August 14, 2012

The Last Hurdle

From my new column in Taki's Magazine:
I turned on the TV and saw a new reality show with an intriguing premise: How big of a head start does a white woman need to outrun a black man? While skinny women frantically raced toward the finish line, a muscular black youth sportingly spotted them a 30-meter lead, then accelerated effortlessly and overtook all but the most desperately striding Russian woman. 
But this turned out to be the Olympic 800-meter race for women, even though the silver medalist, South Africa’s Caster Semenya, is built like an LSU cornerback. 

Read the whole thing there.

60 comments:

Anonymous said...

'Caster Semenya'.

The clue's in the name.

Caster - the root of 'castrate' as in 'Castor and Pollux'.

'Semenya' - What Castor can no longer do due to superficial medical intervention.

Luke Lea said...

That was my impression of the race precisely. I surmise she had been instructed not to win the race and that she will quietly retire from running in the year ahead. If you followed the official story, it was always about not hurting her feelings. Her testosterone levels were way outside the norm for females (more than five sigma) yet did not fall within the male range -- there is quite a large interval between them.

Torn and Frayed said...

In trying to draw the line between male and female we run into some of the same issues of defining white or black. Women seem to be leaning towards the “one-drop rule” for gender. If you even have a trace of female reproduction organs then you re a chick. However it seems to make more sense for the lower status group to demand purity if the purpose of the division is to award privileges to a weaker group. If the purpose of the division is to maintain privilege, then purity would be more important for the higher status group. Obviously for the ambiguous members who could belong to either group; they would want the flexibility to go to which ever group is obtaining privileges because of the division.

By the way, given the closeness of the Spain / US basketball final, a match between an EU all star team (comprised of players from any of the EU countries) against the US team should be organized. There is a very good chance that predominantly white EU all star team would indeed spank the predominantly black US team.

Anonymous said...

Here's a dumb idea:

"FIBA Wants 3-On-3 Basketball At 2016 Olympics"

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/201208/fiba-pushing-3-3-basketball-2016-olympics

John Craig said...

http://justnotsaid.blogspot.com/2011/04/caster-semenya-again.html

Anonymous said...

Semen? Ya!

Frank said...

That's why they tell women in potentially dangerous situations to carry a small mace spray with them. Much like dogs in rural areas, if one of them catches your scent, there's no way you can outrun them if you have to.

Anonymous said...

Has anyone ever seen an interesting Olympic event? Ever?

Anonymous said...

How much of a head start does a white woman need to outrun a black man? Isn't this questioned answered all the time in Central Park?

Chicago said...

Women's bodybuilding pretty much declined due to the winners increasingly looking like imitation men and ended up havingto be subsidized by the men's competition. Use of steroids only hastened the decline as the competitors developed 5 o'clock shadows, adams apples, acne on the face and back and had strange sounding low voices. People were turned off. With most of these female Olympic sports it's the losers who look as if they are actually the gender they say they are; the winners, not so much. It'll all decline like female bodybuilding unless they can make some changes. No one wants to watch bearded-woman duke it out.

Anonymous said...

"What if the heavyweight boxing champion Klitschko brothers, Vitali and Wladimir, tire of fighting men and decide to enter women’s boxing in the 2016 Olympics? Should they be allowed to pummel women merely by declaring themselves the Klitschko sisters?"

ROTFL.

Time to say the gay girl in dumbasscuss was really a girl since the funnyass dude felt like it.

Anonymous said...

"It’s all part of the war on homophobia…or stereotypes…or maybe apartheid."

Please put 'homophobia' in quotes. Let's not become neocon rinos.

Anonymous said...

Shiites in Iraq.

Anonymous said...

Semen-ya can play as a runner a Greekess was banned cuz og a tweet and a German girl was pressured to leave cuz of her love interest.

Next time a guy athlete wants to play as a woman, convert to Islam and put on a veil. Westerners won't dare ask a Muslim 'woman' to undress and show if she rally has a pooter.

Anonymous said...

