RELEASING NOVEMBER 4
RELEASING NOVEMBER 4
Dr. Green’s New Book
Playing the Game: Embodied Brilliance Beyond the Moral Limits of Race in Sports
Playing the Game investigates the intersection of race and ethics in cultural misinterpretations of Black athleticism in the United States. The book demonstrates the way Black athletes expose the colonizing logic of white supremacy and the story it tells of a post-racial society. It applies womanist theological ethics and theologies of embodied spirituality to three exemplars--Marshawn Lynch, Steph Curry, and Deion Sanders--who epitomize the play of racial politics surrounding depictions of the Black male athlete as "beast."
Available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop.org.
Endorsements for Playing the Game
Playing the Game is a provocative pastoral theological study that weaves together social theoretical insights, Black and womanist theologies, neuroscience, and personal experience in a narration of Black athletic life as representative of life in these United States of America.
In this intriguing satire Gary Green gives us much food for thought and great spiritual counsel for navigating the political game of life. This book is for all people, for we are all athletes in mind, heart, and body.
Emmanuel Y. Lartey
Charles Howard Candler Professor of Pastoral Theology and Spiritual Care, Emory University
Playing the Game is a raw and unapologetic dive into the relationship between Black embodiment, its brilliance, and the absurd.
The import of its reading can be found in the way it unpacks the funny but true aspects of American culture that point to the hidden nature of Black divinity.
Philip Butler
Assistant Professor of Theology and Black Oosthuman Artificial Intelligence Systems, Iliff School of Theology
Gary Green provides a unique window into the lives of Black men under the shadow of white supremacy. Through the metaphor of “beast,” Green exposes the absurd dynamics of race in the context of everyday life.
Honest, unflinching, and powerful, Green draws the parallels between racism as enacted in quotidian experience and in sport. A must-read for those of us who want to understand better the limitations and the binds that racism creates for the human beings it targets.
Barbara J. McClure
Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Practice, Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University
