The Slave Side of Sunday - Anthony Prior

Anthony Prior, a former professional athlete and an author, provides a critical analysis on the role of Africans in professional sports in his book The Slave Side of Sunday. "Black players have created a billion-dollar market but have no voice in the industry, no power. That sounds an awful lot like slavery to me," [Anthony Prior] says. "On plantations slaves were respected for their physical skills but were given no respect as thinking beings. On the football field, we are treated as what appears like gods, but in fact this is just the 'show and tell' of the management for their spectators. In reality, what is transpiring is that black athletes are being treated with disrespect and degradation. As soon as we take off that uniform, behind the dressing room doors, we are less than human. We are bought and sold. Traded and drafted, like our ancestors, and the public views this as a sport, ironically the same attitude as people had in the slavery era."