), key figures and children of the Civil Rights Movement (Rev. Jesse Jackson, Cornel West, Chuck D, Spike Lee, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and 2010s NBA players (Carmelo Anthony), the documentary uses a story from the past to tackle the present and reflect on the Rens legacy or lack thereof. As the Rens fought for emancipation and empowerment, so do the 2010s players, in a different context, but with identical issues of cultural representation, body ownership and control. In a way, the documentary revived a political tradition of pointing out systemic issues in sport born in the 1960s (Edwards H., 1969).

17As Raoul Girardet explains, a political myth has six characteristics: it is a coded story which idealizes the past, develops a discourse on the then and the now, aims to unify, mentally restructures what people had in mind and changes their reality (Girardet, op.cit.). While originally anchored in French politics, this theoretical approach could also be applied to the American context, where politics and myths do mix (Hughes R., 2004). In this case, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s documentary fits this definition. Coded in African-American history and aesthetics, it idealizes the Harlem Renaissance and the Rens, links them to 2010s players, aims to de-invisibilize and celebrate this team, unites people around their (recovered) memory, and shines a new light on lasting issues in American sport and society. The Rens do become a political myth through this film, which mainly underlines the power dynamics under the writing of history.

The Story You Never Heard Of: Sports Documentary Film and (Hi)Storytelling

18While the very first scene of the documentary stages several basketball legends clashing over the identity of the greatest basketball team ever, invoking mainly athletic performances, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar takes the conversation to a different field—culture and politics. This way, he underlines how politics, and especially racial politics, plays a part in the way basketball history has been told—or untold. This documentary film stands as a work of history, which needs to be deconstructed in its subtlety and entirety.

  • 3 This date is also at the center of a new historical enterprise to reconsider American history throu (...)

19Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is more than an athlete. He is also an essayist and historian, for whom the production of history is related to issues of power, as Trouillot showed (Trouillot, op.cit.). The treatment of African-American history has showed this process of power struggles and the rise of a more complex, less Disneyfied (Bryman, op.cit.) version of American history. Interestingly enough, the writing of sports history and African-American athletes’ history illustrates the same process, in which history from below and the rise of otherwise silenced discourses have led to a new approach to sport history in the United States. In the late 1980s, African-American tennis player and activist Arthur Ashe published his seminal project, A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-American Athlete, a three-volume series starting its study in 1619 with the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the British colony of Virginia3, and thus uncovering a silenced history (Ashe, op.cit.). Another athlete turned historian, Abdul-Jabbar produces here a documentary film which makes a similar effort of raising awareness about the history of racism and bigotry while most basketball history books tell the less threatening story of the Globetrotters. Also, it gives symbolic birth to new role models for what is described as "a terrorized, traumatized and stigmatized community" (Morales, op.cit.). Sport history is also a "site of struggle" (Fiske, op.cit., 4), and Abdul-Jabbar’s work plays a part in the power struggle over the writing of (African-)American basketball history.

20The importance of Abdul-Jabbar’s work does not only lie in the fact that he tells a largely untold story. Its political significance also lies in the way he tells it. First, in terms of narrative, he does not only simply add one story to a mix of stories already told. He intimately links the story of the Rens to a history of slavery, segregation, the Harlem Renaissance and Great Depression. Second, along with director Deborah Morales, the documentary film he produced conveyed a kind of total, transhistorical Black gaze, where the general aesthetics of the film reflects the director’s eye—one which emphasizes the humanity and strength of the African-American community and culture (Campt, op.cit.). Narratively, the documentary quotes eloquent politicians and poets of the Harlem Renaissance and beyond, among whom Maya Angelou, to show the body politics of this Rens story. Visually, past and present Harlem were merged through certain camera shots, and paintings by African-American hip-hop artist Justin Bua represent 1920s Harlem and ballrooms, and Black athletic bodies positively and not stereotypically. This can be seen through his iconic painting, Sky Hooked (2011), used in the documentary as well as on the cover of the DVD.

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Justin Bua, 2011, https://justinbua.com/​products/​skyhooked

  • 4 See for instance "Harlem’s Son" by Chuck D and Johnny Juice, or the cover of jazz classic "Stompin’ (...)

21Musically, the soundtrack merges blues, gospel, jazz and Lindy Hop with hip-hop4 to show the links between the aesthetic, the artistic, the political and the athletic (Caponi-Tabery G., 1999, 2008; Marsalis and Ward, op.cit.). Written by African-American jazz enthusiast Bill Cunliffe and featuring iconic African-American musicians such as Wynton Marsalis, Herbie Hancock and Chuck D, it was nominated at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Image Awards in 2013. This political dimension of art and sport is openly discussed in the documentary by emblematic African-American politicians, scholars, artists and athletes alike (Morales, op.cit.). Overall, the documentary film is used as an instrument for constructing a "total", transmedia representation of a moment in African-American history and its impact on contemporary African-American history as well. While "sport is a great language option too", as Chuck D says in the documentary, this film uses different languages to share the same meaning—a story worthy of historical interest.

