It is much more due to social environment than genetics…
Say, you go to the local park to play some pick up basketball. It?s your first time there and all the players there are relatively the same size/height. Its now time to pick teams and play a little 5-on-5. Now from my experience the black players are MUCH more likely to be picked early before there white counterparts, especially if you have never seen anyone play (I am black and this has happened to me several times). Black men are expected by society to be stronger, faster and jump higher than everyone else. If you can’t do these things, society (including black people) views you as “something must be wrong with him”. So, as a result, to avoid teasing or embarrassment, you practice and get bigger, stronger and faster.
Someone posted about the lack of black athletes in sports like tennis and hockey. This is mainly due to money restrictions as these sports require a significant financial investment in equipment, ice/court time etc…many that are out of reach of the average African-American family (imagine the amount of money the William?s sister?s parent had to pour into personal coaches and court time).
The excuse of ?Blacks have better genetics? is just that?an excuse and a form of racism. ?Of course he can jump higher than me! He is Black???..white athletes can cry all day long. ?But we need a white QB and coach as Blacks are not smart enough to lead the team?, you may hear soon after. This ?You may be faster/stronger but at least we are smarter!? attitude plagues athletes and society in general as sports is just another reflection of society.
Don?t believe the hype.
(BTW Tiger Woods can say whatever he wants?..take away his celebrity and if he walks into any store/bar/whatever in this country, people in there will not say/think ?Hey, look at that half asian guy over there!? You all know the rest???.in the USA if you are 1% black, you are BLACK?..which is not a bad thing?lol)
It isn’t even a question anymore that people of west african descent have something better in their genes for athletics requiring speed/jumping. It is proven that the black adult male produces more testosterone, has a natural lower percent body fat, etc. and etc. Read Speed Demons on T-mag. This does not however mean that all blacks are better than whites, because that is not true either. At a local level, it is quite possible that white boys are better, but when it comes down to the best in the world…blacks have it.
That is why this whole thing about race is annoying. Tiger woods is forced by white and black people to call himself ‘African american’!!!??
How stupid is that? Why cause he looks black? Actually to me he looks more asian. If anything he is ‘Asian american’
I say good for him for fighting against labelling.
As for the whole blacks are better at sports thing, well I agree with myosin that it’s real stupid to say ‘he’s black and he’ll have a higher vertical leap’ what if he is kenyan and from the Arci Province, he’ll most probably have a crap vertical leap! It too massive a generalisation.
All you can say is that if Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones have a kid, then in all probability that kid will probably be pretty quick and with the proper training could be a world class sprinter. Its simple genetics. If you took this tens generations down the line always breeding between elite ‘black’ sprinters you would end up with a very good set of genes for runnning fast.
But the same could be true if you took the progeny of the fastest white sprinters and looked at they’re relations ten generations later. They would be pretty fast.
If your mum was Oprah and your dad was Forest Whitaker then you probably won’t be that great a 100m runner, but you’d very good at eating pies.
I was eating lunch at school about a week ago and a couple of Indian students came up to me and asked, “Is it true? Do black people really have extra muscles???”
Chardawg nailed it.
It depends on the sport.Blacks dominate sports that involve running and jumping.No question.When it comes to more SKILL based sports like hockey then it’s anybody’s game.Look at the two best hockey players ever - Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux - neither of them are physically exceptional but they dominated their sport because of their skill and intelligence.
Granted, it more blacks had the opportunity to play hockey, there would be alot more in the NHL but to say they would dominate is silly.
I wonder what it would take for a white guy to even break into the top 100 times in the 100 Meter dash. Even with the talent of the East Germans, who were pumping themselves up with steroids, couldn’t compete with the blacks. That would be awesome if a white guy could come on the seen today and do the unthinkable.
there is alot of info on the supertraining list… go through the archives… PM me and i may be able to send you a bunch posts via email
also… there were some scientists a while back saying that the discrepencies between races and physical attributes where largely myths… that would definetly be worth looking for
Awesome thread so far, nothing like a little controversy to get the reply count to swell…My opinion is that it is not genetic to any large extent but since there are studies that have shown higher t levels, bone density and calf placement the genetic factor ,may count somewhat. But I would also question exactly how valid are those studies, Biceps345. Was it a very large sample of people? Because if it was 20 whites and 20 blacks, that’s ridculously low. Were the samples taken from people who were ALREADY established athletes? Etc etc.
One thing regarding the Kenyans that nobody has mentioned is that it is a TRADITION in that part of Kenya to run from town to town and place to place! Even if the distances are 20+ miles-this is a fact. So the kids are running long distances from childhood on and are accustomed to it. Its natural to them. They don’t have the mental barriers that non-runners would have when even thinking about running a marathon.
WHat about the North African’s dominance in the middle distance races? Are moroccans and algerians more suited to running them than their neighbors to the south? Seems unlikely that it would be genetic.
Regarding black prominence in US sports, let’s talk about black culture. Black culture is much more macho. It is vitally important for young black men to earn respect and to be seen as tough and as ‘men’. Understandable since many, if not most black men come from very rough places where these are necessary qualities. Many feel that being athletic is a way to prove to themselves,their peers, and to their community that they are somebody. Also, unfortunately, economics is a HUGE motivating facotr: many young black people see sports as one of their few ways out of poverty. That is why, as Chris Aus mentioned, there is such a heavy minority presnce in boxing. It is a brutal sport that nobody wants to do anymore unless they have to. In the early to mid 20 th century, there were many more Italian, Irish, Polish and Jewish fighters than black. Many were champions, including 3 Italian-American heavyweight champs. THe only undefeated heavyweight in history, Rocky Marciano, was Italian-American. Was he better than all the great black champs since? Maybe, maybe not. But its not a given. Are those of Italian descent better suited to boxing than many others? I doubt it. It just happened to be important to them at the time. Its more a case of: as these immigrants moved up the social ladder, they had more and more opportunities to succeed that didn’t involve sports.
