“We the North”? Race, Nation and the Multicultural Politics of Toronto’s First NBA Championship
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Authors
Aladejebi, Funké
Allain, Kristi A.
George, Rhonda C.
Nzindukiyimana, Ornella
Issue Date
2022
Type
Article
Language
en
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
The Toronto Raptors’ 2019 NBA championship win, a first for the franchise and for a Canadian team, “turned hockey country into basketball nation” (CBC Radio 2020). Canadians’ growing embrace of the team and the sport seemed to point to a growing celebration of Blackness within the nation. However, we problematize the 2019 championship win to tell a more expansive story about how sport and national myths conceal truths about race and belonging in Canada. We explore two particular cases, the We the North campaign and the media coverage of Raptors superfan Nav Bhatia, to highlight the contradictory ways that the Raptors coverage mobilized symbols of the North and multiculturalism in order to produce the team as quintessentially Canadian and rebrand basketball for Canadian audiences. We further explore how these stark contradictions manifest in the racialized policing of basketball courts in the Greater Toronto Area. These cases demonstrate that the celebrations of the Raptors and basketball not only continued to police racialized bodies, but also ensured their inclusion was contingent on the maintenance of the status quo.
Description
This is the accepted manuscript (after peer review) of the article published in the Journal of Canadian Studies 56(1).
Citation
Aladejebi, Funké, Allain, Kristi A., George, Rhonda C. and Ornella Nzindukiyimana. 2022. “We the North”? Race, Nation and the Multicultural Politics of Toronto’s First NBA Championship. Journal of Canadian Studies 56(1): 1-34.
Publisher
University of Toronto Press
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Journal
Volume
Issue
PubMed ID
DOI
ISSN
1911-0251