But it's mostly suburban kids who play it, in communities that are whiter. They're wouldn't be running into so many black kids on the basketball court in their neighborhoods, if that's what they wanted to play.
They're wouldn't be running into so many black kids on the basketball court in their neighborhoods
Yes, but they know that it's not really their game. If you play organized hoops in high-school, you will, if you're any good, eventually play against the black kids, and get your ass kicked.
It's possible that the image of other sports is more black, but in terms of who you run into in your little neighborhood game, not so much.
I think part of the appeal of soccer is that you don't have to be a physical freak to play it (in terms of relating to images). You don't have to be seven feet tall, as for basketball, and you don't have to be generally enormous, as for football.
Ogged, the reason for my comment was that your classification of Ming as white suggested that you were working with a binary black/not-black basho, but then I remembered your white/jewish distinction. I'm not asking you to air your prehistoric opinions about asians.
Perhaps Ogged is reluctant to categorize Asians as such because he is Asian, but not of the commonly pictured slanty-eyed chopstick-wielding Jet Li variety, and therefore cannot accept "Asian" as a racial group. Not that, y'know, race is a meaningful biological construct, for the benefit of Gary Farber.
There is definitely something to your analysis. But you're missing an obvious point -- soccer is the one sport that little kids can actually play. Kicking a ball past a goalie is something that a 5-year-old can consistently do unlike, say, executing a double play, shooting a basketball or completing a downfield pass. Things can get pretty path-dependent from that point on.
L., I thought I was the only one who still called them "slanty-eyed." It's a shame you're so young. And I think we agreed that race is a meaningful social construct, but not a meaningful biological category.
Speaking of Asians and little kids and their respective skills, why do all the little soccer-playing tots take piano lessons? Piano seems to be a relatively difficult instrument to learn to play.
There's a class, rural/urban thing, too that compunds the racial effect -- you need access to a big open outdoor space to play soccer, whereas basketball is indoor or needs a paved lot. (Please don't ask me to explain why African Americans are well represented in football, because it completely wrecks this little theory.)
But if the desire to play something is formed in childhood, it's not about the fear of getting your ass kicked in high school. Not directly anyway. It's clear race has something to do with it, but it seems more diffuse. And related to images you see on TV, rather than who you are likely to play.
And if you see Shaq or whoever on TV, part of your distance from him as a white kid is that he's black, but part of it is the size, no? And the sort of artificiality of it. The idea that most people will not develop into such a being.
Isn't there some regionalism involved as well? That is to say, aren't most black professional football players from the south, where in some areas football is nearly a religion?
you need access to a big open outdoor space to play soccer
I'm not sure this is true. You can play a little game of soccer just about anywhere. All you need is about 10 feet by 10 feet, I'd say. Determined kids can play just about anything anywhere.
Piano, or any kind of keyboard, is the best instrument for learning theory, isn't it? The keys are all obviously laid out, rather than dependent on the particular tuning of your individual instrument. It's also soccer-like in that it's less dependent on physical skills to get started -- making chords on a guitar takes hand strength, wind and brass require all kinds of lip control, but for piano you're just hitting keys with your fingers.
(This is courtesy of someone whose only real acquaintance with making music is five years of piano lessons, culminating in the blessed day when Mr. Fulton asked my mother if I could please be allowed to quit. Not a musical type.)
LB - I got banned from recorder lessons at age 6. My knowledge of music theory is, shall we say, theoretical. I can still spot a key change when I see it.
white kids in the U.S. are, by and large, scared of black opponents; intimidated and defeated even before the game starts
I don't know if I buy the above. Europeans do well in the NBA because they've developed their games in a system that doesn't prize athleticism as much as the US system does. Being able to hit a jump shot turns out to be valuable, even if it isn't a very pretty jump shot. Americans, black or white, don't learn to do that.
Moreover, many of the soccer stars whose names I know are non-white. Ronaldo and Ronhaldino are black, Romario and Maradona are Hispanic (in the indio sense), Zidane is (I think) Algerian or Morrocan. The most fun team to watch, for me, was the Super Eagles (Nigerian).
aren't most black professional football players from the south
Are they? I thought lots of big cities had good football schools.
It's clear race has something to do with it, but it seems more diffuse.
I'm sure the mechanisms are complicated; why was basketball a "jewish" sport for a long time, and how did it become a "black" sport? And isn't what kids see on TV consistent with this being about race? (Oh, and black kids aren't going to turn into Shaq either.)
pjs is right. Soccer is getting more popular because small kids can play it. It also is better exercise than baseball which involves alot of standing around.
Plus, on the world stage, there are already a lot of black soccer players. Lacrosse is the game that could use an influx of black players to improve the quality of play.
Well, coming from one of those old-school rural southern families I don't know how "normal" this is, but on the whole piano topic: I started taking piano because I was told it was the easiest instrument to learn and "if you know piano you can pick up on the rest." Worked for me--jumped from that to the violin and French Horn (not at the same time though--that'd just be wierd). Then again, just knowing music theory would have probably done the same thing.
white kids in the U.S. are, by and large, scared of black opponents; intimidated and defeated even before the game starts
This is just true. And white kids are "shooters." Furthermore, it's irrelevant that some world-class soccer players aren't white, because American kids are never going to play against them, unless they make the national team.
And any stringed instrument is probably just as good for learning theory.
I doubt that, L.—you can play more notes simultaneously on a piano than you can on a (non-prog) stringed instrument. And keyboards, while less elegant than a full piano, make up for all the deficits you noted. Learning theory can be accomplished without a piano, but really not as effectively.
Oh, and black kids aren't going to turn into Shaq either.
But they only have one strike against them, as opposed to two.
And on LB's point, although you can play soccer in an urban setting, the big green fields of suburbia sort of lend themselves to soccer, whereas basketball has an urban or black feel because the basketball court is compact and concrete and--crucially--has the associated urban imagery. Which is again, about race, but mixed with other things.
