Is it wrong to note 100m winners are always black?

Not my headline or story, and there is no racial agenda. I post this purely because it interested the hell out of me:)

MelT


The conclusions that are drawn from black athletes dominating the 100m final go a long way to explaining attitudes in wider society, argues Matthew Syed.
The 100m final at the World Athletics Championships this weekend will be won by a black athlete.
Every winner of the 100m since the inaugural event in 1983 has been black, as has every finalist from the last 10 championships with the solitary exception of Matic Osovnikar of Slovenia, who finished seventh in 2007.
Assuming that this success is driven by genes rather than environment, there is a rather obvious inference to make - black people are naturally better sprinters than white people. Indeed, it is an inference that seems obligatory, barring considerations of political correctness.



Kenya has won an astonishing 63 medals at the Olympic Games in races of 800m and above, 21 of them gold, since 1968. Little wonder that one commentator once described distance running as "a Kenyan monopoly". But it turns out that it is not Kenya as a whole that usually wins these medals, but individuals from a tiny region in the Rift Valley called Nandi. As one writer put it: "Most of Kenya's runners call Nandi home."
Far from being a "black" phenomenon, or even a Kenyan phenomenon, distance running is actually a Nandi phenomenon. Or, to put it another way, "black" distance running success is focused on the tiniest of pinpricks on the map of Africa, with the vast majority of the continent underrepresented.

The same analysis applies to the sprints, where success is focused on Jamaicans and African-Americans. Africa, as a continent, has almost no success at all. Not even West Africans win much.



The combined forces of Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, the Republic of Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Togo, Niger, Benin, Mali, the Gambia, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Gabon, Senegal, Congo and Angola have not won a single sprinting medal at the Olympics or World Championships..."

I was told by an anthropology professor that African people have a very straight femur bone compared to other races. This allows them to sprint at higher speeds. He also mentioned that people of European descent have a slightly curved femur bone, which enables heavy lifting. i think this is why you see a lot white people in the strong man competitions.

I do not find anything wrong with noting these observations. There are quite a few genetic differences when it comes to different races. It only becomes racist when someone believes that another group is inferior because they are inherently less intelligent.

Science is science. It's racism when gross generalisations are being used to draw false conclusions about a race out of ignorance, which are then used slanderously.

black people have more muscle fibers on average. Its just how it is.

Its due in part to the fact that we bred them to be the strongest, best workers.

Think of it as reparations

and The long distance advantage comes from living in africa. Extreme conditions of heat and elevation in certain parts lead to populations with more red blood cells and more sweat glands as well as the gene for more slow twitch muscles.

Edited by Brenjin, 27 August 2011 - 04:18 PM.

I think most of you are missing the point of the OP. It is not saying that "black people are great runners"...it is saying that there is a small, relatively isolated population in Africa that consistently produces good runners whether for cultural or genetic reasons.

It's very very hard to make scientific claims based on race that are at all accurate. The racial divisions that we use are entirely artificial and, in fact, vary from country to country and sometimes even from region to region. Since there's no real scientific way to make these divisions, they are all pulled out of thin air. How can we do research on groups that don't even actually exist?

The simple fact of the matter is that, with very few exceptions (such as predisposition to melanic disorders like sickle cell anemia,) skin color alone tells us very little about your genes. Phenotype cannot be used to predict genotype. Everyone on the planet has genes from around the world and you can prove it by tracing lineage through mitochondrial DNA.

There is no firm reason to anticipate that peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. It's very taboo to discuss this, however.

But they still can't think their way out of a wet paper bag.

Fuckin' racist I can't believe this. Really... I love how you can't even mention another race (esp. black people) without somebody seriously considering you as a racist.

On a serious note, I think we can take a look at most sports and see black people have a clear genetic advantage.

That just means whitey has to work harder. Granted if blacky works as hard as whitey he'll probably be better... but life ain't fair.

I'm just waiting on genetic engineering. Then we can fix this lil problem.

There is no firm reason to anticipate that peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. It's very taboo to discuss this, however.

