It's Kenya's national sport, a kind of national obsession. From a tiny age, young Kenyans dream of the roar of the crowd, the fame and success that comes from demonstrated excellence on the field.
Conventional thinking--and quite a few liberal academics--hold that this cultural obsession is the best explanation for the incredible Olympic success of Kenya's distance runners. Kenya in particular, and East Africa in general, enjoys a near-monopoly in medals in the long distance races.
The only problem--pointed out by John Entine in his fascinating book Taboo--is that the national obsession in Kenya is not running but soccer. Kenyans are crazy about soccer! "Unfortunately," Entine observes, "Kenyans are among the world's worst soccer players." Even in Africa, Kenya is routinely routed by West African countries like Cameroon and Nigeria.
Running is not such a big deal in Kenya. And when it comes to short-distance sprints, Kenyans and other East Africans aren't particularly good. Virtually every running record from the 100 to the 400 meters, male and female, is held by athletes of West African ancestry. It's only in the 5,000 meters, 10,000 meters and in the marathon that the special abilities of East African runners manifest themselves.
Entine, an Emmy winning journalist formerly with NBC News, has done his homework. He does not completely reject economic and cultural explanations of athletic prowess. He just shows their inadequacy. For instance, examing the notion that poverty is responsible for success in sport, Entine notes that most poor countries do terribly in sports. How many runners from poverty-stricken Bangla Desh, for instance, have won Olympic medals in Beijing? The "spur" of poverty is more than trounced by the benefits of superior nutrition, superior facilities and superior coaching in affluent countries.
So what about culture? Yes, culture can help to account for why Americans do well at baseball and why the Chinese usually triumph in ping pong. Americans play baseball more than most others, and no one takes ping pong more seriously than the Chinese. But Entine notes that running is universal. In every country, young people run races. "Given the universality of running," Amby Burfoot writes in Runner's World, "it is reasonable to expect that the best runners should come from a wide range of countries and racial groups." So why are there such enduring and overwhelming racial differences in the outcome?
Entine is not afraid to say that "genetically linked, highly heritable characteristics, such as skeletal structure, muscle fiber types, reflex capabilities, metabolic efficiency, and lung capacity are not evenly distributed among populations." These traits help to explain why groups succeed--and sometimes fail--in certain sports. For instance, the same body type that works so well in the boxing ring and on the track doesn't do so well in the water. How many black swimmers have there been on the U.S. Olympic team? Even countries on the African coast have a terrible record when it comes to swimming medals.
Entine's book is titled "Taboo" because he knows how controversial his thesis is, how fiercely it is hated and resisted. I suspect this is not because of powerful academic evidence that Entine is wrong. If there is such evidence, I would like to see it, but so far I've had a hard time finding it. Rather, the resistance is due to the liberal fear that if we praise black athletic superiority and attribute it to genes, this opens the door for racists to speculate about black intellectual inferiority and to attribute it too to genes.
Yet this is a non-sequitur. Groups can be unequal physically and still be equal intellectually. Men and women are clearly unequal in upper-body strength, for instance, and yet the average IQ for males and females is the same, although the bell curve distribution of that IQ is not. But I'll leave that subject for a later blog.
My general point is that many liberals are looking in the wrong place to find a justification for their support for political equality. As Jefferson noted a long time ago, inequality of endowment, whether it exists or not, is no warrant for inequality of rights. Equality is not a factual proposition, derived from biology. It is a moral proposition, derived from Christianity.
Reader Comments ( Page 8 of 8)
106. d'nesh: you're an idiot for even making this argument. So what is so racially distinct about Michael Phelps' body that would prevent another person of a different race from being as good as he is? There are no people of african descent that have a similar body shape? How foolish you are. Maybe the reason why there are not many african americans in the sport of swimming because it is a sport that requires substantial economic support to get to the level of someone like michael phelps. While a track to run is pretty easy to have access to, a swimming pool and the related resources to develop swimming or diving talent comes at significant expense. Maybe the sociodemographics are what keep african americans from that sport. Same for Golf and Tennis with the exceptions of athletes like the Williams sisters and Tiger Woods (who truly are exceptions).
red at 9:27PM on Aug 23rd 2008
107.
St. Brian,
You do realize that Objective is a parody page, don't you?
http://objectiveministries.org/statementoffaith/
Look at where they place the burning bush in the Divine Org Chart of "GOD" - under sundry talking objects and animals... priceless.
ex-christian at 9:35PM on Aug 23rd 2008
108. Atheists are planning to acquire nuclear weapons to wage war on Christians. It's TRUE!
http://objectiveministries.org/gametheory/militantatheists.html
Are you ready to take arms and help us fight back before it's too late? We only have one shot at the End Times, people! Let's not do a sloppy job of it!
SPAMB0T
Wow, lol. Tell me when, I wouldn't want to miss that.
a born atheist at 10:17PM on Aug 23rd 2008
109. Michael,
If you still read this blog, please send me your email adress. I lost it!
God bless!
janesophie1 at 12:16AM on Aug 24th 2008
110. Rarely, do I find myself in agreement with Mr. D'Souza. It is the question of motive that bothers me. However, this time he said something that matches my own thinking. Politically speaking I agree that equality is a moral issue that weighs in on the character of the alleged victim as well as the alleged perpetrator.
But what is it that D'Souza seeks? Is it the end of racism that he wrote about in his book, "The End Of Racism?" In that book, it was his words that failed him. He allowed his adjectives "black", and "white" to masquerade as nouns. These two words are the mainstay of the culture of racism. This book, like every thing else he writes, turned out to be a protest thesis laden with a heavy dose of quilt, blame and shame with no foundation in principle, fact and truth and thus, no sound proposals for a possible remedy.
So what is the purpose of these publications? Is it to keep his tenure, find a practical solution to racism or both?
Maia Jaribu Ajanaku at 11:11AM on Aug 24th 2008
111. So what is the purpose of these publications?
Money and notoriety - nothing more, nothing less. Dinesh only cares about forwarding himself and his "anti-everything but christian" agenda.
TJ at 12:12PM on Aug 26th 2008
112. Dinesh, you are ignorant. I have ignored you for years, but ran into this "article" by chance and decided to infuriate myself by reading it.
What's funny is that your idiotic reasoning has only made me laugh because of your complete lack of knowledge on the most BASIC of topics! Hilarious!
"How many black swimmers have there been on the U.S. Olympic team? Even countries on the African coast have a terrible record when it comes to swimming medals." I stopped reading after this golden nugget of knowledge.
You are a fool and proof that no amount of study about the US or other western nations in relationship to the African Diaspora will ever be thorough enough for you to decipher because you choose only to reference the written history of the captors who deny reality.
Blacks in the USA EXCEL at sports that do not require equipment. BASIC! It is a socioeconomic issue. Historically, blacks had been denied access to swimming pools as recently as the 1980s (not to mention the location of the pools) making swimming as foreign as hockey and tennis...another sport that requires equipment and a daggone facility, but if you mess up at hockey, you don't die. Parents were taught to fear swimming since the consequences of failing in swimming could be the loss of your life and lack of access made it near impossible to master.
I was one of the "few" at my private school (world-renowned) in the 80s. I excelled at swimming, volleyball, tennis, softball, track, but was TERRIBLE at basketball. Here's the rub...I was also one of only 2 girls of color in the advanced class. I was salutatorian, the other, valedictorian. ACCESS is the major issue. The other, well, the other young lady and I had families not originally from this country so although our skin was black, the lives of our families were not constructed through American systems of failure. That, I believe is the best test. Immigrant blacks who are still subject to racial systems of disparity (housing segregation - poor schools), but inherit a determination that had been preserved from generations of our families living in our own homogeneous societies.
Race is everything Dinesh. You come to this country like a traveling salesman of hate. If not for your brown skin, you would be shunned a la David Duke, but you are a comfort to whites who only lift up minorities who say what angry whites could only dream to say. The system puts money in your pockets as you prostitute yourself to the establishment, but of course, that is of no concern to you. My only hope is to believe in Karma.
Nadine at 10:28AM on Aug 29th 2008
113. i feel this is a good review lets call it, but that last paragraph is aload of nonsence! there was no need at all for that last paragraph but other then that i enjoyed reading this.
Brian Golding at 9:29AM on Sep 25th 2008