The football question is more complicated than it looks on first glance. The speed positions are dominated by blacks, while offensive linemen, a position that needs mostly bulk and strength, are usually white. Professional weightlifting (as opposed to bodybuilding) is similarly a mostly white endeavor.
I can only think of one black punter in the NFL off the top of my head. Are there any black placekickers in the pros?
Are they? I thought lots of big cities had good football schools.
Not NY, but that's all I really know about.
I'm sure the mechanisms are complicated; why was basketball a "jewish" sport for a long time, and how did it become a "black" sport?
This is really what I was basing my rural/urban theory above on. Despite the fact that there was all sorts of weird racial theorizing about Jews and basketball back when they dominated the sport, the Jewish/black basketball thing seems to me to be totally explained by the fact that it's the game best suited to dense cities, so groups that are overrepresented in such cities, and don't have access to the necessary space for baseball or football, are going to be overrepresented in basketball.
Soccer in the US is a yuppie sport, and Britain it's a thug sport.
When my son started playing soccer at about 6, some nice professional started off with a well-organized little lecture which included an explanation of The Object of the Game. (Kicking the ball into the net more times than the other team, in case you're wondering.)
The same year he started basketball with a coach who was reputed to have graduated from HS in a reform school. During the first session my sone asked, "What is the Object of the Game?" The guy just looked at him.
There you have it. But it's only that way in America.
I think that's right, LB. I didn't mean to say that there was any essentialism at work here, just that white kids play soccer because the other major sports in the U.S. seem "black."
Please don't make me go Darth Sidious on you. Look at the set of all American white players in the NBA. Name the great shooters. Name the ones who can get free to take their own shot.
European shooters, generally, have the advantage of being taller than you'd expect a shooter to be. So Dirk is 7', and Pedja is 6-10. Both have an easier time getting free for their shot because they are so tall.
If what you're saying is that even tall foreign players are taught to shoot, and that their height lets them overcome the athleticism deficit, then we agree about that. But white Americans are still afraid of black Americans.
But white Americans are still afraid of black Americans.
I really don't think that's true on the basketball court. (It may, unfortunately, be true more generally.) Moreover, I hate the psychological explanation. I think it's wrong, and I think it's accepted only because it allows us to explain the disparity without reference to potential physical black/white differences. I have no idea if there are black/white athletic differences in the main, but there pretty clearly are in the NBA population. Why that's true, I don't know.
Soccer is popular? Where? Sure, the exquisitely educated children of our Bobo suburbs play it, but no one watches it. Freddy Adu could kill Tom Cruise on 5th avenue and fade unrecognized into the crowd.
If you would get your candy-ass out of the pool and down to an outside court, you'd see all the colors of the rainbow playing. And a few of the best players would be 40 year old white guys who are unaccountably tricky.
Don't let your fear imprison your eyes, youngling.
I was just about to mention how I was headed to the black-free pool. If they didn't all play together, they couldn't be scared, now could they? Seriously, when I was playing in junior high and high school, we were totally scared of the black kids (I will say, to avoid confusion, that I'm pretty sure that even that is a class, rather than strictly race, issue; they were just tougher than we were). Oh, and that's not to say that there aren't physical differences, which there certainly are.
no idea if there are black/white athletic differences in the main
Oh, there are. I went to a school that was about 90% black from 2-4 grades, and most of the black kids had muscle definition already. Visible biceps and pecs even on skinny 7-year-olds. Most of the white kids that age just looked smooth. No coincidence that every running record in the world is held by people of African descent.
The thing that made young black players (when I was in high school) scary on the court is that they were substantially more athletic than me. If we were similarly skilled and similarly likely to make stupid mistakes, they were in a substantially better position to recover than I was. And I quickly learned not to go inside for a shot. But I learned the same thing about athletic white guys. And I learned different things about non-athletic white guys (fight through the pick and watch the sneaky pass).
I'm not sure I even buy toughness as an issue, unless you played in a pretty serious area (like whatever system Dunbar's in, or south side of Chicago). In my experience, bobos felt empowered to be rough on the court against people down the economic ladder; it was in public, there were refs, and the chance of something Really Bad happenning were close to nil.
Back when Larry Bird's comments about being annoyed when white players were assigned to guard him generated a bit of controversy, the commentators on ESPN or TNT (I can't remember which, but they were on one of the studio shows) generally agreed that 1) Bird's remarks weren't a big deal and 2) none of them thought of the European players as white.
Anyway, Tony Parker and Tariq-Abdul Wahad (the backup formerly known as Olivier Saint-Jean) always seem to disappear from conversations about race and European players.
First off, maybe soccer is getting more popular, but only in the same way lacrosse is getting more popular. Soccer is simply not made for TV. It is terrible for TV, and that is what matters for popularity.
One possible genetic explanation for the black-athlete thing I heard is that maybe their bell-shaped curve for athleticism is wider for blacks. That is, the average is the same but the ends are wider, so there are more great black athletes and more terrible black athletes, but we only see the great ones.
The problem with this theory is that genetically there is no such thing as black or white.
Then there is a the cultural explanation - blacks are "hungrier." Some people claim immigrants have always been better athletes for the same reason, such as the Irish, but I dunno. We have a large group of Hmong immigrants around these parts and they are not overly represented in the sports.
Freddy Adu is a little bit of a red herring in this conversation because he was born in Africa and was preternaturally gifted as a soccer player even in Africa. But it's not totally irrelevant because the rest of the world has black people too, and unless my TV was on the fritz 3 years ago a couple of African teams (and a couple of Asian teams) fucked up a couple of lily-white Euro teams. Did not Nigeria beat France on the opening day? Did not Korea make the final 4? But the real thrust of my argument is DaMarcus Beasley, Zack Thornton, and Cory Gibbs. Black Americans are succeeding in soccer in the US and for the US. And the youth teams have even more black kids on 'em. The premise is flawed.