Funny... Nazis used a man as a woman to win the high jump and denied another athlete(a real athlete, a Jewish woman) a chance due to her ethnicity. Those were BAD OLD DAYS.

In our good new days, a black South African man gets to run as a woman(with full blessing of our homo-crazed elites), and a whole lot of white players have been banned for cracking some jokes on twitter.
But black athletes steeped in hateful rap are welcome. And opening ceremony played the sex pistols whose music was violent, contemptuous, and insane. I guess hate is okay as long as it's black, gay, or leftist.

Anonymous said...

http://www.dallasvoice.com/mary-gonzalez-pansexual-10123439.html

The new left. Marx and Zapata in drag.

Anonymous said...

At least some of the women in the 4 X 100m relay race were on something, right? Carmelita Jeter...wow...blur the head, put her in a man's racing gear and you'd honestly think she was a man.

Anonymous said...

All this homo stuff is so gay.
If humanity needs a cause to really rally around for, it's hogo-saviorism, not homosexuality.

Pigs or hogs are as smart as dogs if not smarter. And piggy-wiggies are emotionally complex and in their funny way, even cute. But the hogocaust goes on.

In some countries like Egypt and Korea, they bury hogs alive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYB4sDKh3FI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxkzXDa1Ol8

And in America, pigs are slaughtered in the millions just so stupid Americans can pig out on ribs and pork chops.
Some say, they love bacon so much that they gotta eat it. Well, Chinese say dog meat is so tasty that they gotta eat it.
Bot attitudes are immoral. We shouldn't be killing an intelligent animal just because it's tasty. What if humans were tasty? Should we eat humans too?

What is happening is terrible. It's an all out hogocaust. Yet, all we care about is homos and their silly ways.

Pat Boyle said...

Ben Johnson won the foot race but Carl Lewis won the eligibility race. Both used various illegal substances but Lewis' lawyers were better.

You would think that something as simple a a foot race would yield incontrovertible winners and losers. Not so.

We divide running into separate male and female events because there is so little crossover between the two - or there used to be. As you have pointed out many times, all the best sprinters are black and have been for decades.

Surely Usain Bolt should have won the Gold for black men only, not for all men. The most populous race are the East Asians and yet these billions of people have essentially zero chance in the sprints. How can this be considered fair?

The only avenue open to a billion Chinese in the 100 meter dash is in the Special Olympics.

Albertosaurus

Kylie said...

"Indeed, the Semenya cause is hardly about establishing principles. Instead, it’s the latest way to assert one’s sophistication over the unenlightened. It’s all part of the war on homophobia…or stereotypes…or maybe apartheid."

Which is to say that it's all part of the war on non-leftist whites.

AllanF said...

Needs a picture.

Too funny.

Corner back during track season. Will need to work on those arms if she wants to play in the NFL. Other than that, she looks about the same size as Willie Gault. Heck, she could be The One to break the NFL's glass ceiling. Oh just imagine the breathlessness of SI's editorials.

Also, surprising the Commies never thought of this. Doping seems so convoluted by comparison.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt6Nq0dzFjo&feature=plcp

Piper said...

Semenya is a man (albeit with abnormal genitalia) yet the sports authorities allow him to compete in women's events.

I wonder whether the good old boys who control the sports authorities let Semenya cheat specifically because they wish to insult and vex the lesbians who dominate womens' sports. The mens' coaches and the fascist heirs of Juan Samaranch undoubtedly despise the lesbos and probably feel revulsion toward the steroid-juiced creatures who compete in womens' power sports. They probably think all womens' times and scores are worthless, so it doesn't matter if some crypto-male messes them up.

It would not surprise me to hear the committee members laughing their asses off in the hotel bar after every hearing in which they reconfirm Semenya's status. The more the women screech, I would expect, the more jolly the laughter.

Anonymous said...

They let the South African runner with prosthetics below both of his knees run in the London Olympics.

Anonymous said...

Way too much about sports recently, Steve. Do you have anything to say on the recent series of articles by Ron Unz on HBD in which he rejects the genetic/hereditarian position and claims that IQ is socially/culturally determined?

Anonymous said...

Semenya is a man (albeit with abnormal genitalia) yet the sports authorities allow him to compete in women's events


Yeah, but he's a black male transsexual. Now, if there was a white man competing in women events and beating black women, then the PC police would spring into action.

The logic of this whole "sex is a social construct" position is that we ought to scrap the practice of having separate events for men and women. Or "men" and "women" as they will henceforth be known.

But nobody has ever accused the modern left of being logical or consistent.

Steve Sailer said...

"a match between an EU all star team (comprised of players from any of the EU countries) against the US team should be organized" in basketball.

Yes, that's how golf's biennial Ryder Cup is organized, and it's a very big deal in golf. The U.S. team usually looks better on paper but the E.U. team usually wins.

Steve Sailer said...

"Pigs or hogs are as smart as dogs if not smarter. And piggy-wiggies are emotionally complex and in their funny way, even cute. But the hogocaust goes on."

Paul Johnson predicted 20 years ago that eventually we would stop eating pork because pigs are the smartest animals left in the Anglo-American mainstream diet. We don't eat dogs and horses anymore, so why eat pigs? I mean, other than that they are so delicious?

Anonymous said...

That's why they tell women in potentially dangerous situations to carry a small mace spray with them. Much like dogs in rural areas, if one of them catches your scent, there's no way you can outrun them if you have to.

Okay, how the Hell did this make it past Komment Kontrol but I'm not allowed to say jack-shit about the Scots-Irish anymore?!?

Life just ain't fair.

Anonymous said...

Steve Sailer: "Yes, that's how golf's biennial Ryder Cup is organized, and it's a very big deal in golf. The U.S. team usually looks better on paper but the E.U. team usually wins."

Correct. The European team is 8-7-1 against the US. Usually winning.

Camlost said...

By the way, given the closeness of the Spain / US basketball final, a match between an EU all star team (comprised of players from any of the EU countries) against the US team should be organized. There is a very good chance that predominantly white EU all star team would indeed spank the predominantly black US team.

No way.

Part of the strength of the Spanish National team is that they're actually a team and not just slapped together at the last minute 3 weeks before the Olympics. There's a certain amount of cohesion that comes along with that. The Gasol brothers have been playing with Rudy Fernandez on the national team for many, many years now.

The personnel on the US dream teams changed radically from 92 to 96 to 2000 and beyond. This 2012 team is the first one to keep a significant core together for 4 years, from the Beijing games thru the 2010 FIBA World Championships and then until now.

The success of Spain's basketball team is very similar to the success of its national soccer team - excellent chemistry leading to very well-coordinated play and playing styles that fit well together.

Anonymous said...

"Paul Johnson predicted 20 years ago that eventually we would stop eating pork because pigs are the smartest animals left in the Anglo-American mainstream diet. We don't eat dogs and horses anymore, so why eat pigs?"

But we know justice isn't about what is right but WHO HAS THE POWER TO SAY AND PROMOTE WHAT IS RIGHT. And pigs are not on the agenda of the global elites.

Svigor said...

Progressive moral preening is made plausible only by the survival of the majority’s old-fashioned morals.

Exactly. And you really can't bump into a progressive value without finding a perversion of old morality. E.g., mercy for the weak is perverted into surrender to the weak, tolerance into speech codes, fair play into "affirmative action," meritocracy into disparate impact, scientific rigor into willful ignorance, open-mindedness into muddleheadedness, etc.

Basically, they corrupt and exploit everything they can.

The nice thing is it is all destroyed by a word: reciprocity.

The clue's in the name.

Indeed. Cancer, disease, genocide, decay, corruption, perversion, decomposition, addiction, destruction...they're all progressive, too.


Okay, how the Hell did this make it past Komment Kontrol but I'm not allowed to say jack-shit about the Scots-Irish anymore?!?

Life just ain't fair.


You too? I thought it was just my bare-knuckled style, not the Chosen Subject in particular.

Whiskey said...

