For instance, take this ill-reasoned criticism of his "we need more fast players and African-Americans sure seem to be faster" remark. The author, and others (almost all middle-aged white guys doing their best to personify White Guilt) who are in a tizzy about DeBerry's comments, has to have his eyes closed to think that there aren't more African-Americans (or, more specifically, individuals of West African descent) with top-end speed. How many Caucasian cornerbacks are there in the NFL? What's that? Zero? And how about halfbacks? Is that another zero I hear? Is that a coincidence that two of the top three speed positions in the NFL are uniformly honky-free? How in the world can anyone look at that disparity and think that DeBerry is wrong? And let's not even discuss the world of Olympic sprinting. Yeah, there is one Caucasian world champion in the 200. There is also the minor fact that approximately 196 of the top 200 times ever turned in in the 100M dash were turned in by runners of West African descent. Another striking coincidence. (And this, incidentally, is where the "race" arguments should end. People of East African descent don't have the type of speed that DeBerry was describing. Instead, they dominate the long distance events. So when DeBerry spoke of "African-Americans," he wasn't really describing a race, although I doubt that he knows that. He was describing people of West African descent, not the entire race of people of African descent.)
The author also creates a straw man argument by stating that DeBerry was making a "[b]lanket statement[] meant to describe a particular race of humans." Not exactly. He was saying that there are more African-Americans with top-end speed. I doubt he was saying that African-Americans are all faster than Caucasians. DeBerry could probably outrun Star Jones and he'd be the first to say that. He was saying that there are greater numbers of African-Americans with top end speed and that's completely right.
And then finally, we get the argument that public school education sucks in this country and that African-Americans are faster because they have no other options in life. Wrong wrong wrong. Public school education also sucks for rural whites in Appalachia, for instance, but you don't see Kentucky and West Virginia playing super fast Caucasians in their backfields, do you? And it can't be an American phenomenon. Again, the 100M dash is dominated by West Africans, as well as individuals from North America and Europe who are of West African descent. Are the schools crappy in all of those places? And are the schools crappy for West Africans in London, but not East Africans? How about all those poor kids in Pakistan with no hopes in life? Why aren't there sprinters coming from Islamabad?
Bottom line: why is it so hard to believe that groups from different areas of the world might have different distributions of genetic characteristics? Are we Jews full of it when we worry that we're more likely to have offspring with Tay-Sachs? Liberals who bend over backwards to claim that there are absolutely no differences between different racial groups just make themselves look dumb because they are making a claim that anyone with two eyes can see is not true. (Some sociologists would probably dispute my use of the term "race" there and a more precise way to say it might be that groups from different areas of the world, i.e. West Africans, Caucasians, Aboriginals, etc., sometimes have different genetic distributions in their populations.)
2 comments:
Sorry, it's hard to say "when Bengal says this, he's wrong."
The problem with slippery slope arguments is that they often throw the baby out with the bathwater. For instance, it's obvious that there are more individuals of West African descent with top end speed. That's just stating the obvious. The fact that some ignoramus might say "yeah, well white people are smarter" doesn't make the first argument right.
Regarding genetics, speed is mostly genetic, I think. There are plenty of places where whites play football with the same level of commitment as blacks, but you still don't see white running backs or corners. That has to be the result of the genetic pool. "Intelligence," unlike speed or Tay Sachs, is mostly nurture. I'd totally agree with you if you said that blacks score lower on the SAT because of environmental factors, such as poverty and poor schools. (That assumes [falsely] that the SAT is a measure of intelligence.) I see smarts as different than speed and that's why the slippery slope from "blacks are fast" to "whites are smart" doesn't work.
I agree that DeBerry's comments are blunt and lack nuance, but they're not racist. You're setting up a straw man when you say that he was saying that all blacks are faster than whites. He was crudely making the observation that almost all players at most speed positions are African-American. I don't see why that's uncomfortable.
I agree with you that such a subtext would be racist, but I didn't read an "I can't find African-Americans who are smart enough to get into the Air Force Academy" reasoning into DeBerry's statement. He didn't take the Paul Hornung step and absent doing that, I don't think he should be drawn and quartered.
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