Albeit in a rather unorthodox profession. I think he used to be Dennis Prager's website administrator before he became all "famous" as the porn industry gossip columnist.
I do hate to be the PC police, but I would like to go on record saying that this thread is distinctly uncomfortable to read. We're talking about genetically explainable black/white differences in athleticism in the NBA now? Didn't Jimmy the Greek get fired for that kind of thing?
Jimmy the Greek did get fired for that (I went to high school with his son, btw), but I think he got the rawest of deals. The notion that slaves were selected for strength (and that the strongest ones were most likely to survive brutal working/living conditions) shouldn't be in the least controversial. The only racist implication that can be assigned to his statement (which wasn't quite on target in any event) arises if you assume that physical superiority translates to mental inferiority.
The notion that slaves were selected for strength (and that the strongest ones were most likely to survive brutal working/living conditions) shouldn't be in the least controversial.
Please. Given the length of human generations compared to the duration of slavery in the US, and the presence of evolutionary pressures just as much favoring stregth and health in the non-enslaved population, it's nonsense. It is certainly possible that if someone applied stockbreeding techniques to humans in an organized fashion, after hundreds of generations (or less, if you pulled out a very small population to work with and kept it isolated) you might get a distinguishable breed of humans. To suggest that a couple of hundred years of some disorganized application of what might be some net different evolutionary pressures to a population of millions had any discernible effect on the average member of that population is ludicrous.
Really? Anyhow, the link I posted in the last comment demonstrated the flaw in his hypothesis. My point was that, though his conclusion was incorrect, what he said shouldn't have been anything close to a firable statement. His statement was not intrinsically racist, but was speculating on the effects of a racist system.
I'm don't buy the "best of stock" explanation for apparent black athletic exceptionalism, but nor do I buy the claim that black athletes in the NBA are, on average, not noticeably quicker and quicker off the floor than the white athletes on the floor. It's certainly not true in every case, and it's certainly not true about a number of black stars (if there was a less athletic player than Magic, let me know), but it looks generally true if you follow the game for any length of time. Maybe what I'm seeing is determined by my socialization, or perhaps its a social aberration that cannot be extended (my suspicion), but pretending I don't notice something I notice can't be the way to correct my self-deception (or whatever is going on).
Dude, you think Europeans are getting taller because their genes are changing? The genotypes are the same as they were generations ago, something in the environment has changed so that those genotypes are expressing as taller phenotypes.
And what Jimmy the Greek said was, if not malicious, at least ignorant enough that he shouldn't have been paid for spouting that nonsense on national TV. (He said this on the air, right? If he said it privately and it got dragged out into the open, I wouldn't have fired him for it either. You're allowed to say dumb things in private.)
the euros getting taller phenomenon is, my guess, directly correlative to better food and more sleep for children/adolescents. We feed our kids crap at school and make them get there at 7:00 am so as to facilitate after school atheletics. Smart us.
I'm don't see malice in it, just a mistaken conclusion from a guy who didn't have the necessary background to speculate on issues of epidemiology and public health. Here in blogland, we all do that sort of thing all the time without losing our paying gigs. The statement that was worthy of eyebrow-raising was when he said that if blacks "take over coaching jobs like everybody wants them to, there's not to be anything left for the white people." Now that is problematic, but I'd like to see it in fuller context (which I haven't).
He said this on the air, right?
He said it in response to a question in an interview. Y'know, when you're answering things off the top of your head, God knows what might come out of your mouth.
"Please. Given the length of human generations compared to the duration of slavery in the US, and the presence of evolutionary pressures just as much favoring stregth and health in the non-enslaved population, it's nonsense."
Reading The Beak of the Finch - it's surprising how fast evolution can occur. And I don't see how people of European descent can be thought to have faced similar selection pressures as people brought from very different societies in Africa at a high loss of life.
Since there is greater human variability in Africa, I don't see why there shouldn't be greater peak performance in genetics-dependent competitions by people of African descent than by people of more isolated gene pools. What that says about African-Americans, whose ancestors were drawn from particular regions, I don't know. I do know that the question of biological race has become more complicated than "that's a myth" in recent years, pace Gary.
I did talk about a genetic reason, and I also discredited that reason. I think I was PC enough in what I said.
On a similar topic, I've heard that in the not so distant past some adolescent girls in the US were given growth stunting drugs so they wouldn't get too tall. The practice was stopped and that explains why there seem to be more tall women nowadays.
Key (IMHO) point from Gladwell essay: "This is the problem, in the end, with the question of whether blacks are better at sports than whites. It's not that it's offensive, or that it leads to discrimination. It's that, in some sense, it's not a terribly interesting question; "better" promises a tidier explanation than can ever be provided."
ogged -- I remember reading that new yorker article, which was probably the source of my semi-coherent comment. I think the article makes a good argument about the impact of wealth disparity on the height of even the rich. But I think there's a really simple answer -- the euros spend more money on school lunches, and they let their kids sleep later.
Also, the Gladwell article you linked is one of my favorites. It may have been the first Gladwell article I read.
Eh. I can defend firing him on the grounds that once someone has become embarassing, you don't want them speaking for you, just or unjust, but I wouldn't have called for his head on that basis.
I'm don't buy the "best of stock" explanation for apparent black athletic exceptionalism, but nor do I buy the claim that black athletes in the NBA are, on average, not noticeably quicker and quicker off the floor than the white athletes on the floor.
I don't watch basketball, so I don't have a first hand impression about the greater athleticism of NBA blacks versus NBA whites. Taking that fact as a given, though, I would guess that one explanation might be that in both cases, you're not pulling from the pool of all whites or all blacks, you're pulling from the pool of white kids who at fourteen or so decided that they wanted to devote their lives to basketball in hope of a pro career and the pool of black kids who made the same decision at the same age. For social reasons, the pool of white kids who commit themselves to playing ball may be a smaller percentage of the population than the pool of black kids (and I think this is very likely to be the case), and it's not a pool selected purely on the basis of athletic potential. What you end up with, if my offhanded guess is right, might be a situation where the white players in the NBA are representatives of the most athletic .0001% of the white population, but the black players are representatives of the most athletic .000001% of the black population.
