Taboo why black athletes dominate

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More filters. Sort order. Jul 25, Dennis Littrell rated it really liked it. Nothing better to do The first thing to note is that this is an excellent book, well-written, well-researched, balanced and fair without even a hint of racism anywhere. The second thing to note is that a taboo is irrational to the point where it doesn't matter what the evidence is one way or the other. The taboo holds simply because it is a taboo, a combination of instinctive and learned behavior that will not and cannot yield to reason or evidence.

Consequently it doesn't matter how well Entine's Nothing better to do The first thing to note is that this is an excellent book, well-written, well-researched, balanced and fair without even a hint of racism anywhere.

Consequently it doesn't matter how well Entine's book is written, how rational his arguments are or how well supported by evidence. The taboo won't change because a taboo is the ultimate expression of the kind of behavior we call politically and socially correct; that is, behavior that is judged from the standpoint of whether it is in agreement with the tribal view.

It has nothing to do with objectivity or scientific truth. Taboos are beliefs that the tribe deliberately holds regardless of the evidence. That is the whole point. The political and social truth is so important to the tribe that the "actual" or "objective" or scientific truth is secondary.

The only way to change a taboo is to change the learned and instinctive assumptions usually hidden from the conscious mind on which it is based.

But this relearning process only works on young, unindoctrinated minds. The old people will die with their prejudices intact. In this sense Entine's is a book whose influence will not really be felt until the generation growing up today comes of age.

The third thing to note is that it doesn't matter whether blacks are superior in sports or not. Sport is a social construct with arcane rules and an underlying tribal psychology. The purpose of sport is to keep the young occupied with a socially-acceptable channel for their energies, and to allow the herd instinct of the populace some kind of focus for their aggressions and loyalties.

Our nearly worshipful attitude toward athletes is an artifact of this purpose. The fact that somebody runs the meters a tenth of second faster than somebody else is of enormous significance in the social construct of sport. But in the greater world such a difference is trivial. The fact that some athletes can sky so high and have such "hang time" as to be able to take a quarter off the top of the backboard "and leave change" is no more significant that the fact that somebody can hold his breath for five minutes, or can stand on his head for a week, or cry real tears on cue into the eye of the camera.

These "accomplishments" are significant only to the extent that the tribe makes them significant. Jon Entine finds it hard to understand why so many otherwise intelligent people cannot open their eyes to the truth of black superiority in sport.

But what I think he is missing is that those intelligent people know there are better ways of spending their time than discerning or not discerning a fine distinction of little import, especially when their work--if they are scientists, or their perception, if they are lay people--is liable to be judged not on intrinsic qualities but on the fit with the political zeitgeist.

Maybe they have nothing better to do. View 1 comment. Yet, aside from these two women, and newcomer Alexandra Stevenson who is half-black and half-white, but considers herself "white" , tennis is overwhelmingly and pristinely white, from the players, to the coaches, down to the commentators.

Looking solely at recent winners e. This uncontested notion of black "dominance" obscures several realities about black participation in sports. While Venus and Serena may rent the house, they surely don't own it. Ultimately, the entire debate points to a fear and paranoia about race in a broader context, outside of athletics.

Although Taboo consists of a whopping plus pages not including end notes , its thesis is simple and altogether unoriginal: "[blacks] dominate certain athletic events because they have innate skills peculiar to that sport and that social and cultural factors exaggerate these crucial differences" pp.

Entine argues that blacks of West African descent--a group which includes African Americans--have a greater jumping and running capacity than their non-African counterparts, making them more likely to excel in the three sporting events of basketball, football and sprinting.

He points out that male black East Africans, particularly Kenyans, hold the majority of world running records in long-distance events. Again, he attributes their success to "bio-cultural" factors whereby "cultural conditions exaggerate the small but meaningful differences that led to the athletic edge" pp.

This thesis begins to unravel when we consider that there are a host of other sports that require speed, jumping and endurance volleyball, gymnastics, and, yes, tennis, to name only a few , which are dominated by white athletes in this country. Entine also ignores the fact that black Africans do not overwhelmingly excel in basketball, which is a so-called "black" sport.

But we might never mind these details. Entine has a point to prove, and no counter-argument--however large or significant--will detract him.

Unfortunately, the book's structure also does not live up to the weight of its subject matter: for instance, Taboo also includes a sweeping history of race and eugenics, bashes the so-called East German "Sports Machine," and providing a historical overview of African-American men in sports history for those readers who have not read Arthur Ashe's more nuanced three-volume set, A Hard Road toGlory.

Entine neglects to comment on this material. When willing to speak openly, black and white athletes freely acknowledge what we intuitively suspect. But such anecdotes alone cannot resolve this controversy. Lewis's belief that he is a breed apart can be seen as either an expression of black pride or a simplistic stereotype so powerful that even successful blacks have come to recite a racist party line.

Even raising the subject of black athletic superiority brings angry rebukes from some quarters. William Rhoden, a distinguished African American columnist with the New York Times , derides it as "foolishness," a white "obsession," and an "unabashed racial feeding frenzy.

In this garbled translation, black success in sports is not a compliment, but a proxy for racism—a "genteel way to say nigger," in the cut-to-the-chase words of fellow Times columnist Bob Herbert. Herbert and Rhoden make an important point. The world's historical romance with slavery and the persistent misuses of racial science have served permanent notice of what can happen when an intellectual interest in human differences hardens into an obsession based on class, ethnicity, or race.

White fascination with black physicality has been part of a dark undercurrent since the first stirrings of colonialism.

In the minds of many, the notion of physical differences is tethered to racist stereotypes of an "animalistic" black nature and the implication that blacks are somehow intellectually inferior.

And we should not forget that though black athletes may dominate sports, blacks in general do not: the ownership and high-level management of every major sports franchise and the various leagues are still in white hands to the virtual exclusion of African Americans. Whiteness has come to symbolize political power, wealth, economic advancement, rationality, and civilized culture, whereas blackness is equated with the natural, sensuality, hyper-sexuality, musicality, laziness, intellectual deficiency, cultural pathology—and athleticism.

With some variation, these stereotypes hold true throughout much of the world. These deeply ingrained stereotypes help explain why the image of a raging Mike Tyson spitting out the torn piece of ear of his opponent stirred such personal reactions among both blacks and whites. In , Nicklaus was asked by a Canadian sports writer why there are so few blacks playing at the highest levels of golf. It was an innocent enough statement, whether true or not, yet it provoked an immediate storm and inevitable back-pedaling.

That is all I have said. Given all the controversy involved in addressing such a potentially divisive issue, it is worth asking why it even matters whether blacks are better athletes. It's a fair question and there isn't a short and simple answer.

Taboo does its best to understand both the question and the skeptics. As a necessary consequence, the book is self-referential: it grapples with the issue of whether it should have been written at all, considering America's troubling racial history. Those were delicate moments. Here we were, two prototypical "white men who couldn't jump," tackling a racial controversy that was certain to touch raw nerves.

Then as the broadcast got near, people came around very quietly and would say to me 'You're doing the right thing. Widely praised—the Denver Post , for example, applauded NBC "for its bold venture, for the willingness to tackle a sensitive subject