Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents an Amazon.com summary and review of Jon Entine's 2001 book Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid To Talk About It".
This post also presents a complete reprint of La'Tonya Rease Miles's 2001 critque of that book.
The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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SUMMARY OF THE 2001 BOOK TABOO....
From https://www.amazon.com/Taboo-Athletes-Dominate-Sports-Afraid/dp/158648026X
"In virtually every sport in which they are given opportunity to compete, people of African descent dominate. East Africans own every distance running record. Professional sports in the Americas are dominated by men and women of West African descent. Why have blacks come to dominate sports? Are they somehow physically better? And why are we so uncomfortable when we discuss this? Drawing on the latest scientific research, journalist Jon Entine makes an irrefutable case for black athletic superiority. We learn how scientists have used numerous, bogus "scientific" methods to prove that blacks were either more or less superior physically, and how racist scientists have often equated physical prowess with intellectual deficiency. Entine recalls the long, hard road to integration, both on the field and in society. And he shows why it isn't just being black that matters—it makes a huge difference as to where in Africa your ancestors are from.Equal parts sports, science and examination of why this topic is so sensitive, Taboois a book that will spark national debate."
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"About the Author
Jon Entine first became interested in the subject of black athletes when he produced a 1989 television special for Tom Brokaw on the subject. The long-time producer of NBC Nightly News, Entine has also written numerous articles, several of them major award winners. He lives in Southern California.
Product details
Publisher : PublicAffairs; Edition Unstated (January 1,
2001)
Language : English"....
-snip-
Jon Entine is a White American.
A REVIEW OF JON ENTINE'S 2001 BOOK TABOO....
From https://www.amazon.com/Taboo-Athletes-Dominate-Sports-Afraid-ebook/dp/B003ZHVC66
Amazon.com Review
"Is there a genetic reason that African-Americans dominate
professional sports? Even raising the question seems tantamount to heresy. Jon
Entine not only raises the question, he strives to answer it in Taboo: Why
Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid to Talk About It.
Entine is no stranger to controversy, having worked with Tom
Brokaw on the award-winning NBC News documentary Black Athletes: Fact and
Fiction in 1989. He's also willing to ask tough questions--and come up with
answers that anger people on all sides of the issue. Entine starts off with
some statistics indicating that African-American athletes are
disproportionately represented in professional sports: for example, 13 percent
of the U.S. population is black, but the NFL is 65 percent black, the NBA is
nearly 80 percent black, and the WNBA is 70 percent black. He also examines
cultural issues, laying to rest the long-held idea that blacks excel in sports
because it is the only avenue open for advancement.
Some scholars cry foul at the idea that blacks are physically gifted, seeing this as a subtle way of saying that they are therefore intellectually stunted. Entine carefully argues that historically athletic ability and intellectual prowess were linked--with a positive bias. The "dumb jock" stereotype is a relatively recent construct--perhaps a defensive mechanism that arose when blacks began to participate on a level playing field and gain prominence in the sporting world. There's no reason to suppose athleticism and intelligence are inversely related; Entine quotes respected sports reporter Frank Deford: "[W]hen Jack Nicklaus sinks a 30-foot putt, nobody thinks his IQ goes down." The issue of physical superiority is further complicated by fears that a genetic explanation results in a belief that blacks don't succeed because of hard work, dedication, and drive, but rather (in the words of Brooks Johnson, who doesn't believe Entine's claims) "because God just gave 'em the right gene."
Is the fear of sounding racist hindering legitimate
scientific inquiry? Entine believes so, noting that, "Anyone who attempts
to breach this taboo to study or even discuss what might be behind the growing
performance gap between black and white athletes must be prepared to run a
gauntlet of public scorn, survival not guaranteed." Taboo is destined to
make most of its readers uncomfortable. Hopefully this discomfort will serve as
a wedge to open up discussion of an issue too long avoided. --Sunny Delaney
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title."
-snip-
Additional reviews of this book can be read by clicking that link.
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A CRITIQUE OF JON ENTINE'S 2001 BOOK TABOO...
Citation: La'Tonya Rease Miles. Review of Entine, Jon, Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid to Talk About It. H-Arete, H-Net Reviews. June, 2001.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=5265
Jon Entine. Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid to Talk About It. New York: Public Affairs, 2000. 387 pp. $25.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-891620-39-3.
Reviewed by La'Tonya Rease Miles (Department of English, University of California, Los Angeles) Published on H-Arete (June, 2001)
The Dominance Effect: A Review of Jon Entine's Taboo
"If one were to follow women's professional tennis over the past year or two, without any sense of the sport's history, one could easily conclude that Venus and Serena Williams, two African-American teenagers formerly of Compton, CA, were dominating the sport. Although they did not come up through the junior circuit (as did most of their peers),and although they received unconventional training from their father, Richard, for much of their short professional careers, the sisters have achieved unparalleled success in the sport: in 1999, Serena won the U.S. Open championship, and in 2000 Venus won both the Wimbledon and U.S. Open finals. Yet, aside from these two women, and newcomer Alexandra Stevenson (who is half-black and half-white, but considers herself "white"), tennis is overwhelmingly and pristinely white, from the players, to the coaches, down to the commentators.
This myopic view prevails among most sports observers, as well as many professional sports journalists, like Jon Entine, author of the controversial book, Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid to Talk About It. Looking solely at (recent) winners (e.g., Venus and Serena Williams) and not at the overarching social structure (e.g., the lily-white tennis establishment) that manages to filter out a great number of minority participants, Entine and others mistake Venus and Serena's dominance, or wins, as a symbol of power and authority. This uncontested notion of black "dominance" obscures several realities about black participation in sports. While Venus and Serena may rent the house, they surely don't own it. Ultimately, the entire debate points to a fear and paranoia about race in a broader context, outside of athletics.
Although Taboo consists of a whopping 340 plus pages (not
including end notes), its thesis is simple and altogether unoriginal:
"[blacks] dominate certain athletic events because they have innate skills
peculiar to that sport and that social and cultural factors exaggerate these
crucial differences" (pp.vii). Entine argues that blacks of West African
descent--a group which includes African Americans--have a greater jumping and
running capacity than their non-African counterparts, making them more likely
to excel in the three sporting events of basketball, football and sprinting. He
points out that male black East Africans, particularly Kenyans, hold the
majority of world running records in long-distance events. Again, he attributes
their success to "bio-cultural" factors whereby "cultural
conditions exaggerate the small but meaningful differences that led to the
athletic edge" (pp. 279). This thesis begins to unravel when we consider
that there are a host of other sports that require speed, jumping and endurance
(volleyball, gymnastics, and, yes, tennis, to name only a few), which are
dominated by white athletes in this country. Entine also ignores the fact that
black Africans do not overwhelmingly excel in basketball, which is a so-called
"black" sport.
But we might never mind these details. Entine has a point to prove, and no counter-argument--however large or significant--will detract him. Unfortunately, the book's structure also does not live up to the weight of its subject matter: for instance, Tabooalso includes a sweeping history of race and eugenics, bashes the so-called East German "Sports Machine," and providing a historical overview of African-American men in sports history for those readers who have not read Arthur Ashe's more nuanced three-volume set, A Hard Road toGlory. Entine neglects to comment on this material. Consequently, his book contains fillers and padding, further highlighting how weak his argument really is. Entine also makes poor use of scientific evidence, particularly when he points out that "black" babies are more likely than their "white" counterparts to become athletically skilled adults. Because he is interested in race as a biological phenomenon and not a cultural construct, he groups African Americans and Africans in the same category, and shamefully ignores major differences such as in pre-natal care, healthcare, and diet. In fact, according to the following quote from a 1957 study referenced in Entine's book, blacks should be superior to whites in all things: "The motor development was greatly in advance of that of European infants of the same age. It was paralleled by advanced adaptability, language, and personal social behavior" (pp. 250).
With so much in favor of the black athlete, what is there to complain about? The author agrees and cheerily states early on in the text that Taboo's only "real" message is not to spread racist ideology but to acknowledge and celebrate human diversity. Yet Entine's language betrays another agenda: in a description of record-setting long distance performances, Kenyan "dominance" too easily becomes Kenyan "hegemony" (pp. 38), which, by definition, implies that these superior East Africans have imposed their will and their ideology over subordinate athletes, namely whites. The offhand way that Entine interchanges these terms allows the reader to forget that white British imperialism in Kenya nurtured athletics to "tame" the African natives. The athletes themselves have little power in comparison.
Additionally, black dominance in certain sports slips into an overall athletic supremacy. Entine claims that "blacks are starring in disproportionate numbers in almost all sports (emphasis mine), not just those requiring running or jumping" (pp. 337). He later asserts that "black domination of sports is so pronounced that a kind of reverse racism has set in" whereby white athletes are marginalized and assumed to be inferior. He exemplifies this point by including this observation from a black football player, "There weren't too many coaches that would give a white guy a chance at corner [back]" without properly noting that blacks were and are often steered, engineered or "stacked" at this position because it is assumed that they are faster than whites (pp. 331).
Describing himself as curious, but not racist, Entine would like for the reader to believe that because he is interested in science, his argument has no political or ideological motivation. He puts his faith in race scientists whose views, he maintains "are not racist but are in the best tradition of science: objective and value neutral conclusions" (p. 219). But the author does not explain why his argument does not follow in the tradition of the racist eugenics studies of the late 1800s and early 1900s that he painstakingly details and describes. What makes it OK to trust race science at the beginning of the 21st century when the 19th century studies were "obviously" misguided? Today's scholars, according to Entine, are too wedded to non-confrontational political correctness and are dishonest about race relations, choosing instead to overlook, elide and ignore racial differences. Says Entine, no one talks about race anymore because we now believe that exposing racial differences in itself is a racist practice. Here Entine craftily borrows the language and posture of anti-racist intellectuals. He fails to recognize his own white privilege--one which allows him to play the so-called "race card" in instances when whites as a group appear to be at a disadvantage.
In this post-race era, minorities are accused of exploiting race whenever they point out social, economic and political inequities in healthcare, standardized test scores, wages and the like.
When explaining the faults of late nineteenth century Social
Darwinism, Entine reminds us "social theories do not emerge in a social
vacuum" (pp. 125). Likewise, Taboo must be properly contextualized within
its historical timeframe. When one considers the wider social and historical
context of this paranoia over the dominant global black athlete and the
seemingly disappearing white male, we should be mindful that in the United
States, minorities' birth rates are quickly outpacing whites, and that
affirmative action policies have substantially increased access to education,
housing and jobs for minorities and women. Despite the author's good
intentions, Taboo makes clear that sports now represent another lost frontier
for white men."...
-snip-
La'Tonya Rease Miles is African American.
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