I've heard that in the not so distant past some adolescent girls in the US were given growth stunting drugs so they wouldn't get too tall.
My wife is 6'1". If her parents hadn't hadn't offered her the chance to take "growth stunting drugs" (I think it was actually just birth-control pills, which brought on the onset of puberty earlier and slowed her growth), she would have been 6'5"+ (her father and brother are both 6'8"). While in and of itself height isn't a bad thing, I can't imagine how awkward she would have felt as an adolescent in a body that far into the long tail, especially since my wife is a huge klutz and basketball wasn't an option.
If you aren't appropriately sized to produce NBA-sized kids, I demand that you divorce your wife and allow her to consort with taller, better men. Like our own philosopher-TE.
That's all wrong, Timmy. You'll note that they weren't included on my "won't date" list. In fact, given that my life plan is to marry a tall athletic woman and hope that I can retire when the first kid turns 18, I love, in many ways, African-Americans.
Your #92 is roughly what I meant by "social aberration." And I now re-revoking the Non-Creepy Blog Crush (TM), as you don't like basketball. For shame!
That doesn't explain why every single running record on Earth is held by a person of West African descent. And again, both in my memories of my own childhood and observing my own kids in day care and public schools - even as young as toddlers, most black kids have muscle definition naturally that very few white kids do.
While cultural and social factors do have some influence, I think trying to find social reasons for relative athletic superiority expressed broadly across a racial group may be akin to finding social reasons for coarse, curly hair.
If you aren't appropriately sized to produce NBA-sized kids, I demand that you divorce your wife and allow her to consort with taller, better men.
I'm 5'10", and built like a tank (barrel chest, broad shoulders). If any of our kids are coordinated (ha!), I'm hoping for linebackers and/or rugby players. All philosophers are welcome to enter the cage of fists [makes sweeping motions with his arms] to fight for my bride.
Does Yao Ming count as white? I mean, I know he isn't black, but...
Anyhow, have you heard of Sun Ming Ming? 7'8", 360#, and growing?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:26 AM
More proof, as if it were wanting, that ogged lives in a black-and-white-and-jewish world.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:28 AM
But it's mostly suburban kids who play it, in communities that are whiter. They're wouldn't be running into so many black kids on the basketball court in their neighborhoods, if that's what they wanted to play.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:28 AM
Ben, I don't go on about the Asians, only because my friends are Asian, and read the blog.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:29 AM
They're wouldn't be running into so many black kids on the basketball court in their neighborhoods
Yes, but they know that it's not really their game. If you play organized hoops in high-school, you will, if you're any good, eventually play against the black kids, and get your ass kicked.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:30 AM
Does Yao Ming count as white?
I wondered. Ignore him, if you like--but he's definitely not black, as you say.
I had heard a bit about Sun Ming Ming. "Projects" almost never become good players.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:33 AM
*They wouldn't
It's possible that the image of other sports is more black, but in terms of who you run into in your little neighborhood game, not so much.
I think part of the appeal of soccer is that you don't have to be a physical freak to play it (in terms of relating to images). You don't have to be seven feet tall, as for basketball, and you don't have to be generally enormous, as for football.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:33 AM
Ogged, the reason for my comment was that your classification of Ming as white suggested that you were working with a binary black/not-black basho, but then I remembered your white/jewish distinction. I'm not asking you to air your prehistoric opinions about asians.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:35 AM
Well, of course white kids still play basketball, but that doesn't mean that race doesn't account for the growing popularity of soccer.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:36 AM
I'm not asking you to air your prehistoric opinions about asians.
Oh, you don't have to ask, I'll get around to it. Generally I like Asians, except for the ones that play really hard defense in pick-up games.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:38 AM
Perhaps Ogged is reluctant to categorize Asians as such because he is Asian, but not of the commonly pictured slanty-eyed chopstick-wielding Jet Li variety, and therefore cannot accept "Asian" as a racial group. Not that, y'know, race is a meaningful biological construct, for the benefit of Gary Farber.
Posted by L. | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:40 AM
I prefer to think of ogged as Levantine.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:41 AM
Ogged probably prefers to think of himself as Not-Jewish.
Posted by L. | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:43 AM
And Labs as Leviathan.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:44 AM
There is definitely something to your analysis. But you're missing an obvious point -- soccer is the one sport that little kids can actually play. Kicking a ball past a goalie is something that a 5-year-old can consistently do unlike, say, executing a double play, shooting a basketball or completing a downfield pass. Things can get pretty path-dependent from that point on.
Posted by pjs | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:45 AM
Generally I like Asians
...especially the pedestrians, he says.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:47 AM
L., I thought I was the only one who still called them "slanty-eyed." It's a shame you're so young. And I think we agreed that race is a meaningful social construct, but not a meaningful biological category.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:50 AM
You can't throw stones about Asian drivers, apostropher; you were right there with me.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:50 AM
I dunno, pjs, little kids play basketball on their little hoops.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:52 AM
You can't throw stones about Asian drivers
God no. I don't want to do anything that might distract them on the road.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:53 AM
Speaking of Asians and little kids and their respective skills, why do all the little soccer-playing tots take piano lessons? Piano seems to be a relatively difficult instrument to learn to play.
Posted by L. | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:57 AM
There's a class, rural/urban thing, too that compunds the racial effect -- you need access to a big open outdoor space to play soccer, whereas basketball is indoor or needs a paved lot. (Please don't ask me to explain why African Americans are well represented in football, because it completely wrecks this little theory.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:01 AM
But if the desire to play something is formed in childhood, it's not about the fear of getting your ass kicked in high school. Not directly anyway. It's clear race has something to do with it, but it seems more diffuse. And related to images you see on TV, rather than who you are likely to play.
