Under the Influence: Marijuana, the Black Male Athlete, and Alternative Understandings of Humanity

This paper analyzes a series of advertisements from the antidrug campaign Above the Influence and interviews of former National Football League and National Basketball Association players by the website Bleacher Report regarding their marijuana use. Guided by Christina Sharpe’s theoretical concept of the “wake,” I argue that the Above the Influence adverts produce a trope I call Chronic Black male sporting hood. A trope that holds the Black body in a state of dehumanization. The second half of this paper utilizes Sharpe’s Black methodological tool of Black annotation/redaction. Through this Black methodological tool, the testimonial of the athletes, and the influences of Black musicians, I argue that these athletes provide insight into alternative ways of living and being human that arise from the anti-Black practices of sport with marijuana serving as their catalyst.