From: gary@ccs.northeastern.edu (Gary Duhaney)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.basketball.pro
Subject: Re: Debunking the standard myth was Re: Couple of thoughts..
Date: 20 Aug 92 02:27:25 GMT
Article-I.D.: random.1992Aug20.022725.19856
Organization: Comp. Sci. @ NU

In article <1992Aug18.162616.1708@tc.fluke.COM> tron@tc.fluke.COM (Peter Barbee) writes:
>I have two thoughts (OK, maybe three) about this whole topic;
>
>1) why wouldn't some races (and this is defining race more narrowly
>than simply black, white, or asian) have different "athletic bell
>curves"?  I mean there are obvious visible differences between races
>why shouldn't there be non-visible differences?

What exactly is narrow?

Like I said before, there aren't that many differences between the
"races", the majority of the differences are between ethnic groups.
Quite a few differences that are spoken about are often racial
stereotypes that get blown way out of proportion, stereotypes that
often fit some ethnic groups not the entire racial group.  What
I've always found funny is that with the amount of whites who
don't have blond hair (and no, that funky yellow tinge isn't blond
it's brown hair with a funky yellow tinge, so stop dreaming) and
blue eyes, how did this become the symbol for beauty.

But anyway.

>Why wouldn't some races (and this is defining race
>more narrowly than simply black, white, or asian) have different
>"athletic bell curves"?

Well lets say Mongoloid, Negroid, and Caucasoid.  Each of these
"races" have a lot of different ethnic characteristics that make
them different from members of that "racial" group.  i.e. Most
whites lack one or more of the following, white skin (Aborigines)
blond hair, blue eyes etc. That is however supposed to be the ideal
of beauty.  So to say everyone in one "race" (100's millions of people
living in different places whose ancestors have had many different
stimuli) has the same characteristic often is tantamount racism.
It's often used to express the racial biases of the speaker.

Another example, all blacks are supposed to have extremely large
noses, when the fact is that though most blacks probably don't have
button noses, if one were to really look, one would see that the
average black hasn't a nose any larger than the average white.
Take a look from the sides not just the front.

>
>2) am I alone in thinking that if we compiled every NBA player's
>standing jump reach and then created a distribution curve by race
>the curve for blacks would be different than the curve for whites?

Probably not a significant difference.  Most of the players in the
NBA (black and White) arent better leapers than the average non-NBA
player.  But even if there were a significant difference, what does
it really say.  That the NBA really represent America, NO.  People
who start talking about this forget that not only does basketball
involve many more skills, it's also the cream of the crop that
is playing, not the average person.  It's not representative of
Americans at all, far too few people.  Which do you think is
more representative of any racial group 1 person or 1 million.

>But remember this might be due to social prejudice as much as racial
>differences (similar to the lack of black NFL qbs).
>
>3) It is difficult to consider differences without ranking those
>differences.  But it is not defacto racism to ponder the existence
>of racial differences.  

Nuclear technology is not bad, it's the way its used (Bombs).

The problem is the way people come up with these racial differences
and then apply them to all, who are of that race.  Often when
people have decided upon these differences (even those that seem
benign such as jumping ability) they use them to make negative
comments about that particular group.

For example, based on the blacks are faster and better jumpers, an
idea that comes about in order to explain why blacks dominate certain
sports (excluding more intelligent reasons), one person came to the
oppinion that since blacks are such, whites learn the game of bball
better, work harder etc.  One guy said that technically
blacks work hard at the game and learn how to play.  In other words
they are faking it, its really the skin color and resultant jumping
ability.  Some people have given a study that says that West African
runners have a greater amount of fast twitch muscles than French
Canadian whites, then took that study and applied it to everyone
black.  From this kind of thinking, like I said before one could
take the Nazi/European(slaves)/American Forefather (Native Americans)
/Serbians(Muslims) and then make the assertion that all whites are
racist genocidal maniacs who have to go on killing sprees every
now and then.  Heck add George Bush, it'll solidify the statement.
It's the same kind of logical leap.

Look how they have explained why blacks arent succeeding in America
their lazy and brainless.  Quite a few blacks have proven that the
latter is false.  As to how blacks went from doing all the physical
work to lazy is beyond me.

In order to explain why blacks dominate some sport, these ideas
have come about, I can only imagine how far they'll take this.
You can also come up with all the other stereotypes from this one.
>
>Peter B