And if you see Shaq or whoever on TV, part of your distance from him as a white kid is that he's black, but part of it is the size, no? And the sort of artificiality of it. The idea that most people will not develop into such a being.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:01 AM
Soccer, piano and french are necessary accomplishments if one wishes to marry well, L..
I hope they teach you some of those skills at that finishing school you're to attend!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:02 AM
Yes yes--all prereqs for your MRS degree!
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:03 AM
Isn't there some regionalism involved as well? That is to say, aren't most black professional football players from the south, where in some areas football is nearly a religion?
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:05 AM
Ben, what do the boys have to accomplish? Archery, animal husbandry and fencing?
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:06 AM
you need access to a big open outdoor space to play soccer
I'm not sure this is true. You can play a little game of soccer just about anywhere. All you need is about 10 feet by 10 feet, I'd say. Determined kids can play just about anything anywhere.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:06 AM
Piano, or any kind of keyboard, is the best instrument for learning theory, isn't it? The keys are all obviously laid out, rather than dependent on the particular tuning of your individual instrument. It's also soccer-like in that it's less dependent on physical skills to get started -- making chords on a guitar takes hand strength, wind and brass require all kinds of lip control, but for piano you're just hitting keys with your fingers.
(This is courtesy of someone whose only real acquaintance with making music is five years of piano lessons, culminating in the blessed day when Mr. Fulton asked my mother if I could please be allowed to quit. Not a musical type.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:06 AM
I figured Ogged was going to say that Asians can't drive to the basket.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:09 AM
LB - I got banned from recorder lessons at age 6. My knowledge of music theory is, shall we say, theoretical. I can still spot a key change when I see it.
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:09 AM
white kids in the U.S. are, by and large, scared of black opponents; intimidated and defeated even before the game starts
I don't know if I buy the above. Europeans do well in the NBA because they've developed their games in a system that doesn't prize athleticism as much as the US system does. Being able to hit a jump shot turns out to be valuable, even if it isn't a very pretty jump shot. Americans, black or white, don't learn to do that.
Moreover, many of the soccer stars whose names I know are non-white. Ronaldo and Ronhaldino are black, Romario and Maradona are Hispanic (in the indio sense), Zidane is (I think) Algerian or Morrocan. The most fun team to watch, for me, was the Super Eagles (Nigerian).
Try again, ogged.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:09 AM
aren't most black professional football players from the south
Are they? I thought lots of big cities had good football schools.
It's clear race has something to do with it, but it seems more diffuse.
I'm sure the mechanisms are complicated; why was basketball a "jewish" sport for a long time, and how did it become a "black" sport? And isn't what kids see on TV consistent with this being about race? (Oh, and black kids aren't going to turn into Shaq either.)
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:11 AM
pjs is right. Soccer is getting more popular because small kids can play it. It also is better exercise than baseball which involves alot of standing around.
Plus, on the world stage, there are already a lot of black soccer players. Lacrosse is the game that could use an influx of black players to improve the quality of play.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:13 AM
Well, coming from one of those old-school rural southern families I don't know how "normal" this is, but on the whole piano topic: I started taking piano because I was told it was the easiest instrument to learn and "if you know piano you can pick up on the rest." Worked for me--jumped from that to the violin and French Horn (not at the same time though--that'd just be wierd). Then again, just knowing music theory would have probably done the same thing.
Posted by Karyn | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:13 AM
Pianos are expensive, immobile, and take up quite a bit of room. And any stringed instrument is probably just as good for learning theory.
Posted by L. | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:14 AM
white kids in the U.S. are, by and large, scared of black opponents; intimidated and defeated even before the game starts
This is just true. And white kids are "shooters." Furthermore, it's irrelevant that some world-class soccer players aren't white, because American kids are never going to play against them, unless they make the national team.
Why are you drinking so early in the morning?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:15 AM
And any stringed instrument is probably just as good for learning theory.
I doubt that, L.—you can play more notes simultaneously on a piano than you can on a (non-prog) stringed instrument. And keyboards, while less elegant than a full piano, make up for all the deficits you noted. Learning theory can be accomplished without a piano, but really not as effectively.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:19 AM
Oh, and black kids aren't going to turn into Shaq either.
But they only have one strike against them, as opposed to two.
And on LB's point, although you can play soccer in an urban setting, the big green fields of suburbia sort of lend themselves to soccer, whereas basketball has an urban or black feel because the basketball court is compact and concrete and--crucially--has the associated urban imagery. Which is again, about race, but mixed with other things.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:19 AM
The football question is more complicated than it looks on first glance. The speed positions are dominated by blacks, while offensive linemen, a position that needs mostly bulk and strength, are usually white. Professional weightlifting (as opposed to bodybuilding) is similarly a mostly white endeavor.
I can only think of one black punter in the NFL off the top of my head. Are there any black placekickers in the pros?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:24 AM
The best instrument for learning theory is the Chapman Stick!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:26 AM
Are they? I thought lots of big cities had good football schools.
Not NY, but that's all I really know about.
I'm sure the mechanisms are complicated; why was basketball a "jewish" sport for a long time, and how did it become a "black" sport?
This is really what I was basing my rural/urban theory above on. Despite the fact that there was all sorts of weird racial theorizing about Jews and basketball back when they dominated the sport, the Jewish/black basketball thing seems to me to be totally explained by the fact that it's the game best suited to dense cities, so groups that are overrepresented in such cities, and don't have access to the necessary space for baseball or football, are going to be overrepresented in basketball.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:28 AM
The best instrument for learning theory is the Chapman Stick!
Just ask Tony Levin.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:29 AM
Soccer in the US is a yuppie sport, and Britain it's a thug sport.
When my son started playing soccer at about 6, some nice professional started off with a well-organized little lecture which included an explanation of The Object of the Game. (Kicking the ball into the net more times than the other team, in case you're wondering.)
The same year he started basketball with a coach who was reputed to have graduated from HS in a reform school. During the first session my sone asked, "What is the Object of the Game?" The guy just looked at him.
There you have it. But it's only that way in America.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:38 AM
I think that's right, LB. I didn't mean to say that there was any essentialism at work here, just that white kids play soccer because the other major sports in the U.S. seem "black."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:38 AM
Yeah, see, my cousin Brendan used to be a thug, and he plays soccer, and he made it seem glamorous, in a thuggish, brutal sort of way.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:43 AM
Ogged:
Please don't make me go Darth Sidious on you. Look at the set of all American white players in the NBA. Name the great shooters. Name the ones who can get free to take their own shot.
European shooters, generally, have the advantage of being taller than you'd expect a shooter to be. So Dirk is 7', and Pedja is 6-10. Both have an easier time getting free for their shot because they are so tall.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:44 AM
If what you're saying is that even tall foreign players are taught to shoot, and that their height lets them overcome the athleticism deficit, then we agree about that. But white Americans are still afraid of black Americans.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:47 AM
But white Americans are still afraid of black Americans.
I really don't think that's true on the basketball court. (It may, unfortunately, be true more generally.) Moreover, I hate the psychological explanation. I think it's wrong, and I think it's accepted only because it allows us to explain the disparity without reference to potential physical black/white differences. I have no idea if there are black/white athletic differences in the main, but there pretty clearly are in the NBA population. Why that's true, I don't know.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 11:57 AM
Soccer is popular? Where? Sure, the exquisitely educated children of our Bobo suburbs play it, but no one watches it. Freddy Adu could kill Tom Cruise on 5th avenue and fade unrecognized into the crowd.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 12:00 PM
I really don't think that's true on the basketball court.
I honestly don't know how you can argue with this. Any white homies play ball around here, for crying out loud? Tell him!
baa, that's very funny. Soccer is becoming more popular.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 12:02 PM
Well, at least part of that is because the police would be looking for a 45 year old man, and, officially, Adu is 12.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 12:04 PM
ogged:
If you would get your candy-ass out of the pool and down to an outside court, you'd see all the colors of the rainbow playing. And a few of the best players would be 40 year old white guys who are unaccountably tricky.
Don't let your fear imprison your eyes, youngling.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 12:06 PM
I was just about to mention how I was headed to the black-free pool. If they didn't all play together, they couldn't be scared, now could they? Seriously, when I was playing in junior high and high school, we were totally scared of the black kids (I will say, to avoid confusion, that I'm pretty sure that even that is a class, rather than strictly race, issue; they were just tougher than we were). Oh, and that's not to say that there aren't physical differences, which there certainly are.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 12:09 PM
I can't believe you said I have a candy ass.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 12:10 PM
no idea if there are black/white athletic differences in the main
Oh, there are. I went to a school that was about 90% black from 2-4 grades, and most of the black kids had muscle definition already. Visible biceps and pecs even on skinny 7-year-olds. Most of the white kids that age just looked smooth. No coincidence that every running record in the world is held by people of African descent.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 12:10 PM
The thing that made young black players (when I was in high school) scary on the court is that they were substantially more athletic than me. If we were similarly skilled and similarly likely to make stupid mistakes, they were in a substantially better position to recover than I was. And I quickly learned not to go inside for a shot. But I learned the same thing about athletic white guys. And I learned different things about non-athletic white guys (fight through the pick and watch the sneaky pass).
I'm not sure I even buy toughness as an issue, unless you played in a pretty serious area (like whatever system Dunbar's in, or south side of Chicago). In my experience, bobos felt empowered to be rough on the court against people down the economic ladder; it was in public, there were refs, and the chance of something Really Bad happenning were close to nil.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 12:20 PM
You ever read Norman Podhoretz, ogged?
Soccer is like the metric system. It's always about to catch on. Fuck that.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 12:36 PM
I'm surprised to see that on lukeford.net, baa.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 12:40 PM
Back when Larry Bird's comments about being annoyed when white players were assigned to guard him generated a bit of controversy, the commentators on ESPN or TNT (I can't remember which, but they were on one of the studio shows) generally agreed that 1) Bird's remarks weren't a big deal and 2) none of them thought of the European players as white.
Anyway, Tony Parker and Tariq-Abdul Wahad (the backup formerly known as Olivier Saint-Jean) always seem to disappear from conversations about race and European players.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 12:42 PM
And baa is right, soccer is always on the rise - or at least has been ever since the 1990s. I'm a soccer fan, so I wish it were true, but it's not.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 12:43 PM
Holy smokes, Apostropher -- I'm surprised too. I didn't eevn notice when I linked from the google search. He is orthodox though...
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 12:44 PM
First off, maybe soccer is getting more popular, but only in the same way lacrosse is getting more popular. Soccer is simply not made for TV. It is terrible for TV, and that is what matters for popularity.
One possible genetic explanation for the black-athlete thing I heard is that maybe their bell-shaped curve for athleticism is wider for blacks. That is, the average is the same but the ends are wider, so there are more great black athletes and more terrible black athletes, but we only see the great ones.
The problem with this theory is that genetically there is no such thing as black or white.
Then there is a the cultural explanation - blacks are "hungrier." Some people claim immigrants have always been better athletes for the same reason, such as the Irish, but I dunno. We have a large group of Hmong immigrants around these parts and they are not overly represented in the sports.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 12:45 PM
Freddy Adu is a little bit of a red herring in this conversation because he was born in Africa and was preternaturally gifted as a soccer player even in Africa. But it's not totally irrelevant because the rest of the world has black people too, and unless my TV was on the fritz 3 years ago a couple of African teams (and a couple of Asian teams) fucked up a couple of lily-white Euro teams. Did not Nigeria beat France on the opening day? Did not Korea make the final 4? But the real thrust of my argument is DaMarcus Beasley, Zack Thornton, and Cory Gibbs. Black Americans are succeeding in soccer in the US and for the US. And the youth teams have even more black kids on 'em. The premise is flawed.
Posted by diddy` | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 12:50 PM
He is orthodox though...
Albeit in a rather unorthodox profession. I think he used to be Dennis Prager's website administrator before he became all "famous" as the porn industry gossip columnist.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 12:55 PM
I do hate to be the PC police, but I would like to go on record saying that this thread is distinctly uncomfortable to read. We're talking about genetically explainable black/white differences in athleticism in the NBA now? Didn't Jimmy the Greek get fired for that kind of thing?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 1:22 PM
that was totally different -- jimmy the greek was talking about football.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 1:27 PM
OK, new topic. Why are the Serbs and the Lithuanians the best basketball players in Europe?
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 1:29 PM
Because Serbs are naturally better dancers! And they are gifted at worship and celebration
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 1:34 PM
That sounds like a riddle:
Why are the Serbs and the Lithuanians the best basketball players in Europe?
One comes from the Ball-kans, the other from the Ball-tics!
Can you tell I have small children?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 1:34 PM
Jimmy the Greek did get fired for that (I went to high school with his son, btw), but I think he got the rawest of deals. The notion that slaves were selected for strength (and that the strongest ones were most likely to survive brutal working/living conditions) shouldn't be in the least controversial. The only racist implication that can be assigned to his statement (which wasn't quite on target in any event) arises if you assume that physical superiority translates to mental inferiority.
And I doubt any of us believes that.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 1:36 PM
The notion that slaves were selected for strength (and that the strongest ones were most likely to survive brutal working/living conditions) shouldn't be in the least controversial.
Please. Given the length of human generations compared to the duration of slavery in the US, and the presence of evolutionary pressures just as much favoring stregth and health in the non-enslaved population, it's nonsense. It is certainly possible that if someone applied stockbreeding techniques to humans in an organized fashion, after hundreds of generations (or less, if you pulled out a very small population to work with and kept it isolated) you might get a distinguishable breed of humans. To suggest that a couple of hundred years of some disorganized application of what might be some net different evolutionary pressures to a population of millions had any discernible effect on the average member of that population is ludicrous.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 1:43 PM
is ludicrous.
Really? Anyhow, the link I posted in the last comment demonstrated the flaw in his hypothesis. My point was that, though his conclusion was incorrect, what he said shouldn't have been anything close to a firable statement. His statement was not intrinsically racist, but was speculating on the effects of a racist system.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 1:52 PM
I'm don't buy the "best of stock" explanation for apparent black athletic exceptionalism, but nor do I buy the claim that black athletes in the NBA are, on average, not noticeably quicker and quicker off the floor than the white athletes on the floor. It's certainly not true in every case, and it's certainly not true about a number of black stars (if there was a less athletic player than Magic, let me know), but it looks generally true if you follow the game for any length of time. Maybe what I'm seeing is determined by my socialization, or perhaps its a social aberration that cannot be extended (my suspicion), but pretending I don't notice something I notice can't be the way to correct my self-deception (or whatever is going on).
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 1:54 PM
Dude, you think Europeans are getting taller because their genes are changing? The genotypes are the same as they were generations ago, something in the environment has changed so that those genotypes are expressing as taller phenotypes.
And what Jimmy the Greek said was, if not malicious, at least ignorant enough that he shouldn't have been paid for spouting that nonsense on national TV. (He said this on the air, right? If he said it privately and it got dragged out into the open, I wouldn't have fired him for it either. You're allowed to say dumb things in private.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 1:58 PM
He said this on the air, right?
No, he said it when he was piss drunk at a party, and someone got it on videotape.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:01 PM
This Gladwell article is the must read on the genetics/physically gifted question. I do think it's, uh, unlikely to be fruitful for us to speculate.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:03 PM
the euros getting taller phenomenon is, my guess, directly correlative to better food and more sleep for children/adolescents. We feed our kids crap at school and make them get there at 7:00 am so as to facilitate after school atheletics. Smart us.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:03 PM
Growing Europeans was addressed in a fantastic blog post a while back.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:06 PM
if not malicious
I'm don't see malice in it, just a mistaken conclusion from a guy who didn't have the necessary background to speculate on issues of epidemiology and public health. Here in blogland, we all do that sort of thing all the time without losing our paying gigs. The statement that was worthy of eyebrow-raising was when he said that if blacks "take over coaching jobs like everybody wants them to, there's not to be anything left for the white people." Now that is problematic, but I'd like to see it in fuller context (which I haven't).
He said this on the air, right?
He said it in response to a question in an interview. Y'know, when you're answering things off the top of your head, God knows what might come out of your mouth.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:07 PM
Hey did you ever notice how white people drive like this:
dee dee, deedle deedle dee
and black people drive like this:
dun, dundun (ticka ticka ticka) dun, dundun ?
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:08 PM
"Please. Given the length of human generations compared to the duration of slavery in the US, and the presence of evolutionary pressures just as much favoring stregth and health in the non-enslaved population, it's nonsense."
Reading The Beak of the Finch - it's surprising how fast evolution can occur. And I don't see how people of European descent can be thought to have faced similar selection pressures as people brought from very different societies in Africa at a high loss of life.
Since there is greater human variability in Africa, I don't see why there shouldn't be greater peak performance in genetics-dependent competitions by people of African descent than by people of more isolated gene pools. What that says about African-Americans, whose ancestors were drawn from particular regions, I don't know. I do know that the question of biological race has become more complicated than "that's a myth" in recent years, pace Gary.
Posted by rilkefan | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:10 PM
LizardBreath,
I did talk about a genetic reason, and I also discredited that reason. I think I was PC enough in what I said.
On a similar topic, I've heard that in the not so distant past some adolescent girls in the US were given growth stunting drugs so they wouldn't get too tall. The practice was stopped and that explains why there seem to be more tall women nowadays.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:10 PM
Key (IMHO) point from Gladwell essay: "This is the problem, in the end, with the question of whether blacks are better at sports than whites. It's not that it's offensive, or that it leads to discrimination. It's that, in some sense, it's not a terribly interesting question; "better" promises a tidier explanation than can ever be provided."
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:13 PM
ogged -- I remember reading that new yorker article, which was probably the source of my semi-coherent comment. I think the article makes a good argument about the impact of wealth disparity on the height of even the rich. But I think there's a really simple answer -- the euros spend more money on school lunches, and they let their kids sleep later.
Also, the Gladwell article you linked is one of my favorites. It may have been the first Gladwell article I read.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:13 PM
text,
better food and more sleep
Weightlifters know that sleep is good for fitness. It seems odd, but sleep is when HGH production peaks.
Eat good, exercise hard, sleep long.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:13 PM
See LB, back into completely wholesome territory.
Howcome blacks don't get enough sleep? Is it because of the Jews?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:16 PM
rilkefan, congratulations on your hitching, by the way.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:16 PM
Also, let's not lose the forest for the trees: ogged hates African-Americans. And, apparently, also Asians. And most, if not all, Iranians.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:17 PM
Howcome blacks don't get enough sleep?
I think it's because they all look alike and that's confusing.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:17 PM
Also all that loud music.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:18 PM
No, he said it when he was piss drunk at a party,
Eh. I can defend firing him on the grounds that once someone has become embarassing, you don't want them speaking for you, just or unjust, but I wouldn't have called for his head on that basis.
I'm don't buy the "best of stock" explanation for apparent black athletic exceptionalism, but nor do I buy the claim that black athletes in the NBA are, on average, not noticeably quicker and quicker off the floor than the white athletes on the floor.
I don't watch basketball, so I don't have a first hand impression about the greater athleticism of NBA blacks versus NBA whites. Taking that fact as a given, though, I would guess that one explanation might be that in both cases, you're not pulling from the pool of all whites or all blacks, you're pulling from the pool of white kids who at fourteen or so decided that they wanted to devote their lives to basketball in hope of a pro career and the pool of black kids who made the same decision at the same age. For social reasons, the pool of white kids who commit themselves to playing ball may be a smaller percentage of the population than the pool of black kids (and I think this is very likely to be the case), and it's not a pool selected purely on the basis of athletic potential. What you end up with, if my offhanded guess is right, might be a situation where the white players in the NBA are representatives of the most athletic .0001% of the white population, but the black players are representatives of the most athletic .000001% of the black population.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:20 PM
Yes, that too. I can say that because some of my best friends are Negroes.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:20 PM
ogged,
Ah, yes, the Gladwell article. It rocks. Like text, I had also read the article and remembered most of what it contained. I also tend to believe it.
So, on to safer topics. Can we all agree that rap music sucks?
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:21 PM
No.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:22 PM
I've heard that in the not so distant past some adolescent girls in the US were given growth stunting drugs so they wouldn't get too tall.
My wife is 6'1". If her parents hadn't hadn't offered her the chance to take "growth stunting drugs" (I think it was actually just birth-control pills, which brought on the onset of puberty earlier and slowed her growth), she would have been 6'5"+ (her father and brother are both 6'8"). While in and of itself height isn't a bad thing, I can't imagine how awkward she would have felt as an adolescent in a body that far into the long tail, especially since my wife is a huge klutz and basketball wasn't an option.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:23 PM
I did talk about a genetic reason, and I also discredited that reason. I think I was PC enough in what I said.
I'm sorry -- I didn't mean to imply that what you said was unacceptably racist or anything, I just thought it was silly as a matter of biology.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:23 PM
Can we all agree that rap music sucks?
Nope.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:25 PM
Tripp, you might check out the comments to this post to get a sense of how much agreement you'll get on that.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:25 PM
Chopper:
If you aren't appropriately sized to produce NBA-sized kids, I demand that you divorce your wife and allow her to consort with taller, better men. Like our own philosopher-TE.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:26 PM
ogged hates African-Americans
That's all wrong, Timmy. You'll note that they weren't included on my "won't date" list. In fact, given that my life plan is to marry a tall athletic woman and hope that I can retire when the first kid turns 18, I love, in many ways, African-Americans.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:28 PM
LB:
Your #92 is roughly what I meant by "social aberration." And I now re-revoking the Non-Creepy Blog Crush (TM), as you don't like basketball. For shame!
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:28 PM
Chopper,
Can we all agree that every intelligent person thinks rap music sucks, or will your wife beat me up?
Seriously, though, 6'1" is way cool.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:28 PM
a smaller percentage of the population
That doesn't explain why every single running record on Earth is held by a person of West African descent. And again, both in my memories of my own childhood and observing my own kids in day care and public schools - even as young as toddlers, most black kids have muscle definition naturally that very few white kids do.
While cultural and social factors do have some influence, I think trying to find social reasons for relative athletic superiority expressed broadly across a racial group may be akin to finding social reasons for coarse, curly hair.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:29 PM
Tim, you demand that even your crushes like basketball? Good luck with that.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:30 PM
ogged,
So it's agreement you think I am after?
Nah. Sometimes I like to throw the hounds some fresh meat.
Eat hearty, me hearties.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:32 PM
In 104, "most black kids have" is probably wrong and should be "black kids often have."
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:33 PM
If you aren't appropriately sized to produce NBA-sized kids, I demand that you divorce your wife and allow her to consort with taller, better men.
I'm 5'10", and built like a tank (barrel chest, broad shoulders). If any of our kids are coordinated (ha!), I'm hoping for linebackers and/or rugby players. All philosophers are welcome to enter the cage of fists [makes sweeping motions with his arms] to fight for my bride.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:33 PM
Tripp, I'll agree that most rap being produced in Minnesota probably sucks.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 2:34 PM