Dave's Show Today

[thome]

I was listening today and Dave bought up the Most Boring controversy
that I am so sick of hearin about:For the Quintillionth time!!!!

The Jimmy the DORK Greeks Manifesto" Blacks were bred biggest Buck to the Stongest Black Bitch female that's why they are great in the Sports".F,O,&,D!

and then Animal goes yes it's true......... BULLSH!!!!T

I am Daves biggest fan but is this just a tool to instigate controversy
to hold listeners.? I am so sick of the Race Card being used as a tool
to stimulate anger and produce non interesting disscution..Grrrrr

White, Black, Green, Yellow, Purple ,its all BS.A lot of people never get a chance to excell in sports that also --SUK COMPLETELY AT IT-- and guess--------- WHAT---------- THEY ARE BLACK!!

Yes folks its true some black people can't even figure out wich part
of a basket ball it the working side ...GRRRRRRR

I have never understood one race being superior of another at anything ,I don't believe it and anyone who does is absolutely
WRONG!

So Dave, it's just a minute out of your life tomorow will be diff/ yesterday was diff/ I still Love Ya! but i would like to take this moment to point out to you that you have chosen this partcular time to completely embarass youself once again.Or whatever he sais..LOL

This was and is the stupidest Idea of a Thought in the history of
mankind ..Thank you for listening... any coments welcome....

[perticelli]

Well, I completely disagree with you.
I think it was a great topic and had a great response from listeners. I think this show could prove to be a small turning point for Dave. This show was well done from beginning to end, Dave was really on his game, host wise and led a great series of discussions.
and the team sounds like they are starting to gel a bit.
i would argue that if DLR continues down this type of performance path like today, he will do very well.
I'm still wanting him to take 3 months off for an album/tour with the Bros., but i'll take what i can get.

[Hardrock69]

Well, the main thing is that the "theory" was discussed.

Sure the theory (stupid as it is) is controversial, however the point is that it IS stupid, and I am reasonably sure that is why it was discussed...to demonstrate the stupidity of it.

Good for Dave.

[perticelli]

can it be stupid AND true?

[thome]

It's a embolism of stupidity placed as written in stone truth

The alpha and omega -Blacks are superior at sports- ..Bullsh!t
because of some white man breeding teqnique.BullSh!T!

It takes all the hard work sweat and striveing for perfection away from
the person who has achieved his goal or place in the hall of fame.

I am in the hall of fame due soley to white man breeding techniques

BULLSHIT !!!!!!!!!!!

It's opression of the first degree!The greek should be dug up and hanged.

No he should not have that done that's wrong he should be looked on with pity and treated as tho he was mentaly disabled and so should
anyone who believes such BullSH!T

[perticelli]

Originally posted by thome
It's a embolism of stupidity placed as written in stone truth

The alpha and omega -Blacks are superior at sports- ..Bullsh!t
because of some white man breeding teqnique.BullSh!T!

It takes all the hard work sweat and striveing for perfection away from
the person who has achieved his goal or place in the hall of fame.

I am in the hall of fame due soley to white man breeding techniques

BULLSHIT !!!!!!!!!!!

It's opression of the first degree!The greek should be dug up and hanged.

No he should not have that done that's wrong he should be looked on with pity and treated as tho he was mentaly disabled and so should
anyone who believes such BullSH!T

Wow, that's about as shortsighted as your original posit.
Noone said that black's in the hall of Fame owed it to white breeding techniques.
Fact: Blacks and whites have different muscle structure
Fact: The difference of structure is of the kind that favors physical strength activity
Fact: White slave owners bred the biggest of their slaves in hopes of creating stronger workers.

Put it together. it's not a cut on anyone, its just science.
Are you saying we cant talk about science in cases that are racial specific?

[thome]

Originally posted by perticelli
Wow, that's about as shortsighted as your original posit.
Noone said that black's in the hall of Fame owed it to white breeding techniques.
Fact: Blacks and whites have different muscle structure
Fact: The difference of structure is of the kind that favors physical strength activity
Fact: White slave owners bred the biggest of their slaves in hopes of creating stronger workers.

Put it together. it's not a cut on anyone, its just science.
Are you saying we cant talk about science in cases that are racial specific?

Ok I'm shortsighted. If you theoretically took two people
Exact clones one played sports and was great the other sat in a corner
till he wasted away.
now tell me is breeding as important as the will to better ones self
to strive sweat and work at it.?

[fatmanwalking]

Lets think about this rationally.

When humans are given power over any animal species do they tend to breed them for certain traits? Yes. Horses, cows, birds, fish, dogs, cats, whatever. Who is to say that slave owners did not do this? Hell Hitler was doing this with the German people in the 30's.

Also look at African Americans vs their cousins in Africa. Different body type. The ones in Africa are skinnier and less robust. Granted some of that is diet but they are shorter and narrower. You can't account all of it to white sperm.

[perticelli]

Originally posted by thome
Ok I'm shortsighted. If you theoretically took two people
Exact clones one played sports and was great the other sat in a corner
till he wasted away.
now tell me is breeding as important as the will to better ones self
to strive sweat and work at it.?

This isnt a pissing contest, nor a value judgement. It's simply a genetic question.
In your scenario, you dont differentiate between the two subjects, other than they are clones..Are they white? chinese? black?
Are they from n. america or africa or asia?
and on and on. yes, in my view, 'will' plays a huge role in someone achieving their goals, especially physical ones.

And this is a physical question..so if you had clones..they would have the identical genetics. If one of them had the physical ability to achieve greatness in sports, theoretically, the other would have the 'ability'. Ability does not outcome make...

[thome]

If a white guy- repeat this scenario for every race creed and color.

Throws a rock thru a hole in a tree, all do it, how is one said to be
naturally better than the other..?

Saying one race is better as a whole at anything is confining that race
to a stereotype.

The greeks theory to be proven as fact all blacks would be clones of each other, its a generalization of a lie.

My op is all people are capable of all things. but a crippled person
may be limited. The greeks BS sais because hes a black cripple
he is still a better athlete than the Asian dude who has no infirmities..?

maybe i am generalizing but i feel that the greeks statement has
destructive overtones that black athletes owe thier sucsess to
there white slave masters.

As in a black from africa is substandard to a american black in his
ability to be gracefull and sublime.

[diamondsgirl]

I thought it was a good topic to spark conversation, controversy, and debate but it was a little too obvious thats was what he was doing.

I was embarrassed FOR Dave when he was getting confused with what was "racist" and what was "sexist". It was like he was saying that women were a different race than men.

Maybe he was trying to be funny???? He failed at it, IMO and sounded ignorant.

Anyway...Dave is only human and like all of my favorite people in the world...I don't agree with everything but do enjoy listening just the same.

Roth on...

[rustoffa]

Originally posted by fatmanwalking
Lets think about this rationally.

When humans are given power over any animal species do they tend to breed them for certain traits? Yes. Horses, cows, birds, fish, dogs, cats, whatever.

I'm all about rationality. Fuck, I might sticky this if somebody floats to the top.

I didn't hear the particular show, my gut reaction is Dave reached for a disco loop when he meant to grab a book on inbreeding depression.

Inbreeding depression? Who the fuck mentioned that?

Inbreeding depression is the negative result of breeding for an isolated trait, over the course of time.

Think x-pensive race horses. Those motherfuckers' can fly like the wind....that's about it. Tie 'em to a carriage? There goes a shoulder.

Cows? Steroids. Not unlike the svelt race horses. Bessie exists' on small familyatures.

Fish? Check the hormone content of your salmon steak.

Birds? I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess your paralleling 'roids in the chicken breasts' to the bazongas on 13 year old chicks.

Speak to this. (there's all kindsa room)

Go.

[perticelli]

Originally posted by thome
If a white guy- repeat this scenario for every race creed and color.

Throws a rock thru a hole in a tree, all do it, how is one said to be
naturally better than the other..?

Saying one race is better as a whole at anything is confining that race
to a stereotype.

The greeks theory to be proven as fact all blacks would be clones of each other, its a generalization of a lie.

My op is all people are capable of all things. but a crippled person
may be limited. The greeks BS sais because hes a black cripple
he is still a better athlete than the Asian dude who has no infirmities..?

maybe i am generalizing but i feel that the greeks statement has
destructive overtones that black athletes owe thier sucsess to
there white slave masters.

As in a black from africa is substandard to a american black in his
ability to be gracefull and sublime.

My take is that the reason people DONT have this discussion, and the reason most people are PC is because they can only view it from the filter of a value statement or judgement. This is NOT a value judgement..noone is saying blacks or whites or russians or asians are "better" people, or "superior" as an infinite value.

The scenario goes like this:
There is a phenomena we dont neccessarily understand, but see.
In this case, the subject was sports.
We SEE that in the majority of major sports in this country, football,basketball,baseball, there is a trend that isnt created, but real. Black athletes dominate those sports and make up the overwhelming majority of the superstars. This isnt MY view, it just is the reality.
So it's then natural to ask: Why is that? Not in an attempt to devalue anyone, but to scientifically ask if there is a reason.
Well, then all the theories can come to the table and can be discussed.

Jimmy the Greek decided that sports, in general, are a physically-dominated activity and he saw that black athletes were dominating.
So he asked himself why that might be..he was a bookmaker and any edge he could redeem could mean the difference between paying out millions to making millions.
I dont know if his theory was his original thought or not, but what he said was at least logical.

You know a bird can fly because it has wings and that their bones are hollow.
You know that a sparrow can fly faster than a crow because its "tools" are designed for speed and those traits helped them survive and are genetically preserved in their DNA.
This doesnt say a sparrow is better than a crow or that sparrows owe their speed to the lack of those traits in others.

Noone is saying that the black athlete is a 'better' person or a worse person.. Noone is saying that black athletes dont have to try as hard as others to succeed. What they are saying is that the reason, or one of the reasons, the black athlete dominates in these physically dominat sports is due to their different physical makeup..the structure and layout of muscles, the efficiency of the body to intake O2 and convert it into the neccessary ingredients to keep the body at a higher level of performance and so on. To put it another way, it follows that blacks have a superior physical 'potential' in these activities, and while we all know potential is not automatically translated into success, it certainly is an indication of superior ability if subjected to all of the proper preparation.

As to steroids and such, i think the example holds. If you were to take a white man and a black man, put em both on the same steroids and put them through the same training and so on and then put them on a track for a 100 yd dash, this theory says the black athlete will win more often than not, due to his superior ,genetic-physical makeup for this activity.
Did you know that the 10 second barrier in the 100 hundred yd dash has been broken over 300 times?
How many of those 300 + times was it broken by white, or non-african-american-descent runners?

[Polk High]

Well how does being faster make someone a better athelete. I've known people that were 3 times faster then me yet I dominated them in basketball cause I was stronger and more athletic skill in basketball.

[Faquar]

tome: I see your sociological reasoning but nothing scientific. Or is your beef with the Greek's slave-breed assertion?

"...the first black man to become an international tennis star, Arthur Ashe, once said: "The results are outstanding, nothing short of stellar. Sociology can't explain it. I want to hear from the scientists. Until I see some numbers (to the contrary), I have to believe that we blacks have something that gives us an edge.... My heart says no, but my head says yes.""

My observation at the gym that blacks generally have more defined muscles than any other group is wrong? Am I a racist?

[thome]

The next thing you are going to tell me is you don't like black women
until their ass swells and turns red like a baboons.

The Black man does not have a different muscle structure than any other person who has ever existed on this planet since time itself.

Your case would say that a fat man has a bigger gut due to the fact
that he is of a different species GET OFF IT!

the greeks tool is a tool of separating the Black man from humanity

Tiger won the masters i guess we will have Fried Chicken at the banquet this year!

People can be bred like animals but unlike animals i believe humans
reason- MORE- than animals reason yet the animals still differentiate between poison plants and healthy eating ones.

I am a expert at the human condition as far as my 45 yrs allow me
and to say Blacks or any Race as a whole is superior is bullsh!t.

The american Indians CHOSE not to develope into a industrial society
they enjoyed the simple complications of living a traveling with the seasons stlye of existance your theory(the Greeks) would say they were incapeable of two dimentional thought.and were of a diff species than human.

I see Blacks against Whites and other Races in all sports, and one guy may FEEL stronger one day but the next day the other guy blows his fukkin doors off.

[Seshmeister]

Originally posted by thome
The Black man does not have a different muscle structure than any other person who has ever existed on this planet since time itself.

Wow that's really ignorant.

[thome]

Originally posted by Seshmeister
Wow that's really ignorant.

esplain yourself to simple a answer, oh blacks have longer tendons
in thier heels and bigger glutes for jumping and what else

i guess white folks dont have glutes or tendons damn the luck?

[Faquar]

Originally posted by Seshmeister
Wow that's really ignorant.

Wow... it really is. Do some research on kinesiology. ("Fast-twitch" muscles?).

Didn't say I agreed w/the Greek.

[Seshmeister]

Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid To Talk About It

by Jon Entine, website:http://www.jonentine.com
published on May 10, 2005

http://www.blackathletesportsnetwork...cle_0686.shtml



AGOURA HILLS, CA — It’s Kenya’s national sport, the passion of the masses. Little boys dream that one day, they might soak up the cheers of the adoring fans that regularly crowd National Stadium in Nairobi. Coaches comb the countryside to find the next generation of potential stars. The most promising are sponsored at special schools. It’s not an exaggeration to call Kenya’s national sport a kind of national religion.

According to conventional wisdom, this is the sure cultural explanation for the phenomenal success of Kenyan distance runners. Kenya, with but 28 million people, holds more than one third of top times in distance races. Including top performances by other East Africans, that domination swells to 50 percent.

