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Ray Lewis as Super Bowl MVP? Much to the chagrin
of NFL Inc. and the corporate marketers who
previously featured the championship game's top
player on a Wheaties box and sent him packing to
Disney World, the league's anti-hero won top
honors.
Despite these public rebuffs, the roller coaster
of life is certainly rising for this immensely
talented football player. Just one year ago, Lewis
faced a murder rap after two men were stabbed to
death outside an Atlanta nightclub after a
post-Super Bowl party. The most serious charges
were eventually dropped, which did little to
appease many critics. Up until game time, the media
line emanating from the center of the sports
universe in Tampa all but concluded that Lewis had
gotten away with murder.
For example, USA Today ran two stories focusing
on the victim's families. "What would I say to Ray
Lewis?" The soft words accentuate the rage that
still consumes a grandmother of one of those who
was knifed. "Why did you participate in the
thrill-killing of my grandson?"
Lewis shook off the charges and anchored the
Baltimore Ravens impregnable defense that didn't
allow the New York Giants to cross midfield the
entire second half. Yet his play did not quell the
queasiness that bedevils many Americans, black and
white. Some identify with his obvious relief at
surviving and thriving a difficult ordeal. Others
remain unconvinced of his innocence and unwilling
to forgive. But the facts of the incident are
cloudy enough so many of us share both
emotions.
Publicly, the media has framed this issue as a
debate over Lewis's character--whether he should
have been watching the Super Bowl on a prison TV
instead of hunting Giants. The fact is that none of
us is in a position to judge the guilt or innocence
of Ray Lewis--that's why we have a court
system.
But we are well situated to evaluate the
inflammatory context of the controversy. The real
issue that has driven interest in the Lewis saga is
the racial subtext. It plays out roughly like this:
Since blacks dominate professional football,
consciously or unconsciously such incidents, to
some observers, seem to "prove" that blacks are
innately more violent than whites. Although there
is no evidence that black athletes are
statistically any more violent than whites, their
overwhelming visibility in sports feeds this
poisonous racial prejudice. As a consequence,
sports, black skin and crime are increasingly seen
as synonymous.
The delicate issue of sports and race is further
complicated, however, because blacks do dominate so
many sports, particularly those in which cultural
or economic prejudices don't limit access (most
winter sports, for example). Nineteen of the 22
starting defenders in Sunday's Super Bowl, and most
of the players on offense, were of primarily West
African ancestry. Seventy-five percent of the NFL,
85 percent of pro basketball, and more than a third
of the players in Major League Baseball are black.
Male athletes of African ancestry hold every major
world running record.
Athletic achievement has always been a
double-edged sword for blacks. A loss encouraged
the belief that blacks were inferior,
intellectually and physically; every victory risked
being devalued as simply a product of ancestry.
White fascination with black physicality has
been part of a dark historical undercurrent. In the
19th Century, whites became enraptured by
pseudo-sciences such as craniology (the study of
the characteristics of the human skull). Racial and
ethnic groups were ranked according to all kinds of
measurements, for example: skull size. Whiteness
came to symbolize wealth, rationality and civilized
culture, whereas blackness became equated with
hypersexuality, musicality, laziness, intellectual
deficiency, cultural pathology--and athleticism. By
this noxious stereotype, which still holds sway in
many circles today, black athletes are seen by some
as contemporary African savages in breechcloth and
nose ring.
It is this racially charged subtext that informs
the Lewis controversy and needs to be
shattered.
"Race" is soaked in much folkloric nonsense.
Virtually all complex phenomena, such as
intelligence, do not fall into neat racial
categories. Top geneticists, such as Stanford's
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, reject the biological
meaningfulness of race, while still recognizing
that many individual characteristics, from facial
features to physique to the susceptibility for
certain diseases, show up more frequently in
certain populations.
Although racial labels are occasionally helpful
terms, as when geneticists try to isolate shared
genes that cause diseases, they can mislead. Some
few traits are correlated, as with dark skin color
and curly hair. But such links are not absolute.
Some East Indians also have dark skin, but straight
hair.
The flood of research resulting from the Human
Genome Project is beginning to radically reshape
our understanding of how genes and the environment
interact. This new model makes the racial patterns
we see in sports much more comprehensible. After
all, over the past 30 years, as sports have opened
wide to athletes from almost every country and as
the playing field has become almost level, the
results have become increasingly segregated. What's
going on? Are blacks physically "superior" to
whites?
The short answer is "no," notwithstanding that
there are notable anatomical differences between
subpopulations within the classic folk groupings of
black, white and Asian. As a result, different
populations may appear to be genetically advantaged
in particular sports and laggards in others.
"Body stature does not fit classic 19th Century
theories of race," notes Joseph Graves, an
evolutionary biologist at Arizona State University,
who has a book, "The Emperor's New Clothes," coming
out in April on this very subject. "However, the
fact that monolithic racial categories do not show
up consistently in the genotype does not mean there
are no group differences between pockets of
populations. It varies by characteristic. It
doesn't necessarily correlate with skin color, but
[rather] by geography."
Although it is critical to remember that no
individual athlete can succeed without the X
factor--the lucky spin of the roulette wheel of
genetics matched with considerable dedication and
sports smarts--genes proscribe possibility (that
is, theoretically, anyone could be the fastest
runner in the world, but, in fact, it's impossible
without a certain genetic makeup). Blacks of West
African ancestry tend to have mesomorphic
physiques--muscular with a smaller natural lung
capacity and a natural preponderance of "fast
twitch" muscle fibers. It's not surprising that
over 100 meters, the purest test of speed, the top
200 times, and 494 of the top 500 times, are held
by sprinters who trace their roots to West
Africa.
"It's a strong genetic component (that
determines) what type of muscle fiber you have,
either slow or fast," says Bengt Saltin, director
of the Copenhagen Muscle Research Center, an expert
in this field. "And West Africans [almost all
African-Americans trace their primary ancestry to
West Africa] have already 70 or 75 percent of
the fast type when they are born."
Whereas West Africans evolved in lowlands,
ectomorphic (lean limbed) East Africans, who have
large natural lung capacity and a preponderance of
slow twitch fibers, predictably, dominate distance
running. Kenya, with but 28 million people, holds
more than one-third of the top times. Including
other East Africans, that domination swells to
almost 50 percent.
Whites remain dominant in sports that place a
premium on upper body strength over foot
speed--shot put, hammer throw, javelin and
weightlifting. It may play a role in the continued
white presence on the interior lines in football
(witness Ravens tackle Tony Siragusa, who clogs the
middle of the defensive line).
So, all the training in the world is not likely
to turn an Inuit Eskimo into an NBA center or a
Nigerian into an elite marathoner. The world's most
elaborate sports factory combined with
state-supervised illegal drug supplements still
could not turn even one East German sprinter into
the world's fastest human. Highly heritable
characteristics such as skeletal structure,
musculature and metabolic efficiency are not evenly
distributed across population groups.
Complicating this prickly matter, however, is
that folkloric categories of race, occasionally, do
hold. "Populations with roots in equatorial Africa
are more likely to have lower natural fat levels,"
Graves notes. "That is likely a factor in running.
It's an adaptive mutation based on climate. But
that's a long way from reconstructing racial
science."
In America, the environment and cultural
channeling long have been the default explanation
to explain black domination of so many sports. Does
"nurture" matter? Of course! There are no hockey
superstars from Texas--white, black or Latin.
However, there is little more than speculation in
support of stereotypes that such racial disparities
are "determined," as many sociologists claim, by
social factors alone.
Even small biological factors can be the
difference between a gold medal and finishing out
of the money. Such trends feed on themselves,
creating cultural stereotypes that amplify small,
but meaningful, differences in performance linked
to heredity. Many whites avoid pursuing sprinting
and basketball because there are so few elite white
athletes to emulate; for years, blacks avoided
tennis and golf for the same reason. This dynamic
creates a biosocial feedback loop, with nature and
nurture fueling each other.
So, why, now talk about such a potentially
divisive issue as human biodiversity? The science
of genetics has now advanced to the point where
open discussion can destroy, rather than reinforce,
the most harmful of stereotypes.
Humans are different. Some subpopulations of
blacks are predisposed to carry genes for
colorectal cancer and sickle cell (though blacks
who have evolved in cooler climates are no more
likely to contract sickle cell than non-blacks).
Some white populations are more genetically
predisposed to cystic fibrosis and multiple
sclerosis. Ashkenazi Jews have a genetic
predisposition to breast cancer.
Sports provide a way to help us discuss this new
paradigm, which is emerging out of the genetic
revolution. Maybe it's time we celebrate human
biodiversity rather than just offer lip service.
Pretending that there are no slippery questions
does not prevent them from being asked, if only
under one's breath. Unless and until we can talk
about such controversies, openly and
constructively, ugly and distorted debates, such as
that swirling around Ray Lewis, will continue.
© 2001 Jon Entine
Source: Jon Entine, author of
"Taboo:
Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're
Afraid to Talk About
It", 2000
www.jonentine.com
* * *
There is nowhere you can go and only be with people
who are like you. Give it up. - Bernice Johnson
Reagon
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