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Chapter 2

Architecture of Dreamers

In chapter 1, I discussed the shifts from an old to new racism charted by the lived experiences of black athletes at the intersections of society and its social institutions. My aim to explore how the neoliberal agenda shapes the experiences of black athletes in the twenty-first century begins with contextualizing the six student athlete participants within my fieldwork. In this chapter, I introduce each student athlete through a personal portrait drawn from interview data and campus observations. The composition of their portrait profiles includes a description of their personal backgrounds mapped onto a unique experience of each participant. By using this method of portrait description, I offer insight into the tensions and opacities each has grappled with while pursuing their own ambitions within the paradox of the dream. The personal vignettes presented in this chapter serve to illustrate the architecture of these black dreamers by centering them in a study that seeks to make sense of how black athletes are impacted by the praxis and contradictions of neoliberalism within the prisms of higher education and intercollegiate athletics.

What Is Architecture?

The architecture of Black people is sui generis.

This is architecture dreamed by the enslaved.

—Nikky Finney, from Finney, N. (2011)¹