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In the 1930s the majority of basketball players were Jews. So, race has little to do with sports performance at least in basketball.

YeGoblynQueenne 11y ago
Not to mention, African Americans play a lot of basketball because Americans in general play (or view) a lot of basketball. In Europe, say, Africans play a lot of football. But there's also just as many whites who do- so are African Americans only endowed with the kind of genetics that help them play good basketball? Or are Africans in general endowed with good _basketball_ genetics, but not good _football_ genetics? And what about European basketball? Why are basketball teams in Europe not predominantly African American? [Where "football" read "soccer" if you're on the other side of the pond, please]
- whitegrape 11y ago
  Surprise, there are actually more diverse sets of black people than "African", each with their own biological diversity. African-Americans (that is, blacks in America who can trace their ancestors to the southern slaves) overwhelming come from a specific part of Africa, and those Africans are quite different from Africans elsewhere on the continent. You even have race wars among different ethnic groups of Africans! (See Rwanda for a particularly gruesome example.) So some African subgroups are actually better at different athletic traits -- not all can jump like African-Americans, but then again not all can sprint like another group, or run for very long distances like yet another group -- just as not all White people are actually as intelligent on average as the British. Human biological diversity is pretty rich and varied, it's just unfortunate that the thing that matters most in modern society (intelligence) correlates as well as it does with such general and otherwise not very telling traits like skin color.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Rwanda is a lovely example: an "ethnic conflict" created by Belgian colonialism.

YeGoblynQueenne 11y ago

Not to mention, African Americans play a lot of basketball because Americans in general play (or view) a lot of basketball. In Europe, say, Africans play a lot of football. But there's also just as many whites who do- so are African Americans only endowed with the kind of genetics that help them play good basketball? Or are Africans in general endowed with good _basketball_ genetics, but not good _football_ genetics? And what about European basketball? Why are basketball teams in Europe not predominantly African American? [Where "football" read "soccer" if you're on the other side of the pond, please]

whitegrape 11y ago
Surprise, there are actually more diverse sets of black people than "African", each with their own biological diversity. African-Americans (that is, blacks in America who can trace their ancestors to the southern slaves) overwhelming come from a specific part of Africa, and those Africans are quite different from Africans elsewhere on the continent. You even have race wars among different ethnic groups of Africans! (See Rwanda for a particularly gruesome example.) So some African subgroups are actually better at different athletic traits -- not all can jump like African-Americans, but then again not all can sprint like another group, or run for very long distances like yet another group -- just as not all White people are actually as intelligent on average as the British. Human biological diversity is pretty rich and varied, it's just unfortunate that the thing that matters most in modern society (intelligence) correlates as well as it does with such general and otherwise not very telling traits like skin color.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Rwanda is a lovely example: an "ethnic conflict" created by Belgian colonialism.