Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid to Talk about It

by Jon Entine

Book Overview

In virtually every sport in which they are given opportunity to compete, people of African descent dominate. East Africans own every distance running record. Professional sports in the Americas are dominated by men and women of West African descent. Why have blacks come to dominate sports? Are they somehow physically better? And why are we so uncomfortable when we discuss this? Drawing on the latest scientific research, journalist Jon Entine makes...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 158648026X
• ISBN13: 9781586480264
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Blacks Are The Best Athletes

It makes no sense for blacks to take offense when whites acknowledge they are the best athletes. In classical Greece, the cradle of Western civiliation, athletic grace and beauty was prized above all things.

Can the obvious be denied?

In many sports, black athletes dominate and Entine posits that there are specific genes responsible for this dominance. There may, be a mix of environmental factors too. For example, greatness in the 100 meter dash is determined by fractions of a second. If blacks descended from West Africa have an advantage over whites of a fraction of a second, they must still train hard to realize this advantage. Culture also intervenes. For example, if white athletes adopt the attitude that the best black sthletes cannot be beaten they, therefore, may not train seriously in a given sport.In distance running, as in sprints, black athletes dominate but it is a decidedly different ethnic group of blacks, i.e. East Africans, particularly Kenyans from a very small geographic region in that country. Whereas West Africans have a high anount of a muscle fiber known as fast twitch, East Africans have a disproportionate level of slow twitch fiber. Those who deny that dominance in a sport is genetic state that there is no smoking gun, i.e., specific genes that have been isolated that are linked to athletic dominance. However, Entine states that if there are physical traits that are peculiar to certain population groups, such as a type of muscle fiber, we do not need the smoking gun of being able to isolate the gene to know that the trait is genetic. If one group is tall and another is short, e.g., we need not isolate the gene for tallness to correctly conclude that the trait was inherited.There was a period when white athletes, mainly women, challenged black dominance in the sprints and certain other sports. However, Entine shows that these were Eastern bloc women (mostly East Germans), whose performance had been greatly enhanced by streoids and other drugs that gave them masculine traits. As far as natural ability is concerned, genetics plays the greatest role.The reason this subject is taboo is because many state that pointing out racial differences is racist. There is a fear of a slippery slope in that if there are racial differences in athletic ability, then, perhaps there are such differences in intelligence. Entine points out, however, that this does not necessarily follow in that the classic standard of a superior person was the athlete scholar. However, regardless of the implications of determining genetic differences in athletic ability, I believe that scientific truth should be searched for, not censored. Therefore, I highly recommend this book.

Athletic skill differences not a black and white issue

"Taboo" examines the question that has remained in the back of my mind since my basketball playing days, "Why is the representation of black athletes so completely out of proportion to their population?" Is it really true that, "White men can't jump?" After a brief introduction, including the story of the PC storm that engulfed British physician (and the first four minute miler) Roger Bannister for suggesting that genetics was part of the answer, the book explains the need for research into this topic and scientifically approaches answers to this question by examining biological, social, and historical factors.This question is so taboo because honest discussion of race and human differences remains such a touchy issue. Especially in the context of sport, human competition, the differences among humans are exemplified. "Taboo" provided insight and allowed me to explore this topic in a non-polemical, even-handed way. Because of a history of prejudice, a white person noticing that black people are better at sports can be seen as judging black people as more primitive or succumbing to "dumb jock" theory. This is not always the case, and this book objectively examines the possibilities.As Entine makes clear, examining this issue should held eliminate racism, since scientific data demonstrates that the difference among all human beings is relatively small and that skin color is just one of millions of genetic mutations among the human population. "Taboo" examines evolution theories, the most common of which is the Eve theory that states that all human beings share common ancestry.The depth in which this topic had been studied blows me away. Slowly revealed through pages of evidence, it appears that the cause/effect relationship of ethnicity and athletic capability cannot be explained in terms of black and white, but varying shades of gray. Entine does not claim that blacks are "superior" or "inferior" in any way, just that evolution has left a footprint on different populations. All the training in the world will not turn an Eskimo into an NBA center or a Kenyan into a sprinter.I was particularly taken by one chapter on how blacks have come to dominate basketball, a sport that Jews dominated in the 1930s. I remember a few years ago when I watched a basketball documentary on TV. I was surprised to discover that my favorite team, the New York Knickerbockers, was at one time composed of Jewish white men. Today it is the complete converse. "Taboo" tells the story of the Philadelphia "Hebrews," the predecessor of the Philadelphia Warriors/76ers. Entine explains the cause to this social revolution and also discusses how Jews of that era were thought to be genetically "trickier," "manipulative," and "deceptive." He uses this comparison to show the danger of facile racial and ethnic stereotypes and to underscore the complex interaction of cultural and genetic factors.As Entine persuasively shows, social and environmental factors along don't seem to be enough t

