On one side are those who say race is an oppressive social construct created to explain trivial differences between people of dissimilar skin pigment. These well-meaning people worry, as one scribe wrote, what will happen to the brotherhood of man when some brothers can run faster than others. It's time, these scholars say, to stop denying science and start truly celebrating diversity. Some of Entine's critics flat-out disagree with his findings. They argue that Taboo doesn't prove that black athletes owe their success to genes, rather than individual drive.
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Only bad things can come from research into racially based differences in sports performance. Sociologist Harry Edwards, the man who engineered the Black Power protest at the 1968 Olympics, once explained why the topic of black physicality is so incendiary. It opens the door for at least an informal acceptance of the idea that whites are intellectually superior to blacks. Some say Entine has blown that door off its hinges. Jon's thesis doesn't threaten white racism.