Thoughts for the Big Dance: On Duke Hatred

Good piece from The New Republic on the venomous hatred of Duke basketball and Duke players and the way that hatred is explicitly and unabashedly expressed in homophobic terms.

This really is part of the larger issue of race in college basketball (which the article touches on briefly) and the perception that white players are "soft" spot-up shooters, rather than "tough, strong athletes." In the macho context of sports, such traits translate into homosexuality. The phenomenon actually is not limited to Duke. But it finds it most frequent target there because Duke produces more highly publicized and/or star players (where Duke is concerned, the categories may be very different) who are white.

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