Only one problem: the national sport, the hero worship, the adoring fans, the social channeling -- that all speaks to Kenya’s enduring love affair with, not running, but soccer. Despite the enormous success of Kenyan runners, running remains a relative afterthought in this soccer-crazed nation. Unfortunately, Kenyans are among the world’s worst soccer players. Countries in West Africa, home of the last two Olympic gold medal winners, Cameroon and Nigeria, regularly trounce all East African countries, including Kenya. East Africans are also lousy sprinters, which depends on quickness. Indeed, the fastest Kenyan 100-meter time, 10.28, is a half second slower than the best times of West African descended athletes.

What’s going on here? Why is every running record, from the 100 to the 400 meters held by an athlete of West African ancestry, while North and East Africans dominate the longer distances?

The convenient explanation for the tepid performance of Asians and whites in running, and whites in basketball, and increasingly football, is that blacks just work harder at it, in part to escape sometimes desperate poverty. That’s dubious -- and maybe racist. Do cultural factors matter? Of course. There are no Texans, white, black or Latin, starring in the National Hockey League. But claims that blacks succeed for cultural reasons cheapens the reality that sports achievement is all about individual accomplishment -- fire in the belly, hard work, courage, and serendipity. Consider Michael Jordan, who grew up in the security of a two-parent home in comfortable circumstances. Or Grant Hill, son of a Yale-educated father and a Wellesley graduate. Or one of the world’s top sprinters, Canada’s Donovan Bailey, who was certainly not motivated by a desperate need to escape destitution -- he already owned his own house and a Porsche -- and traded life as a successful stockbroker to pursue his dream of Olympic gold.

More and more top black athletes are from the middle-class. Moreover, as I document in my book Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk About It, the black sports tradition in America is firmly rooted in the scholar athlete tradition; almost all of the great runners, football stars, baseball players, race walkers, and bicyclers, at the turn of the century, were from top universities, usually the Ivy Leagues or Midwest state schools. The classic argument that blacks succeed in sports to escape poverty is less and less plausible and increasingly racist every day.

No amount of political correctness can obscure the reality that the Kenyans’ mediocre success in soccer (and sprinting) comes down to genetics. They are ectomorphs, short and slender, with huge natural lung capacity and a preponderance of slow twitch muscles, the energy system for endurance sports. It’s a perfect biomechanical package for distance running, but a disaster for sports that require anaerobic bursts of speed.

“The Kenyans are born with a high number of slow twitch fibers,” states Bengt Saltin, director of the Copenhagen Muscle Research Institute and author of a September Scientific American article on why athletes are more “born” than “made.” East Africans “have 70 to 75 percent of their muscle fibers being slow... Very many in sports physiology would like to believe that it is training, the environment, what you eat that plays the most important role. But we argue based on the data that it is ‘in your genes’ whether or not you are talented or whether you will become talented. … There is no question about that. The extent of the environment can always be discussed, but it’s less than 20, 25 percent. It’s definitely a dominant factor, [that is to say,] how they are born.”

Of course, neither culture nor genes alone determines who will become great athletes. It’s biocultural. Taboo documents the wholly uncontroversial fact that different body types have evolved in differing environments over thousands of years: Inuit Indians (Eskimos), biologically programmed to be short to conserve body heat, do not produce NBA centers after relocating to southern Florida. Genetically linked, highly heritable characteristics, such as skeletal structure, muscle fiber types, reflex capabilities, metabolic efficiency, and lung capacity, are not evenly distributed among populations and cannot be explained by known environmental factors.

"Differences among athletes of elite caliber are so small," notes Robert Malina, Michigan State anthropologist and editor of the Journal of Human Biology, "that if you have a physique or the ability to fire muscle fibers more efficiently that might be genetically based ... it might be very, very significant. The fraction of a second is the difference between the gold medal and fourth place." Genetically based, anatomical differences help explain why athletes of primarily West African ancestry hold 97 percent of top sprint times, including 494 of the top 500 100-meter times, yet are not very good at endurance sports, which requires a much different physiology.

The body type of whites falls in between West African descended and East African athletes. They have more natural upper-body strength, which contributes to their domination of weightlifting, field events such as the shot put and hammer (whites hold 46 of the top 50 throws), and the offensive line in football. Where flexibility is key, East Asians shine, such as in diving and some skating and gymnastic events -- hence the term “Chinese splits.”

Why do we so readily accept that evolution has turned out blacks with a genetic proclivity to contract sickle cell, Jews of European heritage who are one hundred times more likely than other groups to fall victim to the degenerative mental disease, Tay-Sachs, and whites who are most vulnerable to cystic fibrosis, yet find it racist to acknowledge that blacks of West African ancestry have evolved into the world's best sprinters and East Asians, the best divers?

Genes circumscribe possibility. "I believe that we need to look at the causes of differences in athletic performance between races as legitimately as we do when we study differences in diseases between the various races,” notes Claude Bouchard, geneticist and director of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University. “I have always worked with the hypothesis that ignorance fosters prejudice. [Critical inquiry] is the greatest safeguard against prejudice."

