And yet, US blacks have a MUCH higher rate of obesity than whites. According the the cite below, in 2007, African Americans were 1.4 times as likely to be obese as Non- Hispanic Whites.
In other words, black Americans are much more likely to be fat than fast. 
http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/content.aspx?ID=6456
Yeah, I don’t think there’s much to support the idea that selective breeding was done intentionally. It’s the *unintentional *things I wonder about. There’s the “the people sold as slaves lost the skirmish” angle, which would seem to root out some of the most “fit”. But then there’s the “the trip over here does sucketh” bit that would root out some of the least fit. Hard work in the fields, little down time, perhaps even actual beatings, and you’re going to lose some of the less physically fit people again, to heatstroke, heart attacks, infection, etc. The people left to have babies together might indeed have been the physically strongest, with best endurance, etc. So I can see where it might be hypothesized that descendants of slave might be more genetically prone to physical fitness than their white slaveowners’ descendants.
Except…didn’t most of them have family come over and break land under pretty harsh conditions, too? My lily white couch potato ass is here because my ancestors were burly French fur trappers who were probably fit as all get out. Simply because I haven’t exercised in a decade doesn’t mean my genes couldn’t have produced a prime specimen of athletic prowess.
And…if you look at the numbers, African Americans have *higher *rates of heart disease, asthma, diabetes and other things that can kill you. Not what you’d except from the descendants of extremely athletic people if athleticism was strongly correlated with genes.
So I think, in the end, it’s probably a wash, or an impact so very slight as to be negligible, and certainly “washed out” by a widened gene pool pretty quickly.
The strength in surviving the middle passage is not tantamount to athletic prowess. It could be resistance to disease, heat, malnourishment, etc.
The same goes with selecting for physical attributes. Nice teeth, bone structure and general build does not mean someone is a good athlete.
Well, survival of the fittest doesn’t mean survival of the strongest; particularly with disease survival. Surviving cholera, dysentary, typhoid, etc doesn’t leave the surviving population stronger either.
And that would be just as true of the weaker white folks. Most white people in the USA at the time were farmers, and the better part of those who weren’t were labourers. They didn’t enjoy any freedom but their work was generally just as backbreaking and the effects of natural selection would have been the same.
Huh. And all this time I thought colored folks worked while the white folks played.
The fact that slaves were raped by their masters alone demonstrates it.
How do you know that?
Know what?
That only slave masters were guilty of rape.
I didn’t say they were. But even if they had been trying for selective breeding they would have ruined the project by doing so.
OK. Now I see what you’re getting at. The use of “masters alone” threw me.
Ah. I meant that them doing so was enough to ruin any such hypothetical project all by itself.
We’re all the descendants of the survivors who made it through all manner of plagues, famines, wars, and other very bad things, not to mention however many devoid-of-anesthesia-or-hygiene childbirths our ancestresses endured, so to some extent we’ve all got some toughness perhaps, but I agree with those who have said three centuries isn’t enough to do anything like selective breeding except in dogs and cats.
Descriptions I’ve read and photos I’ve seen of my own Civil War era and before ancestors for whom they’re available indicates that most of the men were well under 6’0 tall (most were about 5’8/5’9 in their Civil War records) and were skinny when young and slim when older. The men in the family now go 6’0 and over and there hasn’t been a skinny one since the Model T came into being and it’s due to not working in the fields anymore, using elevators and cars and other technologies instead of walking everywhere and exerting labor. I can’t imagine most black families being different- they’re the descendants of people who worked very hard and survived a lot, and even if you work out your great-great-great-grandparents, black or white, probably couldn’t run circles around you but they could probably walk circles around you for weeks on end from the stamina that was required for daily life back then.
No, it was based on which unlucky tribe got out-fought in battle and dragged to the docks.
Or rather, I assume you mean the slave ship conditions, thinking about it. Well, if anything that would select for ability to withstand long-term environmental stress, which would have no necessary correlation with ability to jump high, run fast, or whatever else we think of as “athletic”. The people who win ultra-marathon endurance competitions or walk across the Arctic generally are not exceptional in any other type of athletic endeavor, and even that may not be a fair comparison, since the people who compete in those things are not starved, shackled, beaten and forced to endure their own wastes in crowded conditions for weeks on end.
So – no.
Black American athleticism is an interesting topic, but I think a better explanation for their athletic success is hard work and practice (which is not to say that white American athletes don’t work hard and practice). If you’ve spent your childhood playing pickup basketball games day after day after day, is it surprising if you end up having above average jumping ability, lateral agility, manual dexterity, and/or high endurance? If you’ve spent your childhood on a farm performing repetitive manual labor, is it surprising if you end up developing high muscular endurance and a 100 mph fastball? Have you ever seen a little kid with a 6 pack and defined pecs? Those are the kids who are out running around all day playing; they weren’t born that way.
It’s a little dismissive and insulting to black athletes to suggest that their abilities aren’t the result of their hard work and life experience.
I’m not trying to be dismissive or insulting, but hypothetically, if only the most athletic persons on a continent were relocated to a new place and started a new population, would their offspring after a few hundred years have a physical advantage?
I won’t completely dismiss the idea, but the “physical advantage” you speak of may only be apparent at elite levels of competition, and it may be insignificant in practical terms. If a certain population of elite athletes is found to sprint 100 meters 0.02 seconds faster, on average, than another population of elite athletes, how significant is that? How many trials do you need to run, and how many individuals do you need to test, to draw a reliable statistical conclusion?
Except the slaves brought to the US weren’t the most athletic people on the continent, and didn’t breed together in any organized or directed manner. Survival wasn’t selected for based on physical prowess that would express itself in athletic achievement.