April 9, 2012

For me, not for thee

Here's a pretty funny story from the Washington Post that gives a sidelight on what the black upper middle class feels about equal opportunity (namely, for me, not for thee). Black college fraternities and sororities have long competed with each other in a form of step-dancing that, at least in the frat boy version shown in the movie Stomp the Yard, is rather militaristic. (Stomp the Yard is a pretty interesting movie for its insider depiction of life at an upscale black private college like Morehouse -- it's one of the few movies where the fraternity boys are the heroes and are portrayed as positive role models for lower class blacks. Here's the trailer.)

Anyway, a white sorority from the U. of Arkansas won the Sprite Step-Off and the $100,000 first prize. This elicited such an outpouring of rage from across the country from blacks who are into this arcane event that the Coca-Cola corporation later announced that there was an unknown "scoring discrepancy" that rendered the results beyond interpretation, and so it also awarded $100,000 to the black team that came in second and declared them co-champions. 

Keep in mind that stepping appeals largely to black Greeks (i.e., college students who are, typically, the children of college graduates themselves). This isn't like a white team winning at street basketball in the South Bronx. This ought to be much more genteel. Socially, this controversy would be about the analog of if the Whiffenpoofs of Yale lost the big men's a capella choir competition to Howard, and then white people all across the country bitched and moaned so much that the corporate sponsor declared the Poofies to be co-champions. 

It gets you thinking about that long-running but seldom investigated mystery of why there are so many pretty good white NBA players from foreign countries, but so few from the country that invented basketball. If upper middle class blacks are so proprietary about Greek step dancing, how do you think average blacks feel about white basketball players? Do you think, maybe, that racist verbal abuse and violence against white youth basketball players might account for part of the shortfall of white American players in the NBA? I realize this is a deeply esoteric issue -- after all, who has ever heard of the NBA or noticed the races of the players on TV? We're having a national whoop-tee-doo this year over Bullying, but statistical evidence suggesting that racist bullying plays a pervasive role in a major sport is of no interest to anybody.

74 comments:

  1. Groan, Steve, groan. Not your best effort at all.

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  2. Do you think, maybe,...

    Don't know. Maybe. I played a lot of basketball back in the late '70s and early to mid '80s, and did encounter many Blacks with what I will call an attitude toward white players. But I personally never experienced "racist verbal abuse" or "violence". Games could get a little rough in the paint, which I actually liked. I didn't play in the ghetto -- middle to lower middle class suburbs, both organized and pickup.

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  3. This story is from two years ago

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  4. I've played alot of basketball in Philly, Jersey, and New York for the past 15 years. I haven't had much racial abuse, if any, just the same exposure to general violent and ignorant behavior that Black players face. While most games do not end up in a brawl or "take my ball and go home...to get my gun" several have. Most of that furor has been directed at the other Black players by the way. I think the general city attitude scares White kids from suburban and rural areas away from competitive city games more than Black racism.

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  5. I played girls' volleyball in high school (I'm a *girl*). This wasn't even basketball, but the black girls' PARENTS were absolutely nasty to the white girls on the team. If their daughters didn't get the playing time the parents thought they deserved, they would make comments to the white girls on the team. I don't know that the black parents dared make comments to the white parents. The black girls on the team were (generally) better attitude-wise than their parents. But yeah, I have no doubt that blacks would get REAL territorial over basketball, particularly boys' basketball.

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  6. "Step dancing, a hybrid of military drills, cheerleading and synchronized dance, started gaining popularity among young black Americans some 40 years ago."

    Coincidentally, right after the art form was showcased by the opening sequence of the movie "Zulu."

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  7. coldjefthandj4/9/12, 3:17 PM

    In a pick-up game, some blacks will call you 'cracker' or spit at you if you so much as score a bucket on them or steal the ball.

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  8. "Groan, Steve, groan. Not your best effort at all"

    So go write something better yourself, then. It's easy to sit on the sidelines and throw rocks.

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  9. Blacks don't see basketball as exclusively theirs. Primarily theirs, yes, but not their property, their creation.

    Black Greeks, on the other hand, do see step teams as exclusively theirs. They created it, as far as I know, they did it, they do it, and they're damned if white folks are going to take it away the way we took away jazz and blues etc.

    The photonegative would have been if the Black Panthers ran around in black sheets and hoods instead of military fatigues.

    Oh, and as for white American basketball players, talented white athletes 6' 4" with NBA-quality athleticism tend to become quarterbacks. (6'0' unathletic Indiana jumpshooters and 7' white stiffs aside.)

