In The Ring

I love fitness. I love sports. I go to the gym, I walk, I run, I cycle. In my youth, I played team games. And everyone said I was good at sports because of my heritage. My Jamaican ancestry. As a child, this confused me - my white British mother was as sporty as my father, representing her county at tennis in her teen years. But my sporting ability - which is enthusiastic rather than particularly gifted - is always attributed to the half of me that’s Black. It feels - and I’ll just say it - racialised, an echo of the ideas that saw things like superhuman strength and endurance attributed to Black people. Featuring senior lecturer in American Studies at the University of Manchester, Natalie Zacek Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices