Women's pro basketball is 70 percent black. More than 60 percent of men's college basketball players are black, as are nearly 50 percent of college football players. While anyone can see that black players are over-represented at the top level of sport, the reasons for this phenomenon are obscure and generally unremarked upon. It almost seems bad form to notice that most of the competitors are dark-skinned. Instead, most explanations of the evident black superiority in sports concentrate on cultural and environmental factors.
Blacks are better at basketball because they put more emphasis on basketball.
The sport represents, for a great many young black men, a chance to escape the inner city. Because their opportunities in other areas are limited, the argument goes, blacks have a larger stake in basketball, so they play with more intensity than white kids who have more options. In turn, the success of blacks in basketball generates role models who both encourage black kids to pursue their dream and discourage white athletes who perceive that they may be at a disadvantage. We can subscribe to this theory of black dominance in sports without wondering whether black athletes are born with any genetic advantages. Any differences between populations are a result of cultural and environmental factors and not the result of genetic differences.