Did racist use the "biological advantage" argument when Black athletes started competing alongside white athletes?

Given that racists and slavers used the “natural physical strength” of black people to justify putting them on hard labor and some medics still think that blacks has higher resistance to pain, I wonder if when black athletes started to join mixed race sport teams, some racist would have used the same “biological advantage” argument that now transphobes use against trans athletes to claim it was “unfair” for black to compete against whites to justify segregation.

downpunxx,
downpunxx avatar

Google search : Jimmy The Greek

Omnificer,

For a while there was a persistent myth that black people had an extra muscle in their leg that allowed them to perform better at sports.

It’s kind of similar to phrenology in trying to justify racism.

WhiteOakBayou,

I remember my friend’s mom telling me this when I was like 6 and then I told my mom what I learned and she told me not to listen to that lady.

Quexotic,

This was taught to me in grade school. I feel pretty betrayed.

Suffice it to say, I found it dubious even as a child and as an adult, learned better, but WTF.

Duamerthrax,

Was it one teacher or multiple? I live in a fairly progressive US state, but I definitely had a one or two backwards teachers with axes to grind.

Quexotic,

Just the one.

There was mention in a textbook of native Americans having slightly different shaped teeth, sorta scoop shaped on the inside to be good at scraping stuff. Can confirm tho, my teeth are a little scoopy, am a bit native American.

Duamerthrax,

While it wouldn’t be weird for there to be slightly different bone shapes between ethnicities, it’s concerning that it would be part of a grade school curriculum and not an advance college course for dentists or forensics.

Quexotic,

It wasn’t fully without context. We were learning how native Americans were able to tan hides without tanneries. One of the methods that they used is to scrape the skins clean and some other stuff that I don’t remember because it was like 5th grade or something, damn part of that involve them scraping the skins with their teeth, which were specifically adapted and well suited for the task.

uranibaba,

This is a bit of a friend-of-a-friend story, so it is difficult to evaluate the veracity but here goes.

I once met a woman from Germany (2011, so some time ago now). Her friend had been to the US via some school exchange program. If I recall correctly, the state she went to was Texas but I could be wrong. Anyway, the teacher of the class this friend went to still thought that Adolf Hitler was the ruler of Germany, so she had instructed all students to stand up, do a Nazi salute and say “Heil Hitler” when she first entered the class room. She immediately left the class room, crying.

From what I remember, this supposedly happened a few years prior to me meeting this person and being told the story, so maybe 2008? I can only really vouch for the first part of this story, I was really told this. I cannot know if the rest is true, but I believed her back then at least.

Long story short, there are some backwards people on this world indeed.

Duamerthrax,

My civics and history teachers ware more subtle. Occasional mentions of a news article about some welfare queen, how great Disney was for Times Square, how great it is to be invaded by America(Japan was their only example), or how the Walton heirs were the richest people behind Bill Gates(they weren’t). I think one of the biggest Aged Like Milk comments was how real estate was such a great and sound investment. This was around 2003.

Meanwhile, I only heard one mention of climate change from the science teachers in those four years. I think the biggest lesson I got from school was to never trust authority and always press for sources.

jasory,

There are some gullible people in this world as well.

How on earth is someone supposed to know details about the Hitler salute and not know that 1. The US was a war with him 2. That he was only the ruler 60 years past.

Not only that but addressing someone as their head of state isn’t a thing. Nobody calls Indians Modi, or British people Sunak.

Your story is either that of a cruel joke or completely fabricated.

uranibaba,

A had experience, A told B, B told me. If the story is a lie, A is the one who lied. But I will never know, because I do not talk with B anymore (lives in another country) and I have never met A.

Another possibility is that it happened, just not the way I was told. Perhaps only one person stood and did the salute, perhaps the salute did not happen but the teacher instead though Adolf Hitler was head or state (or someone from his faction). Or I just remember it wrong, it was not A who had the experience and it is just an urban legend. It was 10+ years ago, after all.

Either way, I hope that story is not real.

jasory, (edited )

It’s a funny story, I just don’t know why you give it any credibility given how many highly improbable things have to be true. It’s far more likely that it was a story told solely for humourous reasons, or it was a minor fib that became more humourous over time.

uranibaba,

It was told as a serious story and I always believed it, hence I told it as a true story. But as I said, it was 10 years ago and I might be remembering it wrong, or anything else. You don’t have to believe it and that is OK.

someguy3, (edited )

This may have been the time when dissecting cadavers was very, very looked down on. It was seen as desecrating the body. So knowledge of the body just wasn’t there.

treadful,
@treadful@lemmy.zip avatar

No, this shit was pretty prevalent in the 90s and I guarantee some people are still parroting it today.

boogetyboo,
@boogetyboo@aussie.zone avatar

Ergh I’m guilty of repeating this bullshit when I was younger. It had been sold to me as a fact, not in what I perceived was a racist context per se - more a ‘oh cool, lucky them, that makes sense gestures at basketball’ way. Believe me, I get it now. Also, my mum’s black… Where did I get this bullshit from? White men can’t jump?

skulkingaround,

While there is no extra muscle, it is factually true that people of West African descent tend to have more fast twitch muscle fibers which is a pretty big advantage in many sports.

This is likely why the myth of the extra muscle originated.

kryllic,
@kryllic@programming.dev avatar

Wasn’t there a basketball coach that got fired for saying basically this, albeit not as…elegantly?

OrteilGenou,

classic

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

Is that really true though? Many of these sports myths hold true until they suddenly don’t. Tall people were believed to be awful sprinters until Usain Bolt somehow just smashed everyone. Koreans nerds were the supposed chosen SC2 players but now it’s a chad from Italy

Tavarin,
@Tavarin@lemmy.ca avatar

Yes, those people are outliers. Usain Bolt especially is a genetic rarity, being as tall as he is with crazy amounts of fast twitch muscles.

skulkingaround,

It’s true, but some people go way too far with it. All it means is that people of West African descent tend to have more fast twitch muscle fibers. You could be white as sour cream and get lucky with your genetics and end up the same way. It’s having those muscle fibers that’s the advantage, not having west african heritage. In sports like basketball or sprinting where fast twitch fibers are a big advantage, you tend to see populations of people who are predisposed to that getting over-represented.

curiousaur,

My dad told me as a kid black folks have more fast-twitch muscle fibers.

JoBo, (edited )

It was sort of the opposite at the very start of integrated sports. In the US and UK, at least, it was widely believed that Black men could not play sports simply because they did not, in fact, play (professional) sports. (And of course women were barely allowed to play sport at all in that era.)

Claims that Black people are naturally better at sports came later on, along with reasons why they couldn’t swim, or play tennis or golf, or ride horses, or do any of those sports that coincidentally have more access for kids with wealthy and/or suburban parents.

System justification is an easy game to play. A story for every occasion.

argo_yamato,

There was an NFL commentator named Jimmy the Greek who said something like “they are bred to be a better athlete” on air. He was fired shortly thereafter. Can’t remember when it happened though, maybe the mid 1980’s. Not sure if he himself was racist or if he was just saying what popped into his head.

cerevant,

Here’s his quote:

The black is a better athlete to begin with, because he’s been bred to be that way. Because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back. And they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs. And he’s bred to be the better athlete because this goes back all the way to the Civil War, when, during the slave trading, the big, the owner, the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have uh big black kid, see. That’s where it all started!

Racist. Definitely racist.

TheRedSpade,

Yeah, using “black” as a noun cleared that up pretty quickly

SolOrion,

Honestly I think the part of this that surprises me is that he got fired for this… in the 1980s.

I wonder if there’s an ask historians thread on exactly when racism became “denormalized”, if that’s a word.

CodexArcanum,

I’m not trying to be pedantic, but I want to draw your attention to what you said about being unsure about the person’s motives. If a person says something like “they (a group of people) are bred different” then that’s racist. It doesn’t matter if the person is a bigot or openly hates people for their skin color or not; that kind of belief is eugenics and is a racist belief.

