Cultural Blackness
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In talking about Michael Jordan’s role as a figure central to the involvement of South Asian Men in basketball, Thangaraj brings up the topic of cultural blackness. Jordan’s image as an icon and a representation of masculinity from whom aspects of Blackness can be borrowed establishes the existence of at least two forms of Blackness– a cultural and a political one. Cultural Blackness, as Dyson puts it, allows for Jordan’s blackness to ‘be consumed uncritically’ (Thangaraj, 377). This aspect of black identity allows Jordan to be seen as more profitable to basketball as a corporate sport. In contrast, players like Craig Hodges who emphasise on the political aspects of their blackness by advocating a social agenda are seen as ‘incompatible with the corporate nature of basketball’ (Thangaraj, 377) Thangaraj also points out that embracing aesthetic aspects of blackness has allowed South Asian American men to explore the very idea of masculinity as a concept outside the rigid boundaries of their ‘South Asianness’ and their ‘Americanness’ as conceptualised against the standard of whiteness.