Fisher DeBerry is Head Coach of the Air Force Academy football team. He’s not having a very good year. Yesterday he said that part of the reason is that he just doesn’t have enough black guys on his team:
Not surprisingly, DeBerry’s comments have inspired some degree of controversy. Personally, while I think he may have been a little bit clumsy in how he expressed himself, that he was basically telling the undeniable truth, that it is not racist to simply observe what is obvious, and that it’s one of those things that everybody knows is true but is afraid to say out loud for fear of being called racist.
The statistics speak for themselves. Can anyone name a white halfback, wide receiver or cornerback in the last ten years who has been anything like an elite player? Even the few white skill players (other than QB’s) who have made any sort of an impact in recent memory (John Riggins, Steve Largent, Mike Alstott) have not been speed guys but excelled because of other skills. I can’t think of a single white guy in the NFL right now or in the last 20 years who was noted particularly for speed. All the burners are black. There are no white counterparts for the likes of Deion Sanders or Randy Moss or Michael Vick (in terms of pure speed).
Is it racist merely to notice that? I say no. Why that’s the case, I don’t know. I can pull theories out of my ass but I can’t really say that I know. I just don’t think it makes anybody evil or racist to acknowledge that it’s a reality.
Incidentally, in my life exoerience, it seems that black people have much less difficulty with acknowledging this…let’s call it a statistical difference…than white people. It’s not at all uncommon for me to hear black people saying that white athletes are “slow” or that they can’t jump, etc. That’s never bothered me because at an elite level that disparity seems pretty hard to deny.
So, anyway, my debate topic is two-fold.
Is it racist to say that black athletes tend to be faster than whites?
If the answer is yes, does anyone have a decent theory as to why?
It depends on how it’s worded. I think a general reference to the superior athleticism and speed of TCU’s football team (which, those of us in the Mountain West Conference know, is attributed to more than skin color), and a desire for more speed players. It seems less than tactful to mention his desire for players of a specific ethnicity, but I certainly wouldn’t call it racist. As you noted in the OP, the superior speed of African-American athletes in professional and college sports is something that any sports fan can easily observe from his couch.
How much of this is self-selection? How much is genetics? How much is a difference in what athletic values are emphasized to these players in their youth? (That is–does the Pee Wee coach teach the white kid how to throw and the black kid how to run?) I don’t know; I’m not a sociologist and I suspect most football coaches aren’t sociologists either.
I guess my view on this is that it would be perfectly appropriate for DeBerry to say to the AD or his coaching staff or his recruiters or whomever, “Hey, we need fast black players.” Why he felt the need to express that desire publically is beyond me. Did he expect not to be thrown into controversy?
Anyway, football recruiting is not the primary concern of a military academy, nor should it be.
Here’s another interesting little point, too. In my (very) short stint in the Air Force, the vast majority of Airmen I met were Caucasian Southerners. I ran into a large enough number of African-Americans in the enlisted ranks, but I can only think of a small handful of visibly non-Caucasian officers I ever met at Lackland AFB (small sample population–again, IANAS). The Air Force Academy is a school which trains officers. As a former member of the Air Force, and as a child of a Navy officer, in my experience I’ve found that the vast majority of military officers are white. Why? Well, there’s yet another thread entirely…
First, the was a guy on the NY Giants ten years ago os so who had some serious wheels. I can’t think of his name right now, but he was smallish, tough, FAST, played special teams and was used as a receiver.
Great question. One could argue that any discussion of racce is “racist”, but let’s say you mean it in the negative, bigotted sense. Then, I’d say that pointing out facts is educational, not racist. No doubt, others will disagree.
Assuming the “why” refers to why some think it’s racist, I thiink it is because the group that has so long had to struggle for equality fears having differences pointed out. I think they believe that even if it may help their image in this one instance, it may hurt them in the larger scheme of things. I think they have a point, but to ignore facts I don’t think does anyone good in the long run.
To say that their are genetic differences between races seems like it should be obvious. To think those genetic differences would be relegated to outward appearance only seems ilogical to me. Thre was a book a few years back that I just read a review of (the word “Taboo” I think was in the title) that looked at the difference in performance of different races in sports. One ionteresting thing the review mentioned went beyond race. The those from West Africa dominated short-distance running while those from East Africa dominated long distance, with virtually no crossover. Something like the top twenty record holders in the sprint were West African. Although I may have the West and East African specialties reversed.
The book was also of the opinion that caucasians posseessed greater upper body strength, which accounted for the larger percent of white lineman. Or something like that.
An African-American trainee in my first flight in Air Force basic training told me that the reason there are “no black swimmers” is because of differences in the body structure of Caucasians vs African-Americans that create a substantial difference in acceleration and speed in water. I don’t know anything about this one way or the other, but it just came to mind when you referenced that book…maybe someone more knowledgeable than I can chime in on it.
Not to excessively nitpick (I largely agree that his statement isn’t racist in and of itself), but Tim Dwight is bloody fast. I once saw him outrun LaDanian Tomlinson on an upfield run to throw a block for him.
So does saying that the sun moves around the earth. Assumptions based on initial appearances are HYPOTHESES, not CONCLUSIONS. There’s a process of examination and proof required to get from one to the other.
Too many people fail to make that distinction, and presume that a hypothesis based on their own observation has the status of fact, just because it “seems obvious” to everyone. But until it’s been tested and proven, an observation is only a hypothesis, and not a valid conclusion, no matter how “common sense” it appears to be.
Examples of such hypotheses-sold-as-conclusions:[ul]
[li]The sun moves round the earth[/li][li]Pit bulls are vicious[/li][li]Intelligent design[/li][li][Fill in your race-oriented generalization of choice][/li][li]etc.[/li][/ul]
All you can say is that of the guys who chose to play football, or who were encouraged to do so, or who didn’t have other career paths, there are a large number of African-Americans who display the most speed.
There have been white Olympic sprint/hurdles champions in the past decade from Russia and Greece, also in the marathon (silver I think). Cultural and economic factors are huge variables, but there’s no evidence that white runners can’t be as fast, there just aren’t as many out there at this point in time.
And to hit the obvious, race is a social construct, not a scientific one. What we think of as the black “race” has a huge amount of genetic diversity.
Black individuals swim just as well as anyone else. There are Africans living on the coast (of Africa) who make their living fishing and they certainly know how to swim. I don’t know why the United States seems to have a thing about blacks not knowing how to swim. I can tell you that I didn’t see many black kids at school pool during the summer time even though we had plenty of them in the surrounding neighborhood.
So far as I understand, there is no such thing as races in the human spectrum when speaking in a biological sense. You can’t take my DNA and figure out what race I am and I might have just as much in common genetically with the black guy to my left as I do the white guy to my right.
Note that he said “black athletes” and not “blacks”. If I said: White hockey players are generally better than Black hockey players, that would be a fact as well.
Still, it was a pretty stupid thing to say. Why not just say “we need some faster players” and leave the whole race thing out of it.
Except there are such things as diseases that correspond very largely to ethnicity – Tay-Sachs and sickle-cell anemia are examples that come to mind. I’m not denying that race is mostly a social construct, but to say there’s no biological basis is a reach.
And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if foot speed over short distances was a distinguishing factor between races, where people of West African heritage have an ever-so-slight advantage over Caucausians, say because of an ever-so-slight difference in fast-twitch muscle fibers in their legs. For instance, watch the 100-meter dash in the Olympics. People of African descent preponderate among the best in that sport, whether they come from America, Canada, France – all countries where the black population is a smallish minority. It’s worth remembering, though, that hundredths of seconds separate the elite from the not-so-elite. The difference is tiny, in other words, and not very predictive at the individual level.
I wouldn’t, therefore, call the coach a racist. Insensitive, maybe, given how inflammatory a topic race is generally. At the same time, his suggestion that player speed correlates to athletic success is bizarre. Skill and disciplined play is what correlates to success. Speed is nice in a wide receiver, but if he can’t catch the ball or run a decent route, then his speed is useless to the team.
Off the top of my head I know that sickel-cell is found among Africans, Indians, people from the Middle East, Turkey, Italy, Greece, and I think there are even some Asians that might be prone to getting the disease. Race is a social construct. I don’t believe you can examine my DNA and figure out that I’m white and the presence of sickel-cell won’t tell you whether I’m from Turkey or somewhere in Africa.
Actually, from a genetic perspective, IIRC there is FAR more genetic diversity between “black” populations in even fairly small areas of Africa, separated in some cases by a few hundred miles, than there is between the entire “Caucasian race” population in all of continental Europe.
Re the OP it reminds me of noted mathematical sports analystJimmy “The Greek” Snyder’s observation that the reason blacks are faster “is that during the slave period, the slave owner would breed his black with his big woman, so that he would have a big black-kid, that’s were it all started.” Irrespective of it’s overall accuracy re black American physiology, he was fired for (in his view) making a non-racist observation of (what was to him) objective historical fact. The Air Force coach (from his perspective) is making a similar observation. I wonder what his fate will be?
I did, however, hear him referred to by his most devoted admirers as “the gastest white man in America.”
