Just to support your point here, if it were true that genetics made you a better basketball player, you’d have to explain why;
The the 1920s, Jews were genetically predisposed to playing basketball - back then Jews were disproportionately represented among basketball players - but they aren’t anymore,
Why blacks do not comprise the vast majority of elite volleyball players, a sport that requires essentially the same physical gifts as basketball, and
What “Genes” it is that makes Canadians so darned good at hockey, a sport they dominate almost as much as blacks dominate basketball.
I mean, I think the “Basketball culture” thing is really, really obvious. Look at all the baseball players from the Dominican Republic. That happens because they have a baseball culture.
This thread got me to thinking back to when I was a competitive swimmer when I was a kid. I seem to remember that there was a nationally ranked African American swimmer named Bruce Barton at that time. Couldn’t find anything quickly on Google about him. Anybody else remeber the name?
BTW, if anyone does find it interesting Google did take me to some interesting articles about contemporary black swimmers.
I don’t understand the OP. I grew up in DC and outside Baltimore and there were always black people at the pool. Isn’t this a function of the community’s demographics?
I (the OP) grew up in a small Saskatchewan town. I was quite old the first time I saw a real, live black person. I guess that is indeed a function of a community’s demographics that I don’t know much about black people swimming or getting their hair wet.
I understand that to some extent, but here’s the thing: black people are, well, people. We do pretty much everything that other people do (besides the obivous, like join the kkk* etc.). Now black people might not be well represented in some activities, but there will always be at least a few out there who are interested/ or participate in almost everything you can imagine. If someone says “we don’t do xyz”, they just mean that the people in their circle don’t do xyz.
*There was a news article awhile back about a black person who did try to do that.
Where I grew up (Glenville neighborhood of Cleveland), I had access to a number of local public city/YMCA pools. I learned to swim fairly well, well enough that my best friend and I would regularly swim in Lake Erie well past the no-wake zones and often get invited aboard the boats of people out fishing or having lunch. It was pretty cool, although quite dangerous. But hey we were young, dumb, and full of …
For the record, I’m black, if anybody hasen’t figured that out yet .
Now, just to defend the OP for a second - I always assumed that as many black people swim, as white people - HOWEVER -
I was watching Dr. Phil on Thursday (Friday?) and one of the guests was a black lady who doesn’t like dating black men. She was sent out on “blind” dates that were really blind - she had to wear a blindfold so she couldn’t see her dates. Each date she asked if they surfed. The reason?
According to her and her black friend (that had busted her for being shallow), she asked about surfing because black people don’t swim and thus if the “blind” dates were black, they wouldn’t surf either.
I had no idea what they were talking about, but quite a few of the black audience members were nodding in the affirmative, while the white audience members scratched their heads and looked around in confusion.
So - what is my point? The black people not swimming thing seems to be sort of a black gag or something. I dunno. FWIW - the entire Jamacian swim team is black - I know because I checked.
