Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Are African-Americans natural athletes?

The overrepresentation of African-Americans in some sports such as basket ball, track and field, boxing, etc.

1. Critique of biological determinism
1.1. Why haven't we used biological factors to explain the performance of other racial groups?
1.2. African-Americans are especially successful in a few sports
1.3. Various immigrants had performed well at some particular sports and at particular time.

2. Cultural explanation
2.1. Sports offers African-American men opportunities and fantasy to overcome racial discrimination.
2.2. How did black people overcome it by performing well at particular sports?
2.2.1. Their performance in some sports can be evaluated quantitatively.
2.2.2. They perform well in:
-small groups
-sports requiring rare skills
-sports requiring more cooperation than competition
-inexpensive sports
-sports not requiring expensive private coaching
2.3. African-American suffer from less prejudice and discrimination in athletics than in most lucrative careers

3. Implication
3.1. New racism: Black people are superior to white people in terms of physical features while white people are superior to black people in terms of intellectual abilities and other virtues.
3.2. Don't fabricate falso hope

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