Still, taking some observable phenomenon from a sample of only elite atheletes and applying it to whole populations doesn’t make any sense. There are way too many social variables involved.
As Telemark suggested, if assumption 1 is true, the only thing the statistics prove is that of the athletes who turned up, the blacks had an edge over the whites.
Again, if it is true, the number of possible contributing factors is enormous. I’ll give you just one. Young black athletes look up to the Deion Sanderses of the world, and to other black running backs, and apply themselves to that end as youths.
You could make a similar comparison to black baseball players; as the number of visible black baseball stars declines, fewer youths will be inclined to go in that direction and instead turn to the NFL or the NBA for their role models. The ones who make it to the top will be very good, still, but there won’t be as many so motivated.
The problem is that the man didn’t say that blacks tend to be faster than whites. He said “ he wanted to recruit more black athletes because they are faster.” And that statement is indeed racist.
rac·ism The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
Saying that black athletes are faster is indeed racist. It is quite clearly based on a belief that race accounts for a difference in the ability to run fast, and that Negroes are superior to other races in this regard. The same can be applied to statements like “African-American kids can run very well” and even “Air Force needs more black players to become a better team” (note that DeBerry never made the latter comment, but he clearly endorsed it.
Those comments are all racist. That is inarguable. There is no doubt whatsoever on that point. They are quite clearly based on a belief that running ability can be accounted for by race, and that Negroes are superior. I really can’t see any room for debate on that point.
The problem is that what DeBerry said is that blacks are faster, and the do run better, and they are needed on a team if it is to win. He didn’t say that black players tend to be faster, he said that they were faster. And that is not a petty distinction. It is a vital distinction. It is the same as saying that homosexuals tend to be promiscuous or saying that homosexuals are promiscuous. It is the same as saying that Christians tend to be less well-educated and saying that Christians are uneducated.
To put it in another way, what would you think if DeBerry had utilised a negative stereotype about Negroes? What is he had said “Negro women are welfare Moms” or that “Negro boys sell drugs”? Would those not be racist statements simply because they are supported by the statistics? (I’m assuming here that we can find statistical evidence showing that Blacks are overwhelmingly more likely to be in those categories than whites.If we can’t then substitute in any other uncontroversial yet negative racial generalisation you like.)
And that of course is exactly the problem. The man repeatedly utilised a racial stereotype. That it is a (arguably) positive stereotype for Blacks doesn’t change that fact. It remains a stereotype. He has labelled all Blacks and, by default, all whites.
The truth is that some blacks, maybe even a majority, may be faster than some whites, maybe even a majority. But then a majority of black children are now born to welfare mothers too. And a majority of black men have ac criminal history. That doesn’t justify statements concerning Blacks in general WRT those things.
So although I haven’t answered your questions I hope I’ve pointed out where I think you have misrepresented the issue. The answer to your questions are yes and no respectively. The real issue IMO is far more complex than that.
What statistics would these be? Can we see them? And can we see the level of significance of these statistics.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that it is indicative of nothing much. It certainly doesn’t allow someone to make statements that Blacks run faster or that a team needs a minimum number of Black players to be successful.
The problem to me is that you are confusing two separate issues.
One is that most fast halfbacks/heavyweight champions/top selling rap artists/crack dealers/N.O. looters are Black. Those are all undeniable statements of fact. Blacks dominate in all those fields. End of discussion.I don’t know anybody who disputes any of those things.
The other totally separate issue is the implication that white people can never be as fast as halfbacks. Or as successful as boxers. Or as talented as rappers. Or as ruthless as dealers. Or as uncontrolled as looters. Those things are very much disputed, as they should be.
You seem to think it’s uncontroversial for Black person to say that White people are slow or can’t jump. What would you think if a White person said that Black people were criminals and prone to criminal rampage as soon as the police could no longer act to stop them? Yet both those statements have the same amount of ‘statistical’ support. And both are blatant racist stereotypes. The sole difference is that one is negative about Blacks, the other is positive.
And that is where the rot sets in. As soon as we, on board dedicated to fighting ignorance, start endorsing statements that “Blacks are better at X positive thing” or “Whites are less prone to Y positive thing” we are endorsing ignorance. And once we endorse those statements we can’t very well backflip and refuse to endorse statements that “Blacks are better at X negative thing” or “Whites are worse at Y negative thing”.
A racist stereotype is a racist stereotype. It doesn’t matter how much ‘statistical’ support you have, as soon as you say “Blacks can X” or “Whites can’t Y” then you have issued a racist stereotype. If we start endorsing the ones that portray Blacks in positive light while correcting those that portray Blacks in a negative light then we really have slipped into blatant racist behaviour ourselves.
