Bill Gates dropped out of HARVARD (reputedly because not being mentally challenged enough) and his father is a named partner in one Seattle most influential firms, Preston, GATES & Ellis – so there is a little more to the Bill Gates example than meets the eye…
I wouldn’t be weighing in here, but I think one major contributing factor to this apparent “segregation” of athletic skills is being overlooked. There is a very pronounced sub-culture behind individual sports and it can dictate the type of person that will become involved in a particular sport.
Case in point: Blacks excell in Basketball and Football (among other sports). But compare the attitude of the average black football player to the average black basketball player. The football player tends to be more dedicated to his sport and team, not “taking games off” and palying for less money, while b-ballers tend to have a more premadonna type attitude and play 100% when its convenient. Both athletes are black, but have vastly different attitudes. I realize these a generalities, but I think you see my point.
Take hockey players for example. Ask any sports writer who are the best athletes to deal with and hockey players are an almost unanimous choice. Now, Black hockey players are few in the NHL, but Anson Carter, Jarome Iginla, Mike Grier, George LaRoque and even Donald Brashear tend to follow suit with other White players when it comes to their general attitude towards sport and so on.
So is it the colour of skin or the “sub-culture” and the corresponding attitude that has athletes gravitate towards their sport. I believe the sub-culuture itself palys a big role. Other factors like proximity, funding and accesibility play large roles as well, but if all things were equal, I believe an athlete will gravitate towards the sport that suits their ideals, not just the colour of their skin.
Poverty or the “GETTO” as you say is an escapegoat for most people that is a BS reason why people can not succeed.
Take my parents for an example they came from China and speak little or no english they were smart as all hell because they work hard studying day and night. They struggled so that me and my younger brothers can have a better life. They lived in the Getto of Buffalo NY where they are and they got out of there with PH’D in mathematics and masters… So its HOW HARD YOU ARE WILLING TO EXECEL AT ONE THING!!! NOT WHO YOU ARE OR WHAT COLOR SKIN YOU ARE!!! APPLY YOURSELF AND YOU WILL CONQURE ANYTHING!
Here's thought of someone who had heart surgey when he was young and recently diagnosed with Lymphoma Cancer. And I have won several Amature Bodybuilding competition in my weight class and I a successful Personal Trainer in NYC... WORK HARD PLAY HARD AND DAMN IT ENJOY LIFE!!!!
Seems like some people would like you to respond to the post you posted on the board with an explanation. You seem to forget or lack any knowledge of the contributions that blacks have given to science like the fact that the first open heart surgery was done by Dr. Charles Drew, a BLACK Surgeon. Hell, you go back even further than that and you have the Egyptians who had a whole civilization based on science and technology that the rest of the world had never seen. Please make sure that your statements are grounded with any type of reasoning before you make them. I’m out…peace!
In my opinion, “most” elite athletes could be successful at more than their chosen sport. I.E. a football player could be successful at basketball etc. Now they may not be elite at that sport for various reasons, but I am willing to bet they would still be above average. So they either went on and chose the sport they were best at, could make the most money at, were peer pressured to go into (by others or society,) had ready access to, or had a passion for. So even though some blacks may excel at hockey, they don’t have access to it as readily as most whites, hence the lower participation rate. Remember blacks are outnumbered 10 to 1 in the population. For some interesting figures regarding jobs in upper level management go check out the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics. Here are some numbers. Blacks hold 3,457,000 managerial type jobs compared to 36,125,000 of whites. That isn’t that far off from the total population.
I think it has more to do with what you do growing up than anything. I played more than my sister growing up. And i was a better athlete(comparatively speaking of course). I work at an after school program a few days per week. The best athletes are the ones that never get enough of playing outside. The terrible athletes sit their lazy asses in front of the computers all day. This is a rich school so you see a lot of the pussies with their gameboys and shit. Id say only a few are actually good athletes. And i think its because they play all the time. Ian King said that most motor skills are learned before the age of 12. I think playing at a young age is the biggest influence. Its more cultural than genetic. What else do kids in the projects (white or black) have to do? How many rich kids grow up to be sports stars? How many poor kid stories do you hear? A whole lot more.
I don’t remember mentioning “Getto”. My point is that the poverty might be a reason why they have more blacks in sports. By the way My dad dropped out of school at 7th grade to take care of his family of 12, being the oldest boy. Now He runs a succesful business, so I know what hard work can do for someone.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the Chinese and their superiority over the challenging game of Mah Jong…HA! in little voiceI was just trying to infuse some humor, guys…
Did anyone see the latest SI? Charles Barkley is on the cover saying that he think sthe only way a black guy can be successful is through sports. I thought that related to this somehow.
After reading BigJoe’s comment I was going to jump all over him, but as I read on I found many others beat me to it and probably more articulately than I would have. I think Mufasa’s comments were the best and really summed up my feelings on this issue. I think there probably are a few sports in which a particular race has a slight advantage, but not many and not in any truly significant way. I believe that the predominance of certain races in certain sports comes down to the interest of people in certain regions to certain sports. It’s a socialization issue more than anything else. Growing up in Canada, this reminds me of something I used to here a lot when I was a kid and would ask people why more blacks did’nt play hockey. The most common answer was blacks had weak ankles and therefore were weak skaters. I remember my own father telling me this when I was young. Of course as I got older and witnessed a few blacks playing hockey here and there, I realized this was a ridiculous hypothesis. But it’s a good example of how attitudes like this begin.
Those of you advancing the cultural argument, consider that of the top 500 male 100 sprint times ever recorded, only 6 were by “males of non-West African descent” (from Jon Entine, Supertraining site), and no white man has ever run 100m under 10 seconds…