YouTube Video

As I am doing my research, an idea that ran across my mind was to see if there were any YouTube videos[1] posted on this particular topic that could lead me to new ideas. Low and behold, there are indeed videos of others giving their opinion on this topic. Besides just my view, I wanted to get the opinion of another student about the same age as me on this topic at hand. This is important to have bceasue even though I am doing research and gathering info based off my opinion, it is still beneficial to remember who is "at the table" for this research and to shed light on another side. Of all the videos that I watched, the best one that I found prevalent to my research was the one I have linked to on here.
This video brings up a number of issues to be talked about such as phrases used like: "white men can't jump" and also how people classify quarterbacks in the NFL as "the best BLACK quarterback in the league" versus just saying "the best quarterback in the league" instead. This brings up a good point and shows where we are today with this topic. It shows how phrases like these are still being dropped loosely, and even though most don't think much of it, it still catches the attention of some people such as this guy in the video. This is also a good point to think about because as I started researching this topic of "color barriers in sports". One of the biggest stereotypes that I thought of is how the quarterback position is usually taken as the "rich, white, jock boy position". However, when you look at football today, that is not necessarily the case. So, I decided to look up the statistics[2] in the NFL to see how racial barriers have changed over time in this aspect. I found that African-American players currently comprise 67.3% of the league’s players, with 97% of them only being cornerbacks and 3% quarterbacks, which used to be an even lower percentage before at 1%. So, the question is where along the lines did this view come to change and how is it handled today?. Also. Would people still say that the quarterback position is a white man's position or not? I think it is important to note these instances of using these racial slurs like the man in the video said and by making others aware of them, we can move towards stopping them altogether. I wanted to add this video to my research journey because it gave me a look at how racial barriers in sports are today versus what I was studying before, which was the barriers back in history. This jumps us into classifying these stereotypes more, so that we can eventually be able to see where they are coming specifically and originated, which is also an answer that I hope to get from my research as I continue on.
The reason that I chose this source was because I mainly wanted to have an additional source shown besides all of these websites. As I was watching the videos, this one seemed the most credible because it showed a real person on the screen.. Also, in the description of the video, the author had said how the video was being done for a research project at his university as well, so I knew that it must have been trustworthy because he would be presenting it to others too so he wouldn't want false info to be given. The final reason I chose this to be credible was by the tone the author conveyed. From viewing, you could tell that he was serious and wanted to truly inform the audience about this topic, he wasn't fooling around. This helped me achieve my purpose as well because he informed me of some ideas that I can work with, as I mentioned earlier. With all of these elements combined, I was able to get a firmer grasp on all the info I have gathered so far and how I want to apply it coming from a credible source.


[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBDwb_YyyDoThis
[2]  http://uptownmagazine.com/2014/10/racial-breakdown-of-the-nfl-report-card/