Black Mothers and NFL Moms Safety Clinics: An Ethnography of Care in American Football

Abstract

Drawing on years of ethnographic research, this article highlights the importance of Black women's mothering, care work, and labor as their sons find success in American football. By centering Black mothers, the divide between the bureaucratic care offered by football programs and the motherly care offered by football moms is apparent. The former focuses on the player and all that he contributes to the program, and is clearly concerned with the capitalist value of his athletic labor. The latter focuses on the man, someone who takes the field, lives a life beyond it, and must navigate white supremacist and anti-Black spaces. Football, my findings suggest, requires and mobilizes both forms of care.