22Abdul-Jabbar’s documentary is as much about making up for lost time and revising history to uncover part of it as it is about looking back to make up for today’s imperfect union. This documentary film is actually part of a total, collective effort led by African-American athletes towards self-definition and self-representation which became political tools in the face of a (racist) transmedia story which invisibilized the Rens up until the early 2010s. Beyond this case, this effort includes symbolic gestures, autobiographies, social media posts, self-produced documentaries and so on, all used as opportunities to showcase a different mediated political reality (Nimmo D. and J. Combs, 1990)—one which uncovers racism in America and the need for "a more perfect union" as Barack Obama, a candidate most African-American athletes, including Abdul-Jabbar, supported in 2008, stated (Marable M. and L. Mullings, 2009: 630-641). However, this documentary also relays a double message, as it portrays an undisputed system which still needs to be deconstructed, from today’s NBA to iconic media personalities, who all support Abdul-Jabbar’s work while not really fighting the systemic issues he points out.

23In the way it was produced and created, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s work reflects the potential politics of documentary films as agents in the (re)writing of history. It crystalizes a new (Black) gaze on the cultural and political history of basketball—and America, as well as the spirit of the time it was produced. Just as some athletes have used their platform on the field, producing documentary films has become a new political tool in the age of edutainment.

The Power of a Story

24Beyond its well-crafted aesthetics and powerful story, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s documentary film perfectly encapsulates the politics of self-definition and self-representationa critical issue in African-American history. It is also the product of historypast and present, from the rise of the New Negro to the multidimensional deconstruction of racism during the Obama years. Also, it establishes sport as a window to society and social issues. In the process, it uncovers the part played by documentary films as more than mere infotainment or edutainment. In this case, making a documentary film is deeply political, and telling a story means rewriting American history. A truly deeply political figure in his own right, Abdul-Jabbar has conducted this effort for several years through history books, op-eds for Time Magazine or interviews in the news to become one of the most important figures in African-American sport and history. Though imperfect, as it fails to develop a truly systemic criticism of what happened after the Rens’ story, and especially the part played by the NBA and the media in emphasizing framing, potentially racist myths instead of liberating ones, his film yet stands as his most complete work, where style meets substance, where all languages, from words to images and musical notes (Hall, op.cit., p. 1-4), develop a discourse in unison to reconsider the history of basketball and the countryand inspire 2010s America. Its political dimension and impact have been saluted, as it won Best Documentary at the 44th NAACP Image Awards in 2013highlighting once again the meaning of history and representation to the African-American community.

25Contemporary athletes have joined Abdul-Jabbar and they continue to stand at the forefront of activism, trying to combine symbols and action, better representation and systemic social change (Thomas, op.cit.). Just as Abdul-Jabbar did with his book-turned-CD-turned-documentary, they are not only remediating their messages. They adapt them and give them new formats to reach out to even greater audiences. The most iconic example is American football player Colin Kaepernick who led an on-field protest for racial justice and against police brutality. Aware of the politics of representation, he has used his own social media to express himself. He started a publishing company, Kaepernick Publishing, in 2019 to discuss history, politics (Kaepernick C., 2021) and critical race theory (Kaepernick C., Kelley R. and T. Keeanga-Yamahtta, 2023). Most of all, he directed a Netflix documentary/series, Colin in Black and White, with Ava DuVernay (2021), to discuss racial politics in America, and he released the Kaepernick Curriculum (Know Your Rights Camp, 2022), thus literally guiding audiences from fiction to reality, from entertainment to critical thinking. Standing on the shoulders of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and others, Kaepernick goes even further. In other words, athletes remain agents for change. Their stories reflect history, but they now have more, better tools to share their perspective with the audience. Documentary film is one. Producing documentary films and sharing them with a larger audience is political power, as it uncovers another story—or history, and invites the viewers to change their own perspective and discover a new gaze on history to potentially understand one another better and create this "more perfect union".

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Notes

1 Public Enemy is a hip-hop group formed by Chuck D and Flavor Flav in 1985 in Long Island, New York. The band is known for its Black aesthetics, political lyrics and harsh criticism of the American mainstream media.

2 Minstrel shows were a type of comedy stage spectacle, which relayed stereotyped representations of African-Americans, who were played by white actors with blackened faces. See Brundage, W. Fitzhugh (ed.), Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890-1930, Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 2011.

3 This date is also at the center of a new historical enterprise to reconsider American history through the prism of the systemic exploitation of Black people and its decisive role in the making of the United States, from slavery to today—the 1619 Project. See Hannah-Jones, Nikole, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, New York, One World, 2021.

4 See for instance "Harlem’s Son" by Chuck D and Johnny Juice, or the cover of jazz classic "Stompin’ at the Savoy" by Herbie Hancock, Will.I.Am and Nikki Yanofski, in Cunliffe, Bill, On the Shoulders of Giants. The Original Soundtrack [CD], Kdigital Media, 2013.

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Yann Descamps, « Un-Covering Stories You Never Heard Of: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s On the Shoulders of Giants and The History of (African-)American Basketball »IdeAs [En ligne], 23 | 2024, mis en ligne le 01 février 2024, consulté le 10 février 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ideas/16977 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ideas.16977

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Auteur

Yann Descamps

Yann Descamps is an associate professor of sport history at the Université de Franche-Comté. Calling on various disciplines from cultural history to semiology and media studies, he is currently working on the representation of sports, race and gender in popular culture, from film to videogames, comic books and manga.
yann.descamps[at]univ-fcomte.fr

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