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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Reading: Race on the field and elsewhere

Dan Webster

Above: Professor David Leonard is also author of  “Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema." (Photo by Robert Hubner, WSU Photo Services)

Of the many issues facing the country today, one of the most prominent is race relations. And that's across the board, from immigration policy to community policing to questioning the need for certain kinds of public monuments.

And let's not forget sports.

David Leonard, a professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, is the author of a book titled "Playing While White: Privilege and Power On and Off the Field" (University of Washington Press). In it he argues "how and why whiteness matters within sports and what that tells us about race in the twenty-first century."

The questions concerning race in America are not new topics for Leonard. Among his other books are "Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema" (Praeger, 2006) and "After Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness" (SUNY Press, 2012).

Leonard will read from his book at 7 p.m. Saturday at Auntie's Bookstore.

It should be an enlightening evening.