“We Are Not On Neutral Ground”: Basketball’s Racialized Emotions, Hauntings, and Poetic Lingering”

This study examines basketball as a site of affective public pedagogy where racialized emotions shape civic life. Using critical poetic inquiry and Black Feminist Hauntology, it analyzes sports discourse and infrastructures to reveal how neutrality, power, and belonging are contested, offering new insights for social studies education and democratic inquiry.