Steve -- You nailed it. Minoritarianism has had a winning hand. But everything ends. Regression to the mean. Things turn. Minoritarianism is pretty much over I think. Oh it is not done yet, it will fade out like the Roman Empire, but clearly its day is done.

I'm not giving up bacon. Or ham. EVER.

FWIW, Motorsports are where its at. Even in recession bound Europe and Spain, F1 has been amazing. I second the poster a few threads back who pushed for watching motorsports, F1, the Rolex Grand AM series, MotoGP, Superbike, and IndyCar let alone NASCAR are tons of fun to watch. And the Tour de France (bikes not motorsports but still) is amazing to watch on TV. Beautiful shots and some of the most breathtaking scenery anywhere.

Dan said...

This man has testes and no ovaries. If he has a y-chomosome, the discussion should be brief:

"Dude, we love you but you're a dude. Don't worry, you can still compete though. Your race is over there."

When I was in school not that long ago, they said mammals were male if they have a y-chomosome. Which by the way codes for some 100 different genes and not only T-level. This man was competing with some 100 extra genes that the women don't get to have. Remember that is not 100 extra base pairs but 100 extra sections of DNA that each code for some trait / protein.

Of course in our new and better world, science doesn't (and shouldn't!) have a say any more. DNA is, after all, a social construct that is a relic of the white male hegemony that has thankfully been discarded.

Anonymous said...

'Pigs or hogs are as smart as dogs if not smarter'

Si. Last time I watched Dora the Explorer a pig was driving a car or maybe it was just a hippo. Now that's fungibility.

Clutch cargo cult said...

"Progressive moral preening is made plausible only by the survival of the majority’s old-fashioned morals."

Exactly, at some point conservatives will begin to reject this and other double standards.

Bob Arctor said...

Whiskey said:

"I'm not giving up bacon. Or ham. EVER."

On second thought, never mind. Too obvious.

Anonymous said...

"Paul Johnson predicted 20 years ago that eventually we would stop eating pork because pigs are the smartest animals left in the Anglo-American mainstream diet. We don't eat dogs and horses anymore, so why eat pigs? I mean, other than that they are so delicious?"

Matthew Scully, a republican speech writer, wrote a very persuasive animal rights book, Dominion: The Power of Man, The Suffering of Animals and the Call to Mercy.
Don't read it if you ever want to eat guilt-free bacon again.

Ironically, he wrote Sarah Palin's best speech.

The comment seems to be a precipitate of all the India/Hindu posts. Relatedly, St. Augustine flirted with vegetarianism, but he didn't see it as a Christian tenant. If he had veered the other way, I wonder if Christianity would have withered. Cold climates, grasslands and barren areas would be pretty unlivable without meat - every Eskimo would be an unredeemable sinner.

Anonymous said...

A few Scully quotes that might have you ordering a salad tonight:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/4857.Matthew_Scully

fondueguy said...

"The Olympics have always had problems figuring out who should be eligible for women’s events because men invented practically every sport—except rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming—as some kind of test of manliness."

Because men are better at x does not mean x was a test specifically designed for manliness. Do you think the 100 sprint is a test for blackness or speed? How does it even make sense then men would want to test specifically for manliness yet intentionally make women half the competitors? When would men dress in drag to compete and increase their manliness...?!?

"In the conventional narrative, men conspire to keep women from playing sports, but history reveals that a lot of masculine ingenuity has been devoted to persuading women to try the sports that men love."

One, its not an either or. Two, the women who play the sports also love the sports.

You sound like a controlling feminist who resorts to saying that women are being manipuwated! Yet, latter you feel bad for the white women who wanted to compete...

"In this century, who has ever gotten ahead by demanding fair play for the majority?"

This is a contradiction. You're asking for fair play for the majority while asking tightened restrictions on a form of special Olympics, aka women's Olympics.

Would you call black affirmative action fair play for the majority or do you only believe in affirmative action when it comes to women?

"Elite global opinion has thus rallied to Semenya’s right to the privileges of womanhood on the newfound principle that the world must accept the claim of anybody to be any sex."

Ok, this has absolutely nothing to do with the previous points you attempted to make, ie that the Olympics motivated by testing manliness and men pressure women into the Olympics.

Because of this disconnect I will presume you are using smoke and mirrors to push an agenda. If want to ask why the world thinks Semenya is a woman, that's fine. But, don't bring up stuff that you hope will offend people and then tie it to you're take home message, when there is no logical relationship between them.

Anonymous said...

Matthew Scully, a republican speech writer, wrote a very persuasive animal rights book, Dominion: The Power of Man, The Suffering of Animals and the Call to Mercy.
Don't read it if you ever want to eat guilt-free bacon again.


Undercover investigation into Tyson pig factory farm in Wyoming:

http://maxkeiser.com/2012/05/09/you-are-what-you-eat/

Pat Boyle said...

We may indeed stop eating pigs because they are intelligent. However that hasn't saved the squid.

Squid may be the smartest creatures in the sea - and that includes whales and dolphins. Dolphins get their own advocacy groups because they seem to be nice. Whereas squid are said to be nasty.

In the slightly longer run all human food will be artificial, Taste and texture are still to be worked out but there are plenty of people working on these right now.

Personally I don't care about killing food animals. But others have more tender feelings. I would welcome artificial sushi. No more anxiety about liver flukes. Of course parasites in sushi or steak tartare or anything else would not be a problem if we would only irradiate our food.

Good luck on that!

Albertosaurus

fondueguy said...

"Exactly. And you really can't bump into a progressive value without finding a perversion of old morality. E.g., mercy for the weak is perverted into surrender to the weak, tolerance into speech codes, fair play into "affirmative action," meritocracy into disparate impact, scientific rigor into willful ignorance, open-mindedness into muddleheadedness, etc."

Exactly : )

What has feuled feminism is the messed up form of "traditionalism".

"Women don't lie." (Rape shield laws) "Women are the best keepers of the children." (more custody and more child support) "Women and children first" (VAWA) Women deserve our help." (Affirmative action)

Anonymous said...

Guys, Caster Semanya was publicly humiliated on an international scale when it got out that she is inter-sexed. She will spend her life as neither fully male nor fully female. Even if she manages to find a long-term partner of whatever gender, despite all the odds against it, she will never have children.

The loser in this scenario is not Ekaterina Poistogova.

Gloria

Simon in London said...

A fine picture of Ms Semenya:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6060027/Caster-Semenya-gender-row-what-is-a-hermaphrodite.html

Tony said...

Steve, what you talking about. Semenya is 5' 7" and 140 lbs. Hardly built like a line backer. In fact I'd take a woman with that height/weight ratio any day.

Steve Sailer said...

Hint: Don't trust published weights for runners up through 800m. Google says, for example, that Carmelia Jeter weighs 130 pounds.

Anonymous said...

"Undercover investigation into Tyson pig factory farm in Wyoming:

http://maxkeiser.com/2012/05/09/you-are-what-you-eat/"

Horrible.

Wikipedia about Thomas Aquinas:
Thomas denied that human beings have any duty of charity to animals because they are not persons. Otherwise, it would be unlawful to use them for food. But this does not give us license to be cruel to them, for "cruel habits might carry over into our treatment of human beings."[73]

The video is horrible because the people are so despicable. My father was a small farmer and he never relished the slaughter. He would be sickened by this video.

See the Scully quotes where he asks why we need to make creatures lives worse than they have to be.

When I see these kinds of videos, I pray there is a hell. The workers are more obese than the pigs, maybe they're jealous of their beauty.

Anonymous said...

See the Scully quotes where he asks why we need to make creatures lives worse than they have to be.

Like all forms of cruelty, it's for their own good.

Anonymous said...

What has feuled feminism is the messed up form of "traditionalism".

Exploitation of white male honour.

Feminists say women are weak when it's convenient for them, and they say women are strong when it's convenient for them. They want the door opened for them when it's convenient, and can open the door themselves when it's convenient.

Mitch said...

I mean, other than that they are so delicious?

That's a really good reason, though.

Who eats dogs? Koreans? They eat kimchi, too.

I don't think intelligence has much to do with why we eat or don't eat animals.

Kylie said...

"Guys, Caster Semanya was publicly humiliated on an international scale when it got out that she is inter-sexed."

No, s/he was publicly humiliated on an international scale when s/he went public on an international scale. S/he wasn't discovered by some homophobic bigot jogging along the path to his/her village and tricked into becoming a world figure. S/she sought the spotlight.

"She will spend her life as neither fully male nor fully female."

Depending on what s/he wants, that could be a problem or not. It might even be an advantage--in fact, it seems that it has been so far.

"Even if she manages to find a long-term partner of whatever gender, despite all the odds against it, she will never have children."

If you mean s/he will never bear or sire children, you're probably right. That doesn't rule out adoption. And s/he might not want children anyway. Nowadays you can read about transgendered celebs, a woman who became a man who had artificial insemination and bore several children, etc. I imagine that Semenya's freakishness is less of a liability now than at any time previously.

"The loser in this scenario is not Ekaterina Poistogova."

Oh, yes it is, Ekaterina and every other woman who ran in a women's sporting event with a competitor who is not, strictly speaking, a woman and who therefore had an unfair competitive edge.

Velan said...

They have no problems with bulldykes competing, but make a fuss about that ladyboy?

Jim Thorpe was Greatest Athlete of the 20th Century and he peed sitting down.

Anonymous said...

"The only avenue open to a billion Chinese in the 100 meter dash is in the Special Olympics."

Or, you know, the 110m hurdles.

Ed said...

This comment will get buried given that Steve has posted at least anpther three comments since, but given taht thy wouummery Olympics alone is up to over sports, many of them dubious, it would behoove them to take many of the existing sports and break them down into categories.

One categoryy would be that all participants compete naked, as in the original Olympics. This would not necessarily be televised in the U.S. but that is OK, there are other categories.

The second category should be the "standard" Olympic competition, the athletes could compete clothed and shod (but within regulation) and good take some booster drugs before the event (but clearly defined and well publicized), but with super aggressive enforcement.

The thrid category would be "assisted", meaning that the athletes would have access to extra equipment and extra drugs, but the idea would be that they would be using them to overcome injuries and illnesses that occurred right before the Olympics, or circumstances that would have kept them otherwise from competing through no fault of their own, such as the case of Pistorious (and the booste in the "assisted competition wold not be that great". Any of the "assisted" drugs and equipment would be public knowledge and would not give a net advantage for fully healthy and able-bodied athletes.

The fourth category would be "enhanced", which would be pretty much anything goes as long as it was disclosed (and sometimes not even them), the athlete was recognizable on television, and it was stlll something of a contest. Doping and implanted devices galore as long as you were open about it.

I suspect that for each sport, it would be a different ly evel out of the four that it would be important to win every four years.

I think this scheme is fair to the athletes and am improvement at least aesthetically to the fans, which means that it doesn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell of being adopted.

irishman said...

"Anonymous said...
At least some of the women in the 4 X 100m relay race were on something, right? Carmelita Jeter...wow...blur the head, put her in a man's racing gear and you'd honestly think she was a man.

8/15/12 7:38 AM"

You mean Pharmalita cheater...

The BBC were over-joyed that East Germany were finally pushed out of the record books. I wouldn't be holding on to those medals if I was one of those girls.

Truth said...

Jeter is probably about 5'4 130 as she is listed. Floyd Mayweather, the lb. for lb. best boxer in the world is about 15 lbs. heaver and 4 inches taller.

Anonymous said...

Jeter may be a juicer, but at least she started life as a woman, unlike Semenya. "Blur her face" and she'll look like a man (well, except for her hips). Okay, but with Semenya it's worse than the opposite! Blur his face, and he will still not look like a woman.

Anonymous said...

See this good photo of Carmelita Jeter.

Compare to this good photo of Caster Semenya (thanks, AllenF).

Which one is a man* competing in drag?

*Possibly with some physical abnormalities.