They weren't that geographically separated for the vast majority of human evolutionary history though so that's kind of a moot point.

They weren't that geographically separated for the vast majority of human evolutionary history though so that's kind of a moot point.

and yet there are certain groups of people living 10,000 ft above sea level which is an elevation so high that anyone from the outside coming it will get sick from it.

how long do you think it takes for change to occur?

I wonder if they are being forced or "trained" when they are very young.. like mini "death camp" running farms for kids? *ponders the thought*.. *bubble bubble*.. yes I believe we need to send the Olympic Investigation Committee to check the athletes "conditions". Then, we can film that and create a new investigation sitcom that will get maybe two seasons before being forgotten.. just sayin

and yet there are certain groups of people living 10,000 ft above sea level which is an elevation so high that anyone from the outside coming it will get sick from it.

how long do you think it takes for change to occur?

Right. I'm not saying there are no relatively isolated populations. That's exactly what the OP is describing - an isolated population that produces a lot of abnormally fast people.

I know why black people run so fast - it's because they're knee grows!

I love you guys!

That's about as far as you can get outrunning a slave master's horse. Sounds about right.

Jokes.

lol...I remember when Jimmy the Greek lost his career when he was commentating on a football game and said that black people had an advantage because 'the muscles of the black man go up into the back' or some shit like that..haha...guess he shouldve kept that theory to himself..lulz

I believe race is real. Race is human beings branching off and evolving.

I believe race is real. Race is human beings branching off and evolving.

You're missing the point. Obviously there are real phenotypic differences between people. What I'm saying is that racial categories are purely social constructions. Furthermore, a "category" based on race is NOT the same as a category based on genetics since there is such wide genetic variation even between people who are supposedly the same race.

"Is it wrong to note 100m winners are always black?"

No, I wouldn't say that is racist at all...


I don't know if it's because I grew up in the liberal Pacific North West or what, but race is pretty much a non-issue to me.

Some people will call you racist if you so much as point out that someone was black/mexican/arab/etc.

It's absurd. It's no different to me than pointing out that someone wore glasses or had brown hair. You're just giving a description.

To me, it's not racist until you actually start hating on a specific group of people just because of their skin color.

Mentioning someones race is not racist. Saying "black people are better at ____", "white people are better at ____", "Asian people are better at ____" is not racist.


Racism is bad, obviously. But being too far anti-racism to the point where no one can even mention race as a descriptive feature without being called racist is just as absurd to me.

Mentioning someones race is not racist. Saying "black people are better at ____", "white people are better at ____", "Asian people are better at ____" is not racist.

No, it's not necessarily racist. It's not at all scientifically accurate either, though.

The difference between saying "The best runners are black" and "Black people are better at running" might seem subtle but it's a very important one. The first is an empirically verifiable claim, the second is not.

Skin color is a spectrum. The way it is divided into "races" is a matter of culture, not science. Don't believe me? Look at Brazil's racial system. On top of that, the second claim is essentially hypothesizing that the particular genes that code for skin color are linked to those that code for height, muscle formation, etc. This is an idea that was proven to be false a looooooonnnnggggg time ago. And on top of THAT, the second claim is a blanket claim. The problems with that should be immediately apparent as, obviously there are a great many runners of different races that would be better than let's say 99.9% of the black population.

The first claim (which does seem to be a reality) can be explained scientifically and, again, that is what the OP is trying to do. The second one simply cannot. Is it racist? No, not if it is sincere ignorance about the way that science/logic works. If, however, such a claim is made with an ulterior motive then yes of course it is racist.

What are you really seeing here? Relatively isolated populations with a whole slew of characteristics (both sociocultural and physiological) that we could choose to pinpoint and study. Skin color need not be the only one.

Edited by Meursault, 29 August 2011 - 04:09 PM.

^^^ As far as your first bit, I think you're referring more to the fallacy of saying being black makes you a better runner or that they are better runners because they are black. Saying that all of the good runners are black or that the black people are best at running is still merely a correlation and doesn't really imply causation, you know?