Good people, well-intentioned people, can be and are racists, because they are raised with certain ideas and beliefs that are rooted in racism. The things that pop into heir head are racist because they haven’t taken time to look into their own beliefs and understand where they come from, to de-racialize their thinking.

Or, you know, they’re bigots and like having racist thoughts because it serves the bigotry, but that’s a different problem.

Kedly,

I mean, eugenics is wrong because deciding which are and arent good traits in humanity is inherently dehumanizing and a blurry ass fucking line, not because humans are unbreedable. I dont think merely mentioning that slavers would treat their slaves like property is racist, as even though I’m not super well read on the matter, they probably did?

shalafi,

“they (a group of people) are bred different” then that’s racist

But American slavers quite literally bred black people. Yes, like animals. Hell, making it here on a slave ship could be called a form of breeding. Those ships were a perfect hell where only the strongest survived.

Jimmy was callous, out of place, racist, all that, but there was a solid grain of truth in there.

Catoblepas,

What they don’t tell you: a lot of the “breeding” (rape) of enslaved people wasn’t based in modern understanding of genetics, and instead was based on insane shit like ‘everyone from this ethnic group must be better at growing rice.’

While undoubtedly horrible, I wouldn’t expect the Middle Passage to be more of a selective force for a population than any other disaster (war, famine, plague, etc) where healthy, strong people have the highest chance of survival. Especially when you consider that the majority of Black Americans have at least some white ancestry, which would contribute as well to their athletic ability along with their black ancestry.

shalafi,

Ah!

wouldn’t expect the Middle Passage to be more of a selective force for a population than any other disaster (war, famine, plague, etc) where healthy, strong people have the highest chance of survival

Never looked at it that way! Still, I’d call the Atlantic crossing to be especially brutal. Given my druthers, I’d chance any of the four horseman over a ride in a transatlantic slave ship.

Something to think on, as well as:

he majority of Black Americans have at least some white ancestry

Knew that one, it’s obvious to us Americans, but still, some good food for thought.

OrteilGenou,

Slightly beside the topic, did you know that Barbados and some other islands in the West Indies were prized because their location was directly in the path of the prevailing winds/currents that brought ships from Africa? As one person put it, you could practically launch the ship from the port in Africa and do nothing and it would likely end up in Barbados

Garbanzo,

Most Asians are lactose intolerant.

Oops, I did a racism.

Catoblepas,

Guy who thinks it’s appropriate to say black people are physically different from other people due to slavery: I bet you would even call ME racist for wildly misrepresenting the point!

NewNewAccount,

Not the same thing though is it?

Garbanzo,

Not really.

Why are most Asians lactose intolerant? Why isn’t their earwax the same as mine? Why are their teeth shaped differently? It’s because they’re bred different.

Acknowledging differences between various groups is not racist. Treating people differently based on the group they belong to is. Making assumptions about an individual based on the group you’ve assigned to them is.

Mouselemming,

Having different genetics is fundamentally different from being “bred” like cattle

NewNewAccount,

That’s a pretty big leap to go from “most Asians are lactose intolerant” to “they’re bred different”.

I get what you’re saying, and mostly agree. But “they’re bred different” implies some sort of sub-human deliberate motive beyond just a consequence of a population living in isolation for centuries.

OrteilGenou,

They evolved in different environments and over time overcame different things maybe? Like how white people absorb vitamin D like sponges because they get eight minutes of sun a year.

yuriy,

This is why having a gentle hand in conversations about racism can really serve to change minds. The whole thing is such a sticky wicket anyway, it’s too easy to allow anger to control the course of discussion.

OrteilGenou,

How DARE you?!?

CapeWearingAeroplane,

Thinking like this just works against those of us trying to fight racism. Racism is, at its core founded in a belief that some people are inherently more valuable than others, based on ethnicity/how they look.