In my experience, all the naturally athletic white people I know didn’t care about sports nearly as much as blacks. Yeah they liked them, but there were other things as well. It wasn’t life or death. I know several that turned down college scholarships and the opportunity to play at high levels cuz it just wasn’t imp’t enough to them. Two people in my own family turned down full rides after only 1 year at the college they were in. One was a NJ state champion in wrestling. A few of the guys I played with in HS turned down chances to play 1-AA and Div 2 football. An ex-close friend, the NYC champion in the butterfly, was offered swimming scholarships but didn’t take them. Another friend turned down a full ride to play outside LB in the Big 10 to play for another Big 10 school that didn’t offer him a scholarship, just a chance to make the team in camp. But he wanted to play for that school, so he did. He made the team, played 3 years, and then left the team senior year because he wanted to party and have fun.
Tmag forum’s own Spencer Nadolsky quit playing the glamour sport of football at Michigan State to focus on wrestling. WHy? I’m not sure but I’m sure he could add some interesting observations.
So I’m sure that the dominant reasons are social and economic.
2 things I sincerely hope are changing for the better in the US: 1) that the black culture places more priority on hard work in school than on the field and 2) that the wonderful black community attains the same economic status as everyone else who has arrived in this country of opportunity.
Man, that was long!
Peace
In response creed there are races, no matter if you like it or not, and there will always be. Some white people think black people are racist and some black people think white people are racist. Everyone keeps trying to declare everyone equal no matter where they come from and the truth is there will always be racism in the world no matter what. Ex. I work in a music store and one night some black guys walked in and the first thing my boss said was to keep an eye on them becuase they look suspicious. Thats where I think the human pool theory is shit.
Biceps
You really seem to be hung up on this great white hope thing!
What does it matter if they are white or not? The fact is the people who tend to be good at sprinting tend to have high fast twitch muscle ratios, higher than normal testosterone (which I don’t think matters as I believe they are all on AAS!), naturally low body fat, and long achilles tendons. They often tend to have what people would term black features. Oh and they are almost all american! Some canadians and west africans and carribean athletes, but even alot of these guys train in the US.
Even the white guys who are good at sprinting like Scotland’s Ian Mackie have these attributes, obviously apart from the black features. Ian ran 10.00s for the 100m albeit wind assisted and would probably have been the first white guy to run sub 10 for the 100m if his career hadn’t been side tracked by injury and cough failed dope tests.
He now runs the 400m.
If it makes you feel any better there is a white guy in the top 100 times for 100m and he was from Poland called Marian Woronin at No.34 and he ran 10 dead into a 2m/s head wind. Although the index was out of date, as it still listed Maurice Greenes 9.79s as the best and it didn’t count if runners had set the same time as someone else.
Interestingly there is an asian Koji Ito just below Marian who ran 10s.
I believe what you said is true. That is awesome. All I’m saying is that there is more of those type of “great leapers” in the black race. You know this too. You say that he is lean and strong. That is a trait that run more rampantly in the black race than all others.
Aus, I agree the socialization has some to do with the fact that blacks dominate sport, but it definitly isn’t the driving force behind it. Their genetics are. Blacks don’t even make up 15% of the population but the NFL has 65% blacks, and the NBA has 85%. That is over representation at its best! There are many whites, asians, and mexicans who train just as hard, or probably harder to be the best, but fall short because they weren’t made a certain way.
Also, I thought it was interesting that you brought up the great middle distance runners from Northern Africa. It is a fact that most of the top 100 times in the 100 meter dash are from western africa. West Africa is known for producing some of the fastest men on earth. East Africa on the other hand (think Kenyans) is known for producing some of the worlds best endurance machines. So, wouldn’t it be expected that the region between these places would be somewhere in the middle?
I dont mean for this paper to become to racial war. I just want the truth. The truth is that people with black skin, usually have the genes to make the worlds best athletes.
Biceps, did you read any part of my post above? You keep saying “best in the world” and “best athletes” and “best at sports” and all this other stuff, when all that black people are best at is sports that involve running and jumping. No matter what anyone says about economic factors (which do apply for some sports), it doesn’t take much money to buy a bathing suit and swim at your local YMCA. And yet there are no world-class black swimmers.
Blacks are better at SOME sports, not ALL sports. Not by a long way.
You should retitle your paper and make it a little more on the mark. If you don’t, and if your teacher has any type of world view at all, you’re going to get laughed at. And deservedly so.
ARRRRGGGHHH
Biceps do you just ignore the bits of info that you don’t like?
What do you mean black race? Give me your definition of black race please. Why are blacks a different race?
Maybe Tiger can have people refer to him as a “Asiacan American”? Think that would please more people? Nah, I doubt it. I think I’ll just stick with simple American.
There are black and white players playing every position in the NFL, NBA, and MLB. Some people have good genetics, some people work their ass off (Dat Nyguen, Cowboys MLB, Vietnamese).
Has there EVER been a black or asian NFL kicker? Whats up with that? They are good at soccer, right? However, kicking is all dominated by predominately short, white/european guys. If kicking doesnt take explosive leg strength and speed, I don’t know what does. So what if all the other positions are filled with talented blacks players that the dumpy white guys have to learn to kick or stay on the sideline. You would think that atleast SOME black guys have said, “You know what? I’m tired of being so damn fast and strong. I’m tired of carrying the ball. I want to try and kick something. Move over whitey, I’ll take it from here.”
