July 25, 2012
"Slave genes" myth must die
Amy Bass in Salon:
In 1988, Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder (in)famously stated that the prowess of African-American football players could be traced to slavery, saying “the black is a better athlete to begin with because he’s been bred to be that way … [They] jump higher and run faster.” The reaction to such obviously racist remarks was fast and furious: Amid the uproar, CBS Sports fired him. So when Olympic gold medalist Michael Johnson predicted this month that African-American and West Indian track athletes would dominate the London Olympics because of the genes of their slave ancestors, I paid little attention, thinking there was no way this could become a viable conversation yet again. “All my life I believed I became an athlete through my own determination, but it’s impossible to think that being descended from slaves hasn’t left an imprint through the generations,” Johnson told the Daily Mail. “Difficult as it was to hear, slavery has benefited descendants like me –- I believe there is a superior athletic gene in us.”
As a historian, what I find to be stunning about what he said is the claim that the supremacy of black athletes in track had never “been discussed openly before.” Actually, with his words, Johnson plunged himself into a century-old debate that seems to rear its (rather ugly) head every four years, just in time for the opening of sport’s largest global stage. Johnson supported his theory with the example of the men’s 100m final at the Beijing Olympics: Three of the eight finalists came from Jamaica, including record-breaking winner Usain Bolt, and two from Trinidad; African-Americans Walter Dix and Doc Patton and Dutch sprinter Churandy Martina, who hails from Curacao, rounded out the line.
Read the rest here.
Posted by Zujaja Tauqeer at 09:28 AM | Permalink
Comments
keep talking about it like this and it wont die.
Posted by: ed rackley | Jul 25, 2012 2:22:03 PM
Rather than get into knee-jerk reactive arguments about racism, why not look at whether the evidence supports the hypothesis?
Many of the fastest runners in the world are black. But most of these are not african-americans, most of them have no connection to the 'selective breeding' referred to in the article.
The fatest runners seem to come from Kenya and Ethiopia, and of those, almost all of the fastest Kenyans come from a very small region, and one tribe, the Kalenjin.
So the argument that slavery bred good athletes is unproven.
More likely is that some people of african origin may have a few genetic superiorities over those of, say, caucasian origin, when it comes to athletic prowess.
Posted by: soubriquet | Jul 25, 2012 3:09:04 PM
A few different points:
1) I suspect the slavery argument is broken:
1.1) It's not obvious why either the middle passage or being enslaved should boost *specifically* running speed in short sprints, as opposed to ability to weightlift or box or swim or count cards. Hell, a completely different people dominate -long- distance running.
1.2) Regression to the mean.
2) Michael Johnson's article was quite cromulent, at least I can't see anything immoral about it. I don't see what's gained by calling it "scientific racism." The Salon piece instead was the worst kind of arguing backwards from supposed consequence.
3) Expanding on 1.1) people from different places often dominate different sporting events. There's a lot besides biology going on - history, cultural traditions, alternative avenues for progress, coaching and state support etc. But there's no obvious reason to think genes don't play any role in explaining these things. People from different places have different distributions of body type and height and musculature and what have you. Why assume everything else can matter but not that? It's very hard for me to understand even conceptually what the mechanism for making all peoples equally good weightlifters or gymnasts or runners or whatever is supposed to be. Can't genetic differences even be skin deep, once we happen to care about particular superficial traits?
Posted by: prasad | Jul 25, 2012 3:21:41 PM
The article is, of course, about culture politics, not science. But in case anyone is interested in a scientific view of racial differences (they obviously exist to SOME extent...even liberals accept that Africans look different from Europeans; where does that difference come from if not from our genes? this is not accept the slavery hypothesis or any such thing, just the fact that various population groups may indeed differ in some statistically significant manner and those differences arise from a difference in the prevalence of various genetic variants), check this out: http://www.amacad.org/publications/winter2002/Crow.pdf
Posted by: omar | Jul 25, 2012 4:36:31 PM
If every individual has equal opportunity and results are based on merit then there is no discrimination even if genes played a part in the outcome. To guarantee equality in results as well would be discriminatory as it would mean suppression of an individuals ability. It is therefore necessary and sufficient for a society to be non discriminatory to provide equal opportunity. Unfortunately, individuals face advantage / disadvantage by the economic class they are born and other discriminatory attitudes prevalent in society.
Posted by: Raza | Jul 25, 2012 9:43:48 PM
This article is simply atrocious. Atrociously written and atrociously argued. I must say I'm surprised at 3QD, normally excellent at sorting the blogosphere wheat from the chaff. It does 3QD's left-wing and sharp anti-racism and colonialism credentials no credit by linking to the extremely ill-informed wing of the liberal faction.
Posted by: Oholibamah | Jul 26, 2012 7:13:56 AM
I suspect it slipped through because absolute absence of genetic differences between various human population groups is something of a liberal article of faith.
for a reasonable scientific view, see http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/01/race-current-consensus.php
I can still see why people would want to deny racial differences (as currently defined in everyday life, many, and probably most racial ideas are likely to be wrong...thats just my guess, but anecdotal experience suggests that many dearly held racial stereotypes did indeed turn out to be wrong, so the default assumption of no difference may be a useful corrective...but is also likely to be wrong in detail
A somewhat more polemical but scientifically accurate view from conservative blogger Razib Khan http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2012/02/jerry-coyne-on-race-a-reflection-of-evolution/
PS: would you read Razib's post differently if I said "Bangladeshi-American blogger Razib Khan"? just curious..
Posted by: omar | Jul 27, 2012 1:52:02 AM
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