Athletics are meant to be America’s level playing field, a place where success is measurable in points or split times; a place where anyone can try out. The juncture of sports and race, though, also forms a fault line in American history, and nowhere more so than where the two meet science.
Evolution was being used as a rational for racial supremacy as soon as The Origin of Species had escaped Darwin’s pen – always in favor of the whites. Sport was often the most obvious proving ground, but in the past fifty years black atheletes have come to dominate many sports, turning the old argument on its head.
The Nature side of this debate isn’t a popular one, even if a look around the sporting world shows African, not Aryan, dominance. The PC byword on race and sports is opportunity, but some are beginning to re-link race and genetics in forming the superior athelete.
If the race is to the swift, does swiftness depend on the race?
(Hosted by Bob Oakes)
Guests:
Jon Entine, author.