Quote Wellsy13="Wellsy13"Are you trying to say that white Americans aren't beating black counterparts because culture? That white people don't really want to sprint but black American culture wants them to? '"
I'm saying that there are structural and cultural factors which may lead to athletics or sports being dominated by Blacks:
a) sport offers a means of social mobility for members of poorer sections of society either directly, through a career in sports, or indirectly, through a college scholarship (which incidentally may be a persons last or only chance of such an education).
b) Blacks are disproportionately represented in poorer sections of society.
c) Blacks are perceived to have a better chance of success at sport.
Quote Wellsy13I can understand team sports like basketball, or sports that require money for any kind of constant participation like tennis, swimming, etc. But not sprinting. You don't need money to sprint as a kid. Most sports require speed. A lot use sprint as a training method. They're all exposed to it regularly and pretty much have a great opportunity to go on to a scholarship for better training. I find it very hard to believe that sprinting (prevalent in many sports) is a cultural thing.'"
You're kind of making my point. Sports which require little or no money to participate in return for a potentially lucrative career or education will have a higher take up by Blacks who are disproportionately represented in poorer sections of society. Sports which require a lot of personal financial investment will be more representative of the demographic at that socio-economic level (i.e. vast majority white). Of course this is simplified and there are many other factors at work as well, such as localised popularity, family traditions, etc, which will affect and even subvert the demographic of sport.
Quote Wellsy13I hope the argument of "why haven't any Western African people been winning?" is dead as well. Top training facilities are hardly in abundance in Africa. Nature vs nurture and all that.'"
Why should it be dead. It demonstrates how people will pick up on a correlation which supports their preconceived idea and reject out of hand a correlation which doesn't.