A factual statement about a group of people can be true or false, but in order to be racist it must also (explicitly or implicitly) say something about those peoples worth.

Saying “group A has lower IQ than group B” can be factually correct, and part in an analysis into why, and how the differences can be evened out. Saying “group X is dumber than group Y” can also be factually correct, but can be said in a context and with an implication that this makes them less valuable as people. Purely based on the statements themselves you can’t tell if either is racist. You need to look at the implications, context, and intentions behind the statement.

One of the horrors of slavery was, in fact, the forced “breeding” of slaves. Even thinking about it makes me feel sick. That doesn’t mean the statement “group X was bred differently from group Y” inherently racist. The racism comes in if that statement is said with the implication that the people in question were subhuman, or otherwise less (or more) valuable as people.

A good example that another commenter mentioned is the Ashkenazi Jews, which systematically eradicated a genetic disorder by tracking who should not have children. Saying “they bred the disease out of the population” may be imprecise and a poor choice of words, but it is not racist. It is a factually correct (albeit poorly phrased) statement about an impressive medical feat that has (presumably) improved a lot of lives.

In order to fight racism you need to be more nuanced than what you are being when you say that “statement X is racist, regardless of the intention behind it”. A statement being poorly phrased can lead to it being misinterpreted, not to it being racist.

HelixDab2,

Eugenics is not, by itself, racist. It is frequently used inappropriately by people with racist motives, but isn’t necessarily so. For instance, the Ashkenazi Jews used a eugenics program to largely eliminate Tay-Sachs syndrome in their communities, by enforced genetic testing and forbidding marriage (or at least having children) for people that were both carriers of the genetic defect. There was also a strong tradition of arranged marriages, which made it much simpler.

The issue is that racists assume that a particular skin color (or ethnic group) is correlated with, for instance, being a “social parasite”, or some such nonsense. The truth is that behavior is a very complex interplay between environment and genetics, and we simply can’t make any reasonable conclusions about what specific genes will 100% definitely result in some kind of socially unacceptable behaviour, or even if that behaviour isn’t positively adaptive in some other way. We can’t even say which genes will probably result in traits that we currently consider to be negative, because genetics simply isn’t destiny (outside of cases of genetic diseases).

jasory,

“I’m not trying to be pedantic”

You’re just being wrong.

“That’s just racist”

No. Claiming that there is a historical reason behind why black people are better athletes isn’t racism. It’s an attempted description, it’s no different than describing environmental pressures for sickle-cell. (I personally don’t know if the description is correct, but I hear it predominately from very pro-black activists, primarily trying to prove that all black reproduction was actually rape).

“Eugenics and racism”

That’s not an endorsement of eugenics, and eugenics is not the same as racism.

“They’re bigots and like having racist thoughts because it serves the bigotry”

What do you think racism and bigotry are? Isn’t racism a subset of bigotry? How does this statement make sense? Or any of yours for that matter?

surewhynotlem,

Black people. White people.

I’m English, when you call people just a color it’s degrading. So we add the ‘people’.

RIP_Apollo,

If you’re English, then you misspelt the word ‘colour’.

Cinner,

Same in the US now, but in our case it’s because although ‘people’ is clearly self-evident if you’re talking about a person/people, during the time of segregation those were the terms used - coloreds & whites. Whites Only Water Fountain. Whites Only Bathroom. Coloreds at the back of the bus, only Whites up front.

Satish,

https://seeuwiki.com/jolina-dela-cruz-boyfriend-parents-height-age/ Jolina Dela Cruz is the asian-filipino athlete who will soon create a history, then you will forget black and white athletes talks, she is best

Deestan,

Northern Europe perspective: This was a minor but ongoing part of public discourse until well into the 90s, to my recollection.

It didn’t take real root, and my theory of that is that our racists are generally fascists who consider physical strength and fitness to be high values. Intellect and arts are for weaklings. Going into detail on how the Africans had an advantage on speed, strength and agility but were still somehow inferior required too much mental gymnastics.

vis4valentine,
@vis4valentine@lemmy.ml avatar

Classic fascist narrative: The enemy is both strong and dangerous, and weak and dumb.

