History of Race, Sport, and Culture in Modern America - Essay Example

The issue of racial differences between black and white races has come into special focus with the enormous strides being made in genetic mapping and other scientific protocols that attempt to pinpoint the markers of human biodiversity. One application for these studies in eugenic is determining the reason for the dominance of African Americans in sports. This paper will provide a summary of the studies and issues that deal with the social, cultural and political nuances of genetic racial differences in American sports history.

The research used for this paper included online journals, commentaries from sports analysts and articles from the Jon Entine Website. There was also considerable material that gave insights on the various viewpoints for and against the concept of racial differences as a determinant of athletic prowess. The history of football, basketball, baseball, track and field and boxing were investigated as it pertained to African Americans, as well as the issues and controversies that attended the progress of African American athletes.

Related research that dealt with the social implications of genetics and statistics that illustrated the trends in sports were also included. Jon Entine's book released in 2000 entitled Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk About It has been vilified by equal rights advocates as a thinly veiled attempt to further propagate racism in sports. However, at this point, the historical insight into African American participation in sports as provided in the book and various other sources will be briefly discussed. (Mosley)It is in the US that the stereotype of the "dumb jock" proliferated in society.

In essence, it embodies the idea that physical prowess is inversely proportionate to intellectual capacity, a popular generalization that is the heart of the controversy behind African American athletic ability. (Entine) In European history athletic prowess was considered an indication of intelligence, and leaders were often chosen among the most successful fighters and best warriors. However, the 19th century saw the proliferation of pseudo sciences in Europe that claimed to quantify intelligence and other human characteristics by measuring the skull and other body parts. (Entine)The work of physician Samuel George Morton, for example, popularized the idea of eugenics and racial differences by using craniometry, or the ranking of racial intelligence based on the typical skull size of a certain race.

His collection of 600 skulls was the basis of modern day racism in the US, where Asians and Caucasians are ranked at the top of the craniometrical scale while Africans and Native Americans were near the bottom. Many accepted this as incontrovertible truth that races like the Africans and Jews are less civilized, and thus inferior. (Entine)This began the ranking of racial and ethnic groups in which, unremarkably, white Europeans came out as the most superior intellectually and those of African descent were relegated to almost animal-like status. (Entine)The nineteenth century also saw the establishment of racial discrimination as a matter of public policy because Europeans did not want interracial mixing in their population.

Their basis for discrimination were IQ tests that revealed that those of