Darwin's Athletes : How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race

Rating:
Summary: Penetrating Analysis of Sports Culture
Review: Is sport really to blame for the suffering of black people in the West? Of course the special success of black athletes has a lot to do with the negative realities of racist society. But it also has something to do with the strength of people who have faced adversity and not given up, or at least have the drive to try to secure for themselves a future. Society depends on such people, so is it really a bad thing that they become role models? The "Black Cause", insofar as it does or should exist, is not retarded each time a black athlete crosses the finish line. But it is retarded every time a teacher expects less from a black kid, or a rich black superstar suddenly becomes content with the status quo, or a writer makes money by replacing a false biological stereotype (and it is false, I've done the research Jon Entine failed to do) with an equally false social one.

Rating:
Summary: Social stereotypes instead of Biological ones
Review: Is sport really to blame for the suffering of black people in the West? Of course the special success of black athletes has a lot to do with the negative realities of racist society. But it also has something to do with the strength of people who have faced adversity and not given up, or at least have the drive to try to secure for themselves a future. Society depends on such people, so is it really a bad thing that they become role models? The "Black Cause", insofar as it does or should exist, is not retarded each time a black athlete crosses the finish line. But it is retarded every time a teacher expects less from a black kid, or a rich black superstar suddenly becomes content with the status quo, or a writer makes money by replacing a false biological stereotype (and it is false, I've done the research Jon Entine failed to do) with an equally false social one.

Rating:
Summary: Penetrating Analysis of Sports Culture
Review: It appears that many reviewers have missed what I perceive as Hoberman's point - that the emphasis of the black body as the locus of black identity necessarily de-emphasizes the intellectual capabilities and development of black people. The advertising, media, and sports industries all thrive on the perpetuation of black physical stereotypes that have existed since the first contacts between European and African. Just compare the press treatment of Larry Bird - as a careful, analytical, intelligent, under-control white man - with Shaq - as a biological freak whose sheer size makes up for his lack of gray matter. Such stereotypes of blacks as physical machines meant to entertain us are extremely damaging to black culture.

Intellectualism has been sacrificed to the sportive element in black culture, where academic success (unless in tandem with athletic excellence) is considered traitorous to black authenticity. The acceptable spheres of black self-expression - namely sport, negro music, and dance - are considered the only authentically black talents by both white and black culture. Such a stifling limitation should not be placed upon black culture, yet this is perpetuated everyday in our sporting culture and in our advertising media.

After you read this book, you will not be able to watch a sporting event without thinking about the exploitation of black athletes. Watch the commercials, read the ads, and you will realize that blacks are, more often than not, presented as mere physical beings whose animality precludes a deeper humanity.

Rating:
Summary: Don't let the title fool you
Review: Like most cultural studies professors, Dr. Hoberman denounces as "racist" any who doubt that all ethnic differences have purely social origins. He rushes in to one topic, though, where his allies fear to tread: Dredging up various historical data, he tries to show that the intensifying link between between race and athletic success somehow stems solely from cultural conditioning. His struggles with the evidence, though, recall the old joke about the Soviet worker on the Leningrad Baby Buggy Factory's receiving dock. Unable to buy a buggy anywhere, he pilfers a set of parts. Sadly, the only way they turn out to fit together is as a machine gun. Likewise, Dr. Hoberman ends up strafing himself in the foot with his own theoretical baby buggy. Revealingly, he deplores integrated sports precisely because they "create the proverbial level playing field." Letting us fans watch lean East Africans outdistance the world's runners, or brawny Samoans flatten NFL quarterbacks, or lithe Chinese dive and tumble for Olympic gold, or muscular athletes of West African descent out-sprint, out-jump, and out-hit all comers... Well, it just encourages us couch potatoes to believe our lying eyes rather than what Thomas Sowell calls the "visions of the annointed." # # # Steve Sailer

Rating:
Summary: Don't let the title fool you
Review: This is a provocative text that explores the fetishizing of the Black athletic body but don't let the title fool you. This book does more to chastize Black ntellectuals for not delving into the topic as he has, while maintaining that to elevate athletic achievement as "artistic" is ridiculous and only is evidence of Black inability to critically interrogate the mechanisms that commidifiy and objectify the Black body in sports. Hoberman provides a detailed history of the scientific construction of race, and his historical detail is actually very helpful. But the reader should know that Hoberman spends more time putting blame on Black intellectuals AND the Black community for romanticizing the Black athlete, not pushing for the youth to achieve intellectually (which to him is more superior than athletic ability), and for being blinded by our faith to big-money ballers than to the sports industry who help to construct the myth of the Black athlete and make both a fetish and a profit zone of his or her body. The more I read it I began to notice that his tone was actually self-congratulory: in accusing the Black community, intellectuals in particular, he sets himself on a pedestal. His statements have somewhat of a judgemental, superior tone, that's condescending and at times implicitly racist regardless of whether that's what he intended. This book provoked a reaction out of me and I can only conclude that he's blaming the wrong people here.