134
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by vis4valentine@lemmy.ml to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

Given that racists and slavers used the "natural physical strength" of black people to justify putting them on hard labor and some medics still think that blacks has higher resistance to pain, I wonder if when black athletes started to join mixed race sport teams, some racist would have used the same "biological advantage" argument that now transphobes use against trans athletes to claim it was "unfair" for black to compete against whites to justify segregation.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Omnificer@lemmy.world 88 points 1 year ago

For a while there was a persistent myth that black people had an extra muscle in their leg that allowed them to perform better at sports.

It's kind of similar to phrenology in trying to justify racism.

[-] skulkingaround@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 year ago

While there is no extra muscle, it is factually true that people of West African descent tend to have more fast twitch muscle fibers which is a pretty big advantage in many sports.

This is likely why the myth of the extra muscle originated.

[-] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Is that really true though? Many of these sports myths hold true until they suddenly don't. Tall people were believed to be awful sprinters until Usain Bolt somehow just smashed everyone. Koreans nerds were the supposed chosen SC2 players but now it's a chad from Italy

[-] Tavarin@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

Yes, those people are outliers. Usain Bolt especially is a genetic rarity, being as tall as he is with crazy amounts of fast twitch muscles.

[-] skulkingaround@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

It's true, but some people go way too far with it. All it means is that people of West African descent tend to have more fast twitch muscle fibers. You could be white as sour cream and get lucky with your genetics and end up the same way. It's having those muscle fibers that's the advantage, not having west african heritage. In sports like basketball or sprinting where fast twitch fibers are a big advantage, you tend to see populations of people who are predisposed to that getting over-represented.

[-] kryllic@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

Wasn't there a basketball coach that got fired for saying basically this, albeit not as...elegantly?

[-] OrteilGenou@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[-] Quexotic@infosec.pub 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This was taught to me in grade school. I feel pretty betrayed.

Suffice it to say, I found it dubious even as a child and as an adult, learned better, but WTF.

[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Was it one teacher or multiple? I live in a fairly progressive US state, but I definitely had a one or two backwards teachers with axes to grind.

[-] uranibaba@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

This is a bit of a friend-of-a-friend story, so it is difficult to evaluate the veracity but here goes.

I once met a woman from Germany (2011, so some time ago now). Her friend had been to the US via some school exchange program. If I recall correctly, the state she went to was Texas but I could be wrong. Anyway, the teacher of the class this friend went to still thought that Adolf Hitler was the ruler of Germany, so she had instructed all students to stand up, do a Nazi salute and say "Heil Hitler" when she first entered the class room. She immediately left the class room, crying.

From what I remember, this supposedly happened a few years prior to me meeting this person and being told the story, so maybe 2008? I can only really vouch for the first part of this story, I was really told this. I cannot know if the rest is true, but I believed her back then at least.

Long story short, there are some backwards people on this world indeed.

[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

My civics and history teachers ware more subtle. Occasional mentions of a news article about some welfare queen, how great Disney was for Times Square, how great it is to be invaded by America(Japan was their only example), or how the Walton heirs were the richest people behind Bill Gates(they weren't). I think one of the biggest Aged Like Milk comments was how real estate was such a great and sound investment. This was around 2003.

Meanwhile, I only heard one mention of climate change from the science teachers in those four years. I think the biggest lesson I got from school was to never trust authority and always press for sources.

[-] jasory@programming.dev 1 points 10 months ago

There are some gullible people in this world as well.

How on earth is someone supposed to know details about the Hitler salute and not know that 1. The US was a war with him 2. That he was only the ruler 60 years past.

Not only that but addressing someone as their head of state isn't a thing. Nobody calls Indians Modi, or British people Sunak.

Your story is either that of a cruel joke or completely fabricated.

[-] uranibaba@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

A had experience, A told B, B told me. If the story is a lie, A is the one who lied. But I will never know, because I do not talk with B anymore (lives in another country) and I have never met A.

Another possibility is that it happened, just not the way I was told. Perhaps only one person stood and did the salute, perhaps the salute did not happen but the teacher instead though Adolf Hitler was head or state (or someone from his faction). Or I just remember it wrong, it was not A who had the experience and it is just an urban legend. It was 10+ years ago, after all.

Either way, I hope that story is not real.

[-] jasory@programming.dev 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It's a funny story, I just don't know why you give it any credibility given how many highly improbable things have to be true. It's far more likely that it was a story told solely for humourous reasons, or it was a minor fib that became more humourous over time.

[-] uranibaba@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

It was told as a serious story and I always believed it, hence I told it as a true story. But as I said, it was 10 years ago and I might be remembering it wrong, or anything else. You don't have to believe it and that is OK.

[-] Quexotic@infosec.pub 1 points 1 year ago

Just the one.

There was mention in a textbook of native Americans having slightly different shaped teeth, sorta scoop shaped on the inside to be good at scraping stuff. Can confirm tho, my teeth are a little scoopy, am a bit native American.

[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

While it wouldn't be weird for there to be slightly different bone shapes between ethnicities, it's concerning that it would be part of a grade school curriculum and not an advance college course for dentists or forensics.

[-] Quexotic@infosec.pub 1 points 1 year ago

It wasn't fully without context. We were learning how native Americans were able to tan hides without tanneries. One of the methods that they used is to scrape the skins clean and some other stuff that I don't remember because it was like 5th grade or something, damn part of that involve them scraping the skins with their teeth, which were specifically adapted and well suited for the task.

[-] WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

I remember my friend's mom telling me this when I was like 6 and then I told my mom what I learned and she told me not to listen to that lady.

[-] curiousaur@reddthat.com 6 points 1 year ago

My dad told me as a kid black folks have more fast-twitch muscle fibers.

[-] someguy3@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This may have been the time when dissecting cadavers was very, very looked down on. It was seen as desecrating the body. So knowledge of the body just wasn't there.

[-] treadful@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 year ago

No, this shit was pretty prevalent in the 90s and I guarantee some people are still parroting it today.

[-] boogetyboo@aussie.zone 5 points 1 year ago

Ergh I'm guilty of repeating this bullshit when I was younger. It had been sold to me as a fact, not in what I perceived was a racist context per se - more a 'oh cool, lucky them, that makes sense gestures at basketball' way. Believe me, I get it now. Also, my mum's black... Where did I get this bullshit from? White men can't jump?

this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
134 points (87.2% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35833 readers
1201 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS