Journey Leads Back to Basketball, Yoruba

Last week, Columbia University Press published â??Black Gods of the Asphalt: Religion, Hip-Hop, and Street Basketball,â? based on Woodbineâ??s doctoral dissertation at Boston University. The work draws on scholars like Pierre Bourdieu, Clifford Geertz and Henry Louis Gates Jr. to describe how street basketball functions as an outlet for mourning and healing for urban youths. But while the book speaks of basketball with love and reverence, it came about only because Woodbine, who is black, once quit basketball in disgust.