    --Discordiax

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  10. HaHa. This is true. This is also why so many white people were hoping Jeremy Lin failed.

    "No one should rise above their station. Everyone should know their proper place in life."

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  11. Only whites can be racist. Only heterosexuals can be bullies. Where have you been hiding your little honky ass?

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  12. in my experience, black men tend to be rather impressed when a white man demonstrates talent at something "black": rap, basketball, etc. similarly, a white guy can gain a lot of respect from black guys if he has a black girlfriend.

    it may be different with black women, however, which is what this story is about. it's no secret that black women get extremely jealous of white girls with successful, educated black boyfriends. this jealousy might spill over into other areas, like step-dancing.

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  13. I think james4480 hits the nail on the head. It's a good thing for the U. of Arkansas team that Marcia Clark didn't select the jury for the Sprite Step-Off.

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  14. Basketball is a horrid showboat sport. I abhor it. Please let's stop trying to get in and let's turn it into a college only sport like lacrosse.
    We can do it. There are two ways: 1. Adhere to The Derb Talk rules. 2. Boycott.
    When the ticket prices no longer cover the security needed, it will die on the vine.

    Besides, it is racist. It discriminates against Mexicans.

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  15. Darwin's Sh*tlist4/9/12, 4:17 PM

    I'm white and played high school basketball on a mostly-black team in a small southern town in the mid-late 80s. Further, my parents were known to be pretty well off financially. Skill-wise, I was a little better than average, but nothing special.

    The only black kids who ever gave me any crap were the ones who wished they were on the team, but would've been cut if they'd bothered to try out. The guys I played with were fine, except for the one or two primadonnas who were jerks to everyone. It helped that, it being a small town, I'd known most of them since I was in first grade.

    Some of the most fun I ever had. Wouldn't trade it for the world.

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  16. uh, I had assumed those NBA Australians were more of a cheap foreign labor thing.

    If mainland China were suddenly to find itself in possession of a bunch of tall black people I would only expect the latter-day Mike D'Antonis to recruit them (especially if they also show good visual-spatial and verbal analogy testing!)

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  17. "The photonegative would have been if the Black Panthers ran around in black sheets and hoods instead of military fatigues."

    Umm, I don't think military fatigues were invented by blacks.

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  18. even though this is a 2010 story you could build up quite a clip file of people winning contests who aren't s'posed to, from Grace Kelly's dad to those "questionably gay" softball guys more recently. The commenter james above who fingered sorority cattiness in play may be onto something

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  19. Didn't Obama whine that he was discriminated against in school sports because he was African/Kenyan/Indonesian/American?

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  20. Racist bullying plays a pervasive role in a major sport is of no interest to anybody - especially to ESPN.

    If it's not on ESPN, it never happened.

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  21. Vet interesting idea Steve.

    I played a lot of Bball vs blacks growing up and they were cool for the most part but like most else has gotten worse lately.

    Dan in DC

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  22. I wonder if part of the reason there aren't more black Nobel prize winners is because how territorial and elitist whites and Jews get about the academic fields they dominate, to the point where black intellectuals suffer verbal abuse. There might be affirmative action, but that doesn't mean very black looking blacks in intellectual fields aren't greeted with hostility, particularly by those who feel blacks lower the intellectual prestige of the field.

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  23. Courageous conservatives ought to get together and pool their resources and start their own channel called the Outcast Newscast Channel. It will bring together all the conservatives and other maverick thinkers fired, censored, or blacklisted by the MSM.
    Pat Buchanan, Judge Napolitano, John Derbyshire, and on and on.

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  24. The rise of lacrosse in suburban (white) schools likely correlates to the the lack of good white American basketball players.

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  25. Catperson,

    I will take you literally. So we need Super Duper Affirmative Action.

    Good, I was going to suggest to lower the net 1 foot for the white NYC firemen who got passed over, but now I want the net waist high and we can add a goalie to make the Mexican players more comfortable.

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  26. Derbyshire gets fired but Chris Rock rakes in millions. Something's wrong here.

    Maybe, white folks think this way: blacks are proud and so get defensive when whites criticize them. So, if we want blacks to become more self-critical, we must not criticize them. So, if we want more Chris Rocks speaking the truth, we must not criticize them, because the more we criticize them, even decent blacks will knee-jerkedly circle the wagons and remain silent about black pathology.

    So, the paradox boils down to: 'if there are fewer white Derbyshires, there will be more black Derbyshires'.

    But I don't know about this. We don't criticize Jews at all, but I don't see many Jews facing up to Jewish abuses.

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  27. Do you think, maybe, that racist verbal abuse and violence against white youth basketball players might account for part of the shortfall of white American players in the NBA?

    No. How do you account for the regular success of white NCAA basketball players? Consider Tyler Hansbrough, Luke Harangody, Jimmer Fredette, Adam Morrison, J.J. Redick, Troy Murphy, Jon Sheyer, Kyle Singler, and Kevin Love, all of whom dominated college ball at the highest level.

    Further, the proportion of white males in NCAA Division I basketball has remained almost unchanged since 2000 as per NCAA Publications (shown below). These young men have ascended through the ranks of middle school, junior varsity, varsity, AAU, and NCAA ball. Any supposed racial verbal abuse and violence heretofore obviously have failed to preclude success. Why should these challenges, real or imagined, have a greater impact in the NBA? The simple truth is that, since the John Stockton days, U.S. whites have been unable to capitalize on ample opportunities to reach stardom in the NBA (though Kevin Love definitely looks to be one to end that drought).

    Percentage of White Male NCAA Division I Basketball Players
    2000 34.6%
    2001 32.5
    2002 32.3
    2003 32.3
    2004 31.6
    2005 31.9
    2006 29.9
    2007 32.5
    2008 32.6
    2009 31.9
    2010 30.5

    http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/SAEREP11.pdf

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  28. I watched the white sorority on YouTube. They were good.

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  29. Courageous conservatives ought to get together and pool their resources and start their own channel called the Outcast Newscast Channel
    look at the number of ads in the American Conservative magazine. Even limbaugh has problems retaining advertisers. No problem for radical chic msnbc though!

    good idea, but unfortunately most white guys with money are pouring it into their colllege's football program!

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  30. It gets you thinking about that long-running but seldom investigated mystery of why there are so many pretty good white NBA players from foreign countries, but so few from the country that invented basketball.

    Canada invented basketball you ignorant bigot

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  31. Anon 4/9/12 4:19 PM, I don't know if it was your point but it's amazing to me how African warlords like Amin or Mugabe loved the 1930s British/German military look. Certain commonalities are inevitable for function's sake but why didn't they come up with their own style of uni, as India has its knee-socks

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  32. Actually, Steve's right in my experience. Good white B-ball players were not only ignored and shunned when I was in a half-black, urban HS in the 90s, but sometimes simply assaulted.

    Basketball is a black thing in the US, particularly in urban settings, and that's fine by me. Too bad some good white players get left out, but so what? It's just a ball game. Let them have it.

    We can do without basketball, after all, and it's probably better that some of these white athletes go on to become competitive salesmen, engineers, builders, officers or even doctors (I know a couple former athlete doctors) than they waste their productive lives tossing a ball around.

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  33. Many NBA gm's over-value "athleticism" at the expense of proven basketball skills when considering potential draft choices, particularly in the second round. If the kid can really run and jump at 6'8", then he will get a look, even if his skills are nearly non-existent.

    Jon Scheyer, the 6'5" Duke 2010 NCAA champion shooting guard, had phenomenal shooting skills and a very high hoops IQ. Of course, he was not drafted and no NBA team seriously looked at him. He's in Israel playing professionally.

    Maybe Scheyer wouldn't be a stud (or just maybe he would), but nobody in the NBA will look at kids like him.
    On the other hand, a kid like Amir Johnson (10 ppg, 6 rpg last year - his sixth year in the league!) was drafted at 18 even though he had ZERO skills! His first FIVE years in the NBA were spent learning how to shoot, how to dribble, how to play defense, etc. No white American kids will get that chance. Darko Milicic (White Serbian stiff) had no skills either, but he was thought to be an "athlete".
    The old stereotype that the white kids have better skills, but that the black kids are more athletic, is not always true. Often, though, it is.

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  34. I looked at the first minute or so of both teams and I must say I thought the black one was better. What can I say?

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  35. Steve, black on white bullying in sports is a minor but memorable theme in Wolfe's underrated I Am Charlotte Simmons.

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  36. Nobel Prize Affirmative Action: Literature, Peace. Subjects which are absolutely unfalsifiable. Oh, and one Economics - a little falsifiable.

    Somehow I don't think getting a nice science award at age 70 for work done when you were 40 will appeal to a lot of very black looking blacks.

    Better stick with the Barry route and get one for doing that thing you do - being you.

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  37. I think smaller white families are making for more liberalism.

    Imagine if you have many uncles and aunts and cousins(and later nephews and nieces). From family gatherings and communication, you learn about stuff from REAL LIFE(as well as some real eccentric personalities). You don't just hear real life stories from your parents but from many more people. And even if your parents are politically correct, your uncles and aunts might not be; you might hear some interesting stuff at arguments among families during Thanksgiving Dinner. Also, if something bad happens to your uncle or aunt or cousin--robbed or killed by criminal of color--, it's not just impersonal news but goes to your very bone because you know about that person. You think 'a negro or illegal alien killed my favorite uncle!!'

    And having lots of folks naturally lends a sense of blood ties and community(and continuity).
    But if both your parents were only childs, there are no uncles and aunts, you only know reality from your parents. The only other adults you might know are teachers and social workers who are PC and liberal. So, if you get PC crap from school, there are no extended family members to tell you the REAL story from their own experiences to balance it out.

    Also, people are social/communal by nature. The only child of parents who themselves are only childs therefore search for a sense of community. Since he or she has no extensive blood ties, he or she finds 'family' through ideology or some cause, most of which tend to be liberal.

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  38. "Black Greeks, on the other hand, do see step teams as exclusively theirs. They created it, as far as I know, they did it, they do it, and they're damned if white folks are going to take it away the way we took away jazz and blues etc. "

    But could whites have the same attitude about organized sports -- virtually all of which were created by whites, indeed by WASPs -- that blacks have about 'jazz and blues'.

    And, btw, I think there has been some serious re-thinking about jazz, and even blues, being the creation solely of blacks.

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  39. It's time to call for the White Leagues, and it should be justified on the basis of white inferiority(as opposed to supremacy). Why is women's sports allowed? Women cannot compete with men. Why are there black chess contests? Cuz blacks cannot compete with Jews.

    Since whites cannot compete at elite levels with blacks in many cases, whites are biologically discriminated. So, there is a need for the White Leagues where white folks can play.

    But to butter this up, we should start with the Mexican-American sports league. Liberals will not oppose that. But whites then can use the same excuse and say, 'just like Mexicans, we cannot compete with blacks, so we need our own leagues'.

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  40. "Maybe Scheyer wouldn't be a stud (or just maybe he would), but nobody in the NBA will look at kids like him."

    Maybe because he's averaging 3 points and 0.4 assists a game, in 5 minutes a game in the Israeli league.

    http://www.eurobasket.com/player.asp?Cntry=ISR&PlayerID=109539&AmNotSure=1

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  41. "The simple truth is that, since the John Stockton days, U.S. whites have been unable to capitalize on ample opportunities to reach stardom in the NBA (though Kevin Love definitely looks to be one to end that drought)."

    I can't say for sure but what percentage of white v. black players get sneaker contracts. It's all about the sneakers. I never see white kids in line for a sneaker debut.

    Want more whites in the NBA, support their sneakers!
    White elites (Steve), do love their BBall, but when it comes to sneakers, their debates usually invove running shoes or follow the new barefoot movement.

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  42. [i]"Do you think, maybe, that racist verbal abuse and violence against white youth basketball players might account for part of the shortfall of white American players in the NBA?"[/i]

    Absolutely not. This is very wrong. At elite youth summer camps, or on state level all-star teams, to be a talented white player (not just tall, but skilled), is like being a black physicist. It gets you noticed. Furthermore, there's an assumption that you have a high "basketball IQ," that you play defense, and like to pass more than you like to shoot. Black players (and coaches) want you on their team. Anyone who's ever played college or beyond will tell you the same.

    The only racial obstacle a white player faces is that he can't jump as high, isn't as quick, and doesn't have the same power to weight ratio as his black counterparts.

    Maybe your average to above average whites face some get-off-my-turf mentality from black peers. But this completely vanishes at about the AAU level.

    [i]"mystery of why there are so many pretty good white NBA players from foreign countries, but so few from the country that invented basketball."[/i]

    This isn't true. Pretty good foreign whites are exactly proportionate to pretty good American whites. For every Andres Biedrins, there's a Josh McRoberts. For every Ricky Rubio, there's a Jason Williams. For every Steve Nash, there's a John Stockton. And on and on.

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  43. "...the country that invented basketball..."

    Basketball was invented by a Canadian, though he was working in the States at the time.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Naismith

    I have no interest whatsoever in basketball. I just happen to know about this bit of trivia because my brother-in-law lives in Almonte, Ontario, and when we were visiting we walked past some sort of museum dedicated to the inventor of basketball.

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  44. Many NBA gm's over-value "athleticism" at the expense of proven basketball skills when considering potential draft choices.

    And some don't. Look what's going on in Houston where GM Morey -- an "advanced metrics" guy -- jettisoned the worst 4 plus/minus guys (Flynn, Thabeet, T. Williams, and Hill -- all black) at the trade deadline. The 8-man includes 4 Whites, including two White Americans.

    Admittedly, Budinger and Parsons (two of the best young White players from the U.S.) are pretty "athletic", but that fact may not have registered with other GMs.

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  45. I have a cousin whose all white, mostly blonde state champion high school drill team performed in front of an almost entirely black crowd at a high school basketball game. The black girls booed and jeered the moment they walked onto the court, then shortly after the boys started cheering, and outshouted the girls.

    It was either despicably rude or refreshingly honest of the black girls to jeer their "competition." I'm not quite sure which.

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  46. Mr Lomez said...

    [i]"Do you think, maybe, that racist verbal abuse and violence against white youth basketball players might account for part of the shortfall of white American players in the NBA?"[/i]

    "Absolutely not. This is very wrong. At elite youth summer camps, or on state level all-star teams, to be a talented white player (not just tall, but skilled), is like being a black physicist. It gets you noticed. Furthermore, there's an assumption that you have a high "basketball IQ," that you play defense, and like to pass more than you like to shoot. Black players (and coaches) want you on their team. Anyone who's ever played college or beyond will tell you the same."

    This is the truth. Couldn't agree more. If you can play, you'll get respect. If you're a white ballhandler and you're legit, you'll get lotsa luv from the brothaz. And yes, if you're a white point guard, you've probably got a high basketball IQ, you probably play solid on the ball defense and you know that your bread and butter is making sure that your team gets the best shot possible when you have the ball (whether you shoot it, or whether a teammate does).

    And if you can do some flashy things every now and then (not too often--your job is to run the offense efficiently and play tight defense--just every now and then), you'll be showered with praise, like Grayson Broucher and Jason "White Chocolate" Williams.

    This goes for organized and pickup basketball. One situation in which you might get crap if you're a good white perimeter player, though, is if you really take it to, or "school," some black dude who's really a really good player in a pickup game where girls are watching from the sidelines (as they often are at outdoor basketball courts frequented by black "ballers"). Baby-mamas-in-training are attracted to the basketball courts where the serious "ballaz" play like moths are attracted to light. Getting shown up by some white boy in front of your female admirers/potential baby mamas is a major blow to the ego for a lot of black basketball players/streetballaz.

    The more "ghetto" the black guy, the more this is likely to be the case.

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  47. @cleon from mypostingcareer.com said..."Canada invented basketball you ignorant bigot"

    No it did not, you big dummy.

    Basketball was invented in the USA by a Canadian who became a naturalized US citizen. Basketball was the USA's game long before it became popular elsewhere.

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  48. Mr. Lomez said...

    [i]"mystery of why there are so many pretty good white NBA players from foreign countries, but so few from the country that invented basketball."[/i]

    "This isn't true. Pretty good foreign whites are exactly proportionate to pretty good American whites. For every Andres Biedrins, there's a Josh McRoberts. For every Ricky Rubio, there's a Jason Williams. For every Steve Nash, there's a John Stockton. And on and on."


    European big men are particularly desirable to American basketball scouts (both college and NBA) because European bigs can shoot and have perimeter ball handling skills. This is a product of the way the game is taught/coached in Europe. Guards and forwards do the same drills, and don't break up in separate "perimeter players" and "post players groups" in practice, as they do in America.

    If you're a European guard, you learn post moves and rebounding in addition to your perimeter skills ... and you practice them every day. And if you're a European big man, you learn to shoot, pass and handle the ball in addition to learning to play under-the-basket ... and you practice those skills every day.

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  49. I wonder if part of the reason there aren't more black Nobel prize winners is because how territorial and elitist whites and Jews get about the academic fields they dominate, to the point where black intellectuals suffer verbal abuse. There might be affirmative action, but that doesn't mean very black looking blacks in intellectual fields aren't greeted with hostility, particularly by those who feel blacks lower the intellectual prestige of the field.

    Are you kidding me? Elite whites and Jews are ultraliberals who ties themselves in knots celebrating diversity. They are exactly the ones pushing for more blacks in intellectual fields regardless of their inability to perform. They'd douse themselves in gasoline and light a match before they'd verbally abuse a black.

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  50. Jon Scheyer was a great high school and college player, but he always lacked strength and athleticism. He was just light years ahead in his skill development and basketball IQ. But it was pretty obvious that playing point guard in the NBA would be a challenge for him. If he were to find a spot on an NBA roster, it would probably because he found a way to stick as a "bit player."

    Pat Riley gave him a shot with the Miami Heat coming of Duke, but Scheyer got sent to the Developmental League (where he incurred a detached retina and had to sit out for a year).

    Scheyer is an interesting story though. In his senior year at Glenbrook North high school (where Ferris Bueller's Day Off was filmed), his team won the Illinois state championship. What's unusual is that Glenbrook North is a predominantly Jewish high school, and Scheyer's state championship team was an all-Jewish team (though they had a gentile coach). That's quite an accomplishment considering the fact that high school basketball in Illinois is notoriously competitive. Historically, Illinois, New York and California have produced more NBA players than any other states.

    When Kevin Garnett was at Chicago Farragut Academy, his team didn't even get past the state super-sectionals.

    All white teams almost never get to the finals in the Illinois high school playoffs (at least not the "big school" playoffs). But an all Jewish team ... well, that's just unheard of. And it's not like that team was filled with Division I talent. Outside of a point guard who went on to play (and win two NCAA Division III championships) at Washington University of St. Louis, that team's success was all the work of Jon Scheyer.

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  51. In black dominated sports like hoops and boxing I think it is prevalent, I guess former middleweight champ Kelly Pavlik was taunted pretty mercilessly as junior boxer. I read an interview where one of his black friends said at a Golden Gloves event in Cleveland it was non stop until Pavlik flattened the biggest talker. After that it stopped. Boxing is increasingly like the NBA, it has a fair amount of really good foreign white guys doing very well vs. practically none from the US, Pavlik being an exception that proves the rule ( When he was sober, I don't know if he is still fighting. )

    Another factor at work I think is that poor foreign white guys from places like Argentina, Brazil, Russia, and even some Western Europeans don't know they are supposed to be intimidated by black males. That's why they often look incredulous when their black American opponents tend to posture as if they expect their verbal taunting will cause them to pee their pants. It's as if poor blacks really think that all white guys everywhere are from the affluent suburbs. I remember Joe Calzaghe ( Italian father, Welsh mother ) having a look of complete bewilderment on his face when Bernard Hopkins attempted the " I will never lose to a white boy " card during the publicity run up to their fight. He was almost laughing at him, as if he was thinking what does race have to do with the ability to fight?

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  52. Yes there is a lot of intimidation and bullying on an inner-city court. There's more if you're white. But if you can deal with it you can play against some pretty good players.

    TWS

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  53. Good sportsmanship=acting white.

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  54. Hans Und Simon Grueber4/10/12, 8:17 AM

    No matter the merits, the judges were probably intentionally being progressive and transgressive in awarding a white team that stepping championship.

    They probably thought it a good thing to break down stereotypes and racial barriers. Like a black nerd (Urkel), Chinese NBA star (Lin) or white rapper (Emimen).

    They naively ignored the fact that some stereotypes are in place for a reason.

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  55. I agree there should be a White League, based on white athletic inferiority. And this league should lay claim to all the courts, gyms, equipment and infrastructure built by inferior whites; superior blacks get to keep all the stuff they themselves built.
    Based on black inventiveness, as we are endlessly being told.

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  56. The foreigners also play basketball and not the no harm/no foul, double dribble/palm the ball, walk-a-bit on the drive, muscle-ball game favored by most American blacks. White kids are mostly no good at that stuff.

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  57. We had a Yalie former Whiffenpoof in our office a couple years back. Not only was he a self-regarding douchebag, his singing was noticeably flat. Ivy Leaguers are the cancer of human history...

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  58. "It gets you thinking about that long-running but seldom investigated mystery of why there are so many pretty good white NBA players from foreign countries, but so few from the country that invented basketball."

    Rather than the bullying, I think many whites are discouraged by the knowledge that they can't compete with blacks.
    Also, weren't blacks once bullied and discriminated far worse in the sports world? White crowds used to jeer Jack Johnson like crazy, but he just smiled and fought on. Why? He knew he could beat all them white boys.

    Also, the fact that blacks can bully whites IS proof that blacks are athletically superior to whites. Stronger bully the weaker, and the stronger tend to be better athletes.

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  59. Jews were bullied but rose