Somewhat inspired from this thread, I am asking what effect the selective pressure of slavery in the Americas had on black athletes today.
A friend of mine thinks that selective pressure makes American blacks physically superior to Africans.
How does North American black athletes stack up against Africans? In World Cup soccer, Ghana beat the USA. Kenyans frequently win marathons over Americans.
Or is it mostly a matter of nutrition and access to resources and better training?
You get the Jimmy the Greek trophy, prospectively.
I will before ducking out note that American black kids don’t for various reasons steer toward soccer so the Ghana data point is almost meaningless (and, the U.S. team was, accordingly, mostly suburban white dudes).
ETA that to the extent there are genetic phenotype issues in athletic performance, few African slaves in America came from the Kenya/East Africa area (where distance runners rule), most came from West Africa.
Not a chance. They weren’t slaves that long (relative to human generation times), nor were they consistently bred for anything. And the masters were too fond of rape for that to work even if they had been trying.
Ah, but wasn’t the initial population selected based on physical attributes?
No. They were selected first based on who lost the war or was captured, then on who survived the transportation process, then maybe some of them were selected because they looked strong. Of course some were selected because they were pretty and others for other reasons as well. But that really only affected how much they sold for. All of the ones who survived were sold eventually, unless they were too injured to work. Do you think the slave traders returned the smaller ones to Africa or dumped them overboard? Even crippled slaves had some value.
…and, considering the horrible conditions of overseas travel, wouldn’t the weak or prone to illness people be more likely to die on the trip?
I feel like I’m treading through a minefield, but I do wonder if this might be one of those racist sounding questions which maybe isn’t.
But, first, of course, we have to determine whether black athletes really *are *more prevalent than white athletes, and if that can be explained by current factors, like basketball courts being cheap to install and maintain even in urban park districts, and athletic scholarships being made more available to Black and/or low income students.
Hardly. They were “chosen” by being captured and kidnapped. And by not being killed or managing to suicide on the way to America.
The reason that the black atheletes of Ghana beat the black and white and whatever atheletes of the US in soccer (apart from our woeful counter-attack defense) is that the best black atheletes in Ghana aren’t recruited to play American football, baseball, basketball, hockey, golf, curling or ultimate frisbee … they’re recruited to play soccer.
The question itself isn’t racist, although I think it’s based on some incorrect assumptions that have already been addressed. I also think the answer is that no, black athletes haven’t benefited from slavery. However I do think the question is sometimes used in a racist way, as an implication that somehow black athletes have an unfair advantage. I’m not seeing that in this thread, though.
I will say that the cultural expectation that Blacks are good athletes is related somewhat to slavery. Those expectations often lead to Blacks gravitating towards those things, and generally being more successful in them then mere chance would dictate.
I doubt there is a single instance of human history of humans being artificially selectively bred for desired characteristics, like dogs, with any significant success. Humans, even enslaved, are too willful in their breeding choices; and they have the same long maturity/breeding cycle as their breeders.
And the fourth child asked “Why is it that on all other nights we eat either sitting or reclining, but on this night we eat in a reclining position?”
And to him you shall respond, “It is because when we were slaves in Egypt, the Lord our God brought us forth to become limbo champions. And had He given us this natural ability and not also taught us the ways of running a 40 yard in 4.3 seconds, Di’anu.”
The sports that black Americans dominate are the ones that emphasize speed (100 meter dash, for instance). And in team sports, the positions that black Americans dominate are the ones that emphasize speed (wide receiver, cornerback, center fielder, running back).
Now, even if you take seriously the notion that slave owners selectively bred slaves as they would horses… do you REALLY think slave owners would breed their slaves to be fast runners? WHY would they do such a thing?
The consensus I’ve heard from various professors is that “evolution doesn’t work that fast.”
Bolding mine.
Got a cite for that conjecture?
That’s a pretty safe conjecture. Neither slaves nor slave owners were monolithic. Slaves did a variety of different tasks and slave owners had a variety of needs, beliefs and plans. To be “consistently” bred, you need an isolated population and multiple generations with the same goals.
I didn’t expect to get a laugh out of this thread, but I was wrong. And yes, since there were 4 million slaves in the U.S. by the time of the Civil War, I have a hard time believing enough of them were bred for any particular purpose and that that population somehow stayed separate long enough for it to matter.
I think you’d have to provide a cite that they were bred for certain attributes, since that is the erroneous assumption (I’ve never read any history books that say they did). Or perhaps first prove that it’s possible to do that with humans. With dogs it’s easy, they have short life spans and have litters, not just one kid at a time, and they’re pretty horny, and don’t do silly things like get married, or worry about STD’s or pull out at the last second.
With a human, you’d have to wait until they’re a teenager at least to figure out if the child is strong or a fast runner etc. Then you’d have to refrain from selling him in order to keep him to breed with a woman of your choosing. Then you’d have to physically force his penis into the woman’s vagina if he didn’t feel like raping the poor lass himself.
Yeah, how the hell is this supposed to work again? By the time the next child is born you’ll be on your way to the grave, are you supposed to teach your heirs how to breed the black slaves you’ve passed on?
Actually, the more I think about it, the more it seems absolutely ludicrous and I can’t believe anybody would think that would actually happen. At least not intentionally.
I can sort-of buy that weaker slaves would tend to die off from the hardship of their labours, but even that’s a stretch to assume it accounts for the modern NBA.
Or from the Middle Passage. As I understand it, a slave-ship captain would routinely expect to lose up to a quarter of his cargo crossing the Atlantic; the conditions in the hold were not very healthy.