african american athletes..does their ability have anything to do with slavery?

[Eddie the head]

Am I... am I the only one who thinks this thread is jaw-droppingly racist...?
This is the same exact kind of logic the Nazis had: selective breeding and such. HUMANS AREN'T DOGS.

I'm scared of this thread...

Why? Because people are talking a slavery? I don't think it's racist to talk about how some people where racist and had racist practices. This is talking about slavery (and eugenics I guess) not endorsing it.

On topic I don't buy it. Evolution takes place on a much larger time scale then the few hundred years that back people where enslaved in the Americas. I doubt there is any meaningful difference.

 

[Thaluikhain]

in some ways thaluikhain, i think what you have to realise is that you're also simultaneously talking about the definition of "a survivor".

Er, sorry, not with you there.

 

[Ranorak]

This isn't too hard to solve.

Are there any statistical differences between athletes who have slave ancestors and black athletes who's family tree does not involve slave trade.

 

[Fox12]

See, I thought the same thing to. That it would be Eugenics, but remember your talking the bible thumping south here. They didn't believed in evolution, and those that did stupidly used it to justify their racism.

Doesn't matter, they could still recognise selective breeding as a thing.

OTOH, really, no, slavery wouldn't have been able to have done this. Now, keep it up for a thousand years, and have all slaves doing hard labour and the weakest being culled, maybe. Though, basketball needs certain attributes not found in most physical labour, I'd have thought.

Except again, the repopulation of slaves was primarily Whites raping black women.

And I'd find it hard to believe they were incorporating Eugenics into their rape. Hell, someone else can answer this, when did Eugenics become a widespread thing?

I believe eugenics was popularized in America during the early 1900s, which would put it decades after the end of slavery. In any case, while women were raped by white men, and while selective breeding did occur, this was not the norm. Most women had husbands, and families. Is it so surprising? Slaves loved and lusted after other individuals the same as anyone else. There were no contraceptives, and most of the anti-sex religious beliefs didn't exist for slaves, who weren't raised in a judeo-Christian environment. Furthermore, slave owners wanted slaves to reproduce. They couldn't import more, and it represented a return on investment. If you buy two slaves, and they have three kids, you now have five slaves. As a result, they tended to support marriage and reproduction. Is it really a surprise that black women had children under these circumstances? Humans have certain needs, regardless of whether they are slaves, and love and sex are two of them.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

For that theory to hold water then only descendants of slavery would have increased athletic prowess. Given that plenty of African peoples display an aptitude for sporting ability the most likely root is the countless generations of Africans who continued to live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle after their European cousins developed farming as their main form of subsistence. In that way abilities such as speed, agility and endurance remained far more important to the survival of the general African population than to the increasingly sedentary Europeans.

 

[Thaluikhain]

possessing a quality that allows you to live through something others don't is "survival".

if i said "most of the people left after the incurable plague had a natural immunity" everyone would nod...

but there are plenty of examples of hardship thinning groups of people out until "only the hardiest remain" to come after them.

...hell, its practically the American national narrative...

but in this case "nature" and "freewill" had a firm "helping" hand....in the form of what was basically "horse trading" conducted with people.

i'm not advocating any of this a good thing btw...but that's what basically happened.

i think it's its fairly obvious its had some effect.

Ah, in that, yeah, but how much of an effect it had, and what this effect actually was, is very difficult to say.

Now, extend the situation for a few centuries, and maybe we'd see some real results, but as it is, I doubt it.

hell, im just a guy from Scotland who's be subject to all your popular media but i've practically never seen "a weedy looking black guy" (or woman for that matter) represented within it....except maybe Prince...¯\(°_o)/¯

Well, that would mostly be stereotyping there. I don't think, for example, more than a quarter of the black population in the US is a chubby clown that hangs around with cool people.

 

[Bravo Company]

I haven't bothered to read everything on page 2 but I remember there being a study on why African-Americans run quicker and why Caucasians are better swimmers.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100712103349.htm

I feel as if that is a much better distinction on why African Americans are seen breaking all the running records rather than being bred during slavery. Since slavery was during a relatively short time period.

 

[MrSchmeiser]

Well i can't say for sure but i can give my opinion. Black athletes only really dominate american sports and i always thought it was because on an average black people are poorer in america and pretty much their only way is to train and be good at a sport since they don't have the money or environment to excel in other things. I'm probably wrong but it soudns the most logical to me

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Probably could if I could be bothered too, certainly not now. I'm repeating what I learned studying in African American Lit the past couple years.

Without a source, you can't keep jumping in and saying 'your wrong.' Please stop preaching absolute fact from what, as far as everyone not currently possessing your memories is concerned, is just things you're saying.

Wikipedia makes no note on what method of reproduction (Rape, forced sex, etc) was used most, and has no mention of mass rapes with the purpose of reproduction. While Wikipedia isn't the best source, its more then you got.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_breeding_in_the_United_States

I am interested in finding out how one could incentivise pregnancy to a slave woman. "Yeah so, I want you to breed so I enslave your kids, and eventually sell them off so you never ever see them again."

You seem to think that slaves thought the same as free people from the 21st century Westerners. Which would be delightful, but not true, which is most obvious by the fact that slaves didn't beat their masters to death on a regular basis.

Slaves in the Southern US were treated, from birth, as slaves and property. From birth. The notion that someone who's lived their entire lives under the heel of another human being would have the same thought process as us is naive, at best.

Oh but can't you SEE, Accursed Theory, THAT I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT OF GAWDAH! That my EYEsah have been awaken to the sin that is institutionalized RACISM![/Preaching]

Seriously dude, I'm sure theres something in Contempt and Pity to support my claims, but I'm not going to go writing a research paper for a casual conversation on the internet. You yourself only went as far as Wikipedia.