Will this book be banned in Germany?

I really appreciate people who poke holes in the ridiculous idea that all people are simply a function of their environment, or that since within group variation is greater than between group variation, group distinctions are meaningless. Such egalitarian idiocy has stifled honest investigation into interesting and obvious patterns for too long. I really liked the author's style, in that he writes to be understood, not to show off or to impress academics (i.e., he's not above bringing in the 'dogs have races' argument that everyone can understand, even if this isn't a kosher proof). It will be interesting to see if Entine has a future, that is, if the world is ready to interpret such views as reasonable musings of an educated person, or necessarily the rantings of a closet racist. He tries hard to show purity of motive, but I think he underestimates how white racists and black activists will characature this book. I would guess that he won't be heavily thanked by anyone, but that's what makes it interesting: no one else has the guts to write about it.

A must read for those interested in genetic differences.

The raging debate about the average intelligence between races or ethnic groups has always been equated with male athletic ability as well, but it has been kept off the table for discussion as to the genetic component of black dominance in sports. This book finally brings that chapter to a close, and we can begin to look at athleticism with the same tools and analytical perception that we have devoted to intelligence. Of course, sports are just that, and nations and economies do not fall and rise based on the athletic ability of their athletes, but on the creativity and intelligence of their people. So it is only fitting that intelligence would be studied far longer and with greater interest than sports. But with the dominance of blacks in sports, those who demand fairness have the right to ask, "why not affirmative action in sports for whites and Asians?" This book, using many of the same multiple techniques that have been used to debunk the radical environmentalists' assertion that anyone can become a brain surgeon with the right nurturing, has now debunked the myths that environmental conditions have produced a disproportionate number of blacks in key areas of sports. Unlike intelligence, it is absurd to assert that the tests are biased because the tests are simply running races, jumping higher, quick burst of speed for sprints, and endurance for marathons. Instead of arguing that the tests are biased, sports have numerous tests and reformulations of ability that come into play in winning the prestigious top positions on teams and in contests. This easy to read book does not attempt to look at every form of athletic ability. It concentrates on two primary adaptations that are important in many sports: quick bursts of speed and long distance endurance. In fact, a good portion of the book looks at the asymmetry of black abilities: sprinting and long distance running. What is amazing is that sprinters come from West Africa; but the long distance marathon runners are virtually all from the same ethnic group in Kenya--the Kalenjin. That is, the world male marathon runners come from virtually the same ethnic group. Taboo digs into evolution itself, and explains how individual differences are not only possible but are to be expected from the history of humans evolving in radically different climates and ecologies. Different racial groups evolved adaptations that helped them to survive, and it is only natural that intelligence and physical attributes as well would not be equally distributed under drastically varying environments. In fact, J. Philippe Rushton, in his 1995 book Race, Evolution and Behavior describes the numerous ways that whites, blacks and Asians are different, and how it came about because of different selection patterns for survival. Asians and whites for example experienced severe selection for intelligence when faced with glacial conditions in their northerly habitats, Asians more so than whit

Provocative, intriguging and very readable

What a terrific and brave book! Intriguingly, "Taboo" is not so much a sports book as it is a a sensitive and thought-provoking look at what defines us as human beings. I'm a science buff, greatly interested in the impact of genetics, and found it right on the mark. It also goes about, in a non-polemical way, debunking facile theories of race that have been used for hundreds of years to justify racism and even genocide. Perhaps more than anything, it shatters racist stereotypes that blacks or whites or any "racial" group are innately "superior" or "inferior" -- this is a book about the rich diversity of life, free of the myths of "ranking" that have plagued Western thought for centuries.