The Fact(s) of Michael Jordan’s Blackness: Excavating a Floating Racial Signifier

Abstract

This genealogical examination of Michael Jordan’s popular signification reveals a complex narrative that incorporates many of the historically grounded racial codes that continue to structure the racial formation of the United States. Borrowing judiciously from cultural studies, poststructuralist, and postmodern theorizing, this paper critically analyzes the imaged persona of Michael Jordan as an important site of mediated popular culture, at which specific racial ideologies are publicized and authorized in support of the reactionary agenda of the post-Reaganite American imaginary. As such, this paper attempts to develop a critical media literacy that encourages readers to interrogate their engagement with the racially oppressive discursive tracts circulated by the popular media.