SeeMinusMinus,
@SeeMinusMinus@lemmy.world avatar

One time the kkk created a baseball team and lost to a all black team. I bet some of the kkk members were saying shit like that afterwards lol.

OrteilGenou,

Have you ever tried to steal a base in a full length robe?

BombOmOm,
@BombOmOm@lemmy.world avatar

Possibly, though the difference in strength and endurance between a male and female is much, much larger than between two different races. Male high school athletes outperform Olympic medal winning female athletes in almost every category. The difference is stark.

vis4valentine,
@vis4valentine@lemmy.ml avatar

Yes, that is true until you are 2+ years on estrogen and testosterone blockers, then your advantages go away.

c0mbatbag3l,
@c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world avatar

Your still have a bone, ligament and muscle structure that developed under testosterone, I don’t think that just “goes away” once you remove the hormones that brought it on in the first place.

somethingsnappy,

Thank the tiny gods, or I would be spherical with no muscles at this point. Muscle and the resilience of connecting tissue takes a very long time to atrophy.

Serinus,

And you can tell by the way they don’t win competitions.

krashmo,

I mean, none of the trans people I’ve met are people I would describe as natural athletes. I’m sure they exist but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of overlap in the two categories which likely skews any sort of analysis of the subject.

Serinus,

The issue is that exceptional people win. And you can’t allow people to compete, but then tell them it’s not okay if they win.

I’m cool with anyone competing in men’s competitions, but sports set aside for women at birth should keep that standard. The same logic applies to Oscar Pistorius, who shouldn’t have been allowed to compete in the Olympics. If you win a competition with artificial legs, it’s hard to argue that the artificial legs aren’t an advantage.

Iamdanno,

If it’s ok for anyone to compete in men’s events, it should also be ok for anyone to compete in women’s events.

angrystego,

That makes no sense when you look at the reasons of why it was established this way. It would be just blind and dumb egalitarianism. People need to use intelligence in judging these things, not just emotions.

Iamdanno,

I guess it depends on whether you want things to be equal or equitable

angrystego,

I agree. It also depends on being able to understand how those terms work and what they represent in real life, which is, unfortunately, often rather difficult for people to grasp.

CherenkovBlue,

Women’s cycling races in Chicago area would tell a different story…along with women’s swimming (Lia Thomas)…and other cases.

Tigbitties,
Tigbitties avatar

It's such a hilarious non-issue. There aer so many other things we should be worried about.

Serinus,

Exactly. It’s harmful to both women and the LGBT+ movement.

We should all just get on board with allowing discrimination based on sex at birth in women’s sport competitions.

And then we can really focus on discrimination where it matters. Drag competitions aren’t hurting anyone.

FoundTheVegan,
FoundTheVegan avatar

We should all just get on board with allowing discrimination based on sex at birth in women’s sport competitions.

No, we need the exact opposite of this but for the same reason.

We should ignore it as an issue because it's literally not an issue. The minuscule number of people it will affect don't warrant national discussion nor legislation. But we should also not cede ground to transphobic bigots that want to use this as precedent "that assigned sex at birth" is relevant in some venues. Next stop is bathrooms and gyms.

More over, scientifically this isn't even a metric that makes sense. What about intersex folk? Their assigned sex at birth inherently doesn't fit in to a binary. It also ignores the numerous cis women who naturally have higher testosterone levels. I get why its an easy solution as transphobia is rampant and dangerous in other areas of life, but thats not a good reason to make inherently flawed laws.

Serinus,

It’s not a winning issue in sports. Anywhere else you’ll get more support.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/9d786c8c-be5c-4605-ad5a-fb1ca2c25ae9.png

from Gallup polls

FoundTheVegan, (edited )
FoundTheVegan avatar

You are missing the point, the polls don't matter. I know it's a wedge issue that republicans slam on, but just because a thing is popular doesn't make it wise.

  • Scientifically (HRT equalizes everything after 2+ years)

  • Philosophically (trans women are women, trans men are men)

  • Politically (sets a precedent of gatekeeping certain areas)

  • Practically (intersex, cis athletes with unique biology)

From every angle you look at it, we can't enshrine ASAB as the end all determination. It's not a compromise that will make transphobic people chill, it will be a victory for them to push more.

Are you really going to tell me that a trans girl who was on puberty blockers as a child and HRT when she is old enough, who never went through "male puberty" at any point physically has some edge and should not be able to be on a girls soccer team? Because that flies in the face of all reason. Setting a law because of popularity instead looking at the facts will cause more problems down the road.

Serinus,

physically has some edge and should not be able to be on a girls soccer team?

Are you going to tell her she can play a sport as long as she’s not exceptional at it?

I’d be fine with the girls who are mediocre at a sport. It’s not reasonable to tell anyone that they’re allowed to play a sport as long as they aren’t good at it. Trans women shouldn’t be taking scholarships and awards away from born women.

The same doesn’t apply to bathrooms or the gym. You can be as good as you want at pissing in whatever gender bathroom you want. I don’t care.

Trans women who do not fully transition are going to have an advantage. And anyone who performs well is going to be suspected of not fully transitioning. It’s not fair to them and not fair to born women.

We already have controls in sports on sex hormones. This isn’t much different.

I wish the trans community all the best in areas outside of this one. I’ll call you by whatever pronouns you prefer. You can use whatever bathrooms you want. But this issue is different.

I respect your argument. I’m just not convinced.

CapeWearingAeroplane,

it will be a victory for them to push more

I don’t see how maintaining the status quo can be seen as a “victory that makes them push for more”? That argument is much easier to push the other way:

If someone can play a sport based on undergoing X treatment, isn’t that discriminatory against those that can’t afford treatment but still identify a certain way? What about XYZ women’s only spaces, should we allow anyone that proclaims self-identifying a certain way into those spaces?

That’s the same “victory to make them push for more” just flipped.

Blackhole,

It’s NOT a wedge issue in sports, as evident by the fact that a majority of independents, and a sizeable portion of democrats are also against it.

And it’s also not settled scientifically. This isn’t about ONLY testosterone. It’s also about bone structure, muscle density, wing span l, height, ligaments and tendons, and much more. All things that don’t just disappear with the cessation of testosterone.

vis4valentine,
@vis4valentine@lemmy.ml avatar

Exactly.

Gigan,
@Gigan@lemmy.world avatar

Even if that were true, I don’t think 100% of sporting organizations require 2+ years of hormone treatment before they allow trans athletes to compete.

c0mbatbag3l,
@c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world avatar

If it were true, though, it would be a good way to solve the problem of competition.

ridethisbike,

Genuinely curious on this, so don’t take offense when I ask for a source. I’m gonna Google it, too, but it would be helpful for others if it’s posted up.

School_Lunch,

I can’t remember a specific example, but that does sound familiar. I remember someone claiming a possible reason for their strength was that slavers would breed slaves like animals for certain traits.

RickRussell_CA,
RickRussell_CA avatar

The famous example you're thinking of is Jimmy Snyder, aka Jimmy the Greek, a sports commentator and sports betting expert who used to work for CBS sports. He was interviewed as part of a series about civil rights in the US, and the interviewer was sort of expecting him to say something pleasant about black folks' success in athletics opening doors for education and leadership, etc.

Instead he made some pretty astonishing claims that were intensely racist.

vis4valentine,
@vis4valentine@lemmy.ml avatar

I think someone who is forced to do hard labor since birth of course is gonna be stronger than a master who can’t wipe his own ass without 15 servants helping him, so they gotta think blacks are naturally stronger.

BrerChicken,

Not to mention the fact that all of this person’s family are people who were strong enough to survive a miserable voyage, chained up down below. Many people didn’t survive that trip, but the ones who did obviously tended to be stronger and healthier than those who didn’t.

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