FreeDuck wrote:Well, there are top notch athletes from all countries. But if it were truly a genetic predisposition toward athletic ability one might expect blacks to be over-represented in the circle of olympic champions.
Sports is an excellent example of why it is foolish to go overboard for the influences of either
nature or
nurture.
Look at boxing. There is no sport that draws a more definitive line between the
haves and the
have nots. That boxers are atheletically gifted is without question, but what gifted athlete, in his right mind, would chose boxing over any of the other more lucrative and less dehabilitating sports? Overwhelmingly, minorities populate the ranks of boxing. There is a reason that blacks and hispanics dominate boxing, but it is not genetic.
Boxing, long ago, gave up on the White Race -- or is it that the White Race gave up on boxing?
Where are today's boxers coming from if not from the black and hispanic communities? The answer is the Asian and Middle Eastern communitites. It is no coincidence too that there are plenty of Korean and Phillipino boxers but very few Japanese. Of course this has nothing to do with genetics or ethnicity, and everything to do with class.
There are any number of people that will argue that the dominance of Tiger Woods in a traditionally white sport such as golf proves that African-Americans are genetically superior to whites when it comes to athletics. Of course this completely ignores the fact that Woods is 50% Asian, and that his competitive spirit is a far greater attribute to him than his physical prowess.
When accounting for eugenics in explaining black dominance in sports the point that blacks have, historically, been denied the opportunity to excel in fields other than sports and entertainment is usually missed. Is it all that surprising that truly gifted blacks would gravitate towards the fields in which their role models excelled and in which they themselves had the best chance of excelling?
The world record holder, and Olympic gold medal winner in the 400 meter race is a
white man. That he may have adopted the mannerisms and cultural filigree of Black America may, possibly, have something to do with his physical dominance, but I doubt it. For a fair period of time, a Russian white man was the Fastest Man on Earth (as defined by the Olympic 100m race results). Why does this mean nothing, when Tiger Woods dominance in gold mean so much?
Black Africans excel at long distance races (The Amazing Kenyans), but rarely show up in any other sport. I wonder why? They weren't
bred by European Colonials? The answer has far more to do with their environment than their genes. With a fairly low level of protein in their diets they are hardly likely to develop extreme musculature - sprints, field events, wrestling, etc etc. Living at relatively high altitudes within a culture that encourages running as a means of transportation might just have had an effect.
There are far less (substantive) differences among the races than there are among the genders. Black men are every bit as different from White Women as are White Men.
(Brandon - To your point)