Indeed, if we do not welcome the impending genetic revolution with open minds, if we are scared to ask and to answer difficult questions, if we lose faith in science, then there is no winner. We all lose. The question is no longer whether genetic research will continue but to what end. "If decent people don't discuss human biodiversity," writes George Mason professor Walter Williams, who is black, "we concede the turf to black and white racists."



Jon Entine, author of Taboo, is a National Press Club and Emmy-award winning journalist formerly with ABC and NBC News.

Copyright 2005, BlackAthlete Sports Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved

[Seshmeister]

Speed Demons
The Domination of Sport by Blacks
By Jose Antonio, PhD and Chris Street, MS


The Myth of Black and White Athletic Equality

http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle.do?article=5speed

It is apparent to most of us that there are profound differences between individuals when it comes to academic, professional, or athletic performance. In fact, it's so obvious that we expect someone to be the tallest, shortest, smartest, fastest, or dumbest within any group of people. Your experience in grade school through college made it apparent that not all of us could make the dean's list much less play on a Division I football team. Some people just don't have the tools.

Why then do people assume that all groups of people (i.e. races, ethnicities, etc.) have the same talents and capacities? Certainly, this country was founded on the belief that all men (and presumably women) were created equally? Was it not? The Declaration of Independence states that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." President Jefferson was a brilliant man, but with regard to all men created equal, certainly in a biological sense, nothing could be further from the truth.

There is a huge difference between male black and white athletes when it comes to speed, i.e. sprint performance, particularly the 100-meter (100m) dash. The top twenty fastest times in the men's 100m dash in 1994 were all held by blacks (from different countries such as US, Canada, Nigeria, and Great Britain). An examination of the Olympic 100m dash in the past 20-30 years shows an utter dominance by black athletes. Within the US, it is obvious that black Americans dominate the 100m dash at the high school and college level. The "speed" positions in professional American football (i.e. tailback, wide receiver, cornerback) are almost exclusively held by blacks. In fact, there was just a single white athlete starting at any of those three positions in professional football in 1997.

Such a huge discrepancy, yet the most common (public) explanation for this phenomenon is that blacks are socialized to excel at these events. Really? You mean to say that out of a country of approximately 260 million, where blacks make up only 12% of the population, in which there are 5-6 times more whites than blacks, that there are no white guys who excel at these activities? Furthermore, you never see an Asian (American or otherwise) competing in the higher echelon of these sports. Nor do you see any Hispanics or Latinos in these events. Granted, socialization may explain, in part, the apparent dominance of blacks in football or basketball, but this explanation is sorely inadequate when it comes to running.

Everyone can run, and it doesn't matter whether you are in China, Russia, or the US You don't need any special equipment and it doesn't require any specialized skills. Because of the ubiquity of running, one would expect somewhat proportional representation among all races or groups of people in world class competition (e.g., Olympics). That, of course, is based on the premise that all races have equal capacities for running fast. Yet, the reality is that one group, blacks, win nearly every sprint race. Whites will on occasion win (Valeri Borzov of the former Soviet Union won the 100m and 200m dash at the 1972 Olympics). However, Asians will, in our humble opinion, never be competitive with black Americans in world class sprinting. The idea that blacks are socialized to excel in sprints is disputable in that many of these black athletes come from countries other than the United States. Are blacks from the United Kingdom, the Caribbean, and West Africa also "socialized" to run fast?

Besides, in a country with over 20% of the world's population, why can't China field a 100m sprinter to compete with black Americans who represent a paltry 0.6% of the world's population. Is there a white or Asian equivalent of Carl Lewis or Michael Johnson out there?

It certainly stands to reason that if races differ in facial shape, height, weight, skin color, or hair texture, why should a characteristic such as running fast be identical between different groups? It would seem extremely naive to believe that we all have the same capacities and abilities.


Motor Geniuses

Scientific evidence suggests that black infants are more advanced than white children in motor development during the first two years of life. Several studies which have compared black and white American infants suggest a strong race difference in motor development. Fourth, fifth, and sixth grade black boys and girls run the 35 yard dash faster than their white peers. Also, black boys in high school have a greater vertical jump than white boys. In a review by Robert Malina in The Canadian Journal of Sport Sciences (1988), the author compiled several studies of motor performance between black and white males between 1938 and 1976. Even over this extended period of time, the results are remarkably consistent. That is, blacks did better in tests of motor ability at all time points. Blacks performed better in the dash (sprint). How much of a difference in motor performance can be attributed to environmental vs. genetic causes? The fact that black children demonstrate better motor abilities than whites does not support the idea that blacks are pushed into sports which require speed. Certainly, these children have not had ample time nor the instruction or coaching to train for speed.


Real World Speed

In an intriguing study done in 1988 at Ohio State University by David W. Hunter (now at Hampton University), he compared laboratory and "real-world" measurements of anaerobic power or performance. He examined 74 black and 62 white males (avg age = 16.5 yr). There were no differences in age, height, weight, lean body weight, and body mass index (body weight in kilograms divided by the square of body height in meters). However, black subjects had significantly less percentage of body fat. There were no differences in anaerobic power measured using the Wingate test and the Margaria power test (two common laboratory tests used to measure anaerobic performance). However, black subjects performed significantly better at the vertical jump and 40-yard dash (4.8 vs. 5.0 seconds) than the white subjects. A difference of 4.8 and 5.0 seconds in the 40-yard dash may seem insignificant. But on the playing field, this numerically small difference could translate into a huge performance difference. All things being equal, the faster athlete is usually the better athlete.

Interestingly, Dr. Hunter performed a statistical manipulation called Analysis of Covariance, or ANCOVA for short. ANCOVA for the 40-yard dash with the percent fat as the covariate, according to Dr. Hunter, "washed out" the statistical difference in the 40-yard dash between the groups. What this means in English is that when you equate blacks and whites for percent fat, then there is no difference in sprint performance. Furthermore, when height, weight, percent fat, lean body mass, and body mass index were used as covariates, there was no longer any differences between blacks and whites. But what's so intriguing about the Hunter data is that even while equalizing percent fat for the black and white subjects, the black subjects still had a faster dash time! (4.851 sec vs. 4.947 sec). The fact of the matter is, blacks have on average, much less body fat than whites. And if this variable provides black males with an advantage in sprinting, then so be it. Massaging the data with various statistical tests only clouds the obvious facts. Blacks and whites are not the same. Blacks (of all ages) do run faster than whites on average. Yes, there are fast white guys, but not many.


Fast Versus Slow Muscle

Muscle is the key to athletics, period! There is nothing more obvious in comparing the physiques of different athletes than the way their muscles are shaped for a specific task or purpose. Keep in mind that sprint (and endurance) athletes at the world-class level tend to exhibit extreme differences in fiber-type percentages. Sprint athletes may have 75% or more fast-twitch fibers while distance runners may have 75% or more of slow-twitch fibers. For the most part, fiber type composition is a product of heredity; however, training may alter it slightly, but not enough to result in the high percentage of fast-twitch fibers needed in elite sprinters.

Canadian scientists, Drs. J. Simoneau and C. Bouchard, have estimated that 40% of the phenotypic variance of fiber type is due to environmental influences (i.e. exercise) while 45% is associated with genetic factors. (The remaining 15% is due to sampling error). So in actuality, all athletes are born with a given potential. Training will maximize that potential. But if you're not born with the potential, you will never become a world-class sprinter or distance runner.

Does the predominance of blacks in sprints suggest that blacks, as a group, tend to be better endowed with fast-twitch muscle fibers? There is only one scientific report which measured skeletal muscle characteristics in a black and white population. Ama, et al. examined 23 black male African students from Cameroon, Senegal, Zaire, Ivory Coast, and Burundi and 23 male Caucasian students from Laval University in Canada. These were untrained sedentary individuals. They were matched for age, body weight, and body mass index (weight measured in kilos divided by the square of height in meters). Muscle biopsies from the vastus lateralis muscle of the thigh revealed that the white subjects had 8% more Type I muscle fibers and 7% less Type IIa fibers than black subjects. Enzymes involved in the phosphagenic and glycolytic metabolic pathways were 30-40% higher in black subjects. These metabolic pathways are the ones used during quick burst activities (i.e. sprint). These results are compatible with the idea that blacks, as a group, seem to be better endowed to perform well in sprint events. We are aware, however, that other factors besides muscle fiber type can contribute to excellence in the sprint. In a similar study, scientists compared the performance of 15 black men from Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Tchad, and Zaire and 17 white Canadians of French descent. They were matched for weight, height, body mass index, fat-free mass, and thigh volume. They did maximal isometric contractions of the knee extensors for 10, 30, and 90 seconds and found no statistically significant difference in maximal force or total work performed. However, there was a trend for blacks to exceed whites in peak power output (9% higher) although it was not statistically significant.

Keep in mind, however, that very small differences in physical performance may translate into a very meaningful difference in the "real" world of athletic competition. Just check out any major track meet and examine the differences in time between first and last place. The difference in time between first and second place is often much less than 1 percent. The difference between first and last place is a mere 2-3 percent. When the difference between the gold and silver medal is determined by 100ths of seconds, it is obvious that just because a statistical difference is not demonstrable, it does not necessarily mean that real performance differences do not exist! So in reference to the aforementioned Canadian study, it is true that statistically significant differences were not found between blacks and whites in peak power output (albeit blacks had a 9% higher average value); nevertheless, it is obvious that differences much smaller than that result in very profound effects on who the winners and losers are in a race.


More Muscle, Less Fat

Anthropometry (the science of measuring the human body) and body fat distribution was ascertained in over 100 Anglo-, black-, and Mexican-American men and women. Black-American men had significantly less total fat than either Anglo- or Mexican-American men. Black men also had less arm fat than both groups and less truncal fat than Mexican-Americans. Black-American women tended to carry less body fat than Mexican-American women; however, they did not significantly differ from Anglo-American women.

There is ample data to show that blacks of all ages do possess less absolute and relative body fat than whites. In addition, blacks possess greater appendicular muscle mass than whites or Asians. This racial difference certainly confers an advantage in which extreme leanness is a prerequisite.


Longer Legs, But a Shorter Trunk

"We are built a little differently, built for speed?skinny calves, long legs, high asses are all characteristics of blacks. That's why blacks wear long socks. We have skinny calves, and short socks won't stay up. I'll argue with any doctor that physically we're geared to speed, and most sports have something to do with speed."

?OJ Simpson
Time Magazine, 1977


Now we're not so sure about the socks, but as far as the rest of the statement, we actually agree with the Greatest Running Back (and double murderer) ever to grace the football field. The length of the upper and lower extremities between blacks, whites, and Asians is obviously different to anyone with 20/20 vision. Asians (East Asians: Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese) tend to be smaller with relatively short extremities and long torsos. Blacks tend to have relatively long extremities with short torsos and whites are somewhere in between.

As early as 1939, it has been reported that as a group, blacks tend to have longer arms and legs (as a percentage of height), narrower hips, and more slender calves than whites. According to noted scientist Robert Malina, "black youth have absolutely and relatively longer lower extremities than Mexican-American and white youth."


No Bones About It

The greater body density of blacks is likely due to a higher bone density. In a study by Bell et al., they compared bone density in 59 normal white men and 40 normal black men (ages 20-50). They found that the bone mineral density was higher in blacks than in whites measured at the lumbar spine, trochanter, and femoral neck. In a similar study which matched black and white men in mean weight, height, and body mass index, black men again had higher bone mineral densities at every site measured (5% for the radius, 10% for the lumbar spine, and 20% for the femoral neck).

Scientists believe that blacks have heavier bones at all stages of life, including infancy. Skeletons of blacks exceed white skeletons and male skeletons exceed female skeletons in mean weight and density.

That notion that bone density among American (and many African) blacks exceeds that of white and Asians is beyond dispute. Blacks maintain such a difference despite lower calcium intake than whites and a higher prevalence of lactose intolerance which prevents them from consuming dairy products.


Testosterone

It is known that testosterone is anabolic with regard to skeletal muscle and catabolic with regard to fat. Could this explain the increased muscularity and decreased fat mass of blacks vs. whites and other races or ethnicities? In the few studies that are available, blacks have a modest but significantly higher level of plasma testosterone (3-19%). Could this affect athletic performance? We strongly believe so. It would make it easier to accrue skeletal muscle mass. Further, it may aid one's training by increasing training intensity and recovery ability, translating of course, into better performance.


Summary

Based on the available evidence, it is plausible that there are physical differences between the races which cannot be accounted for by environmental influences. Some differences may or may not predispose blacks to excellence in speed events. Mere observation of both male and female sprinters reveals that the overwhelming majority of them have short torsos and relatively long upper and lower extremities. Furthermore, extreme leanness is a hallmark characteristic of elite sprinters. And it is a well known fact, that blacks on average do carry less body fat than whites. Thus, it would make sense that at least with regard to this characteristic, blacks have an advantage.

The difference in fiber type between blacks and whites needs to be repeated and confirmed. However, empirical evidence (i.e. the domination of sprints by blacks) would suggest that blacks may have a predominance of fast-twitch muscle fibers. We would speculate that a certain percentage of fast-twitch fibers is needed (>70% ?) to sprint at the elite level. This could easily be confirmed.

The higher bone density of blacks has intriguing implications. Bone density is directly related to muscle mass. Blacks do on average carry greater appendicular skeletal muscle mass. Certainly by having more skeletal muscle mass, this would confer an athletic advantage in a general sense, in that your force output should be greater (than someone with less skeletal muscle).

Hormonal factors play a role. Higher levels of testosterone and growth hormone would, in our speculation, lead to a higher fat-free mass (especially skeletal muscle and bone) and a lower fat mass.

So is it nature vs. nurture? Well, it really is both. In essence, all athletes are born and made. Modern athletic performance is a function of better training, coaching, nutrition, ergogenic aids (licit or illicit), and heredity.

It's just too bad that the public stance of many is governed more by political correctness and a fear of being labeled a bigot or racist. The notion that all groups of people are created "equally" is naive and unsupported empirically and scientifically; and only when we can admit that, can we have a truly honest discussion concerning race and athletic performance.

NOTE: The preceding article was excerpted from the book, "Speed Demons" which is currently a work-in-progress.


About the Authors

Dr. Jose Antonio earned his Ph.D. at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He currently teaches skeletal muscle physiology at the University of Texas, Arlington, serves as a consultant for fitness/nutrition companies, and writes both scientific and popular press articles on exercise, fitness, and nutrition. He can be reached by clicking the hotlink Dr. Antonio.

Chris Street has a Master's degree in exercise physiology and is certified by the National Strength and Conditioning Association. A former competitive powerlifter, Chris combines his knowledge of exercise science with real world experience. He currently writes on various topics including nutrition, exercise training, and drug use in sports

[Seshmeister]

I win...

[thome]

Originally posted by Seshmeister
I win...

Think how you want to, i will do the same but i will say that a majority
of the athletes are black, but please listen to me just for a sec..?

To say that all the most beautiful -Women -are the ones on tv or in playboy or the model you are looking at does not mean that
there are not a vastly more lovely groups of women world wide who
are not in media or print media.
So to say thats blacks are superior due to design failure breeding
is exactly in my mind like saying all the pritty girls are only the ones
you see in the media.

This is a deep concept to follow but you and i may be mislead
i feel that there are billions of people who are better at whatever
someone is the best at they just did not go in that direction.

Could it be that Blacks are better athletes than all other Races or is it just the fact that Blacks are prone to athletic expression due to
their oppression and lack of equal opportunity in the work force.


I hope i don't get too much flack for that last sentance.....

[Douglas T.]

Originally posted by thome
If a white guy- repeat this scenario for every race creed and color.

Throws a rock thru a hole in a tree, all do it, how is one said to be
naturally better than the other..?

Saying one race is better as a whole at anything is confining that race
to a stereotype.

The greeks theory to be proven as fact all blacks would be clones of each other, its a generalization of a lie.

My op is all people are capable of all things. but a crippled person
may be limited. The greeks BS sais because hes a black cripple
he is still a better athlete than the Asian dude who has no infirmities..?

maybe i am generalizing but i feel that the greeks statement has
destructive overtones that black athletes owe thier sucsess to
there white slave masters.

As in a black from africa is substandard to a american black in his
ability to be gracefull and sublime.

This comes to mind here:
ANIMAL SCHOOL! ... a cautionary tale!
Once long ago the animals started a school for CLIMBING, FLYING & SWIMMING! They couldn't agree on which subject was most important so the said that all students had to take the same curriculum.
The DUCK was excellent in swimming but NOT so good in flying and a very poor runner. So he was made to drop swimming and take MAKE-UP lessons in RUNNING after school. These so ruined his web feet that his swimming suffered, but no one worried since his running was now average.
The RABBIT, who could run like the wind, had a break-down because too many swimming lessons!
The SQUIRREL could climb and run, but these abilities suffered because of his flying class!
The EAGLE was repremanded in climbing class because, although he was the first to the top of the tree, he insisted on using his own method to get there by flying to the top!

The ANIMALS no longer had the opportunity to shine in their area of expertise because all were forced to do things that did not respect their individual nature. In much the same way, we sometimes do that with our children, neglecting their gifts and talents while at the same time forcing them to waste hours of time on inapropriate subjects, remedial groups and special classes!

[Douglas T.]

...for instance ... ever seen a female throw a ball? LOL! They are human and can't throw like a male does? On the other hand girls learn to communicate with each other before boys. Hence their addiction to cell phones!

[ELVIS]

Originally posted by thome
I am a expert at the human condition as far as my 45 yrs allow me

HAHAHAHAHA !!

[dawiseone]

All this is bs. I used to be very much of a racist. Growing up I lived in a all black neighborhood, and went to an all black school.(mostly that is). Anyways as the years went on my attitude towards blacks has changed alot . I have nothing aginst any and all blacks. They are really great people . And black women in general are very fuckin hot if you ask me. What i'm trying to say is that black people are alot better at some things than whites. But I have come to a point in my life where I think there is nothing wrong with blacks , and I truly think that everyone should own one. lol....LOL....LOL.....LOL!!!!!! Fuckin ******s ain't better at shit but robbing fuckin liquor stores and incarseration in general. Wish they all would catch another fuckin boat. On the north bound return route!Build a crack factory and let them move to chocalite city L.A.lots of space down there.Next Hurricane season I have discoverd a sure fire way to keep all fuckin ******S from drowning. Take your foot off their neck! Dave or the grave you mutha fuckers!!!!! or put velcro on the ceiling let em jump on the bed.:eek: