Race and Ethnicity

Gabby Douglas. An African American athlete who is considered to be participating in a "white" sport.

In class on April 7, we discussed the problems that exist in the relationship between race and sports. While this subject is touchy, it is always something that should be addressed as it can bring different races together. In class we talked about whether certain races had a genetic advamtage on other races. While there are genetic differences, there is no evidence that these differences translate to advantages. It is widely believed that African American athletes excel at sports because of their genetics and natural physical ability, while Caucasian athletes excel at sports because of their work ethic and intelligence. This is the traditional race logic that is used in sports today. It is a double sided slap in the face of African American and Caucasian athletes. It is saying that African Americans are not smart and do not have a good work ethic so they get by just on natural talent and Caucasians do not have God given talents and must work their butts off to be good at their particular sport. This leads to the effects of race logic. African Americans concentrate on sports in which future economic incentives exist and they also concentrate on sports that do not require exclusive training facilities, equipment and coaching that is not necessary during the developmental years. Caucasian athletes tend to gravitate towards individual sports where developmental expenses are high. And because of these effects of race logic, there are consequences. These consequences include the desegregation of revenue producing sports, position stacking in team sports and skewed distribution of African Americans in U.S. colleges and universities. The two following are articles will touch base upon why there are not many African American female athletes in "white" sports and why there is such a huge gap in between the number of African American student athletes in proportion to the number of students in the whole university.

"It’s no accident that in today’s society, the basketball courts and athletic tracks are dominated by Black athletes, meanwhile white athletes dominate in the pools and on the tennis courts. While it might be tempting to explore “the why” of this matter from a genetics angle, the root cause of it is probably more socioeconomic than biological." This is a clear connection to what we talked about in class. African American athletes are more likely to gravitate towards sports such as basketball and track because you do not need much equipment to play the sport and you can really teach yourself how to play the sport. The cost of playing these sports are very minuscule compared to Caucasian athletes who gravitate towards sports such as golf, tennis and soccer. Caucasians generally live in better neighborhoods and they live close to facilities that allow Caucasians to play these sports from a very young age. Parents are also able to pay for the costs to play these sports no matter the cost. 

http://madamenoire.com/624922/dont-black-girls-play-white-sports/

"While standing on the field at the school's Spartan Stadium during a football game, something else struck Robert, an image he couldn't shake. The players were in uniform, covered in Michigan State's green and white colors, but Robert could see their bare lower legs. "Almost all of them," he says, "were black." Just like Rogers. Meanwhile, everyone else—the coaches, the administrators, the faces in the crowd, and Robert himself—was overwhelmingly white." This also makes a connection to our class on April 7 as well. As Dr. Higgs mentioned, only 8.5% of the entire student body at the University of North Carolina is African American and African Americans make up 4.6% at Villanova University. This a huge gap in regards to the fact that a majority of sports programs, especially in football and basketball, are dominated by African Americans. In the article, Patrick Hruby goes on to say how African American athletes are basically at the hands of Caucasian coaches, corporate leaders and fans. African Americans are used to make money while Caucasians reap all of the benefits of the hard work of African American athletes.

https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/four-years-a-student-athlete-the-racial-injustice-of-big-time-college-sports

An image from the above article, depicting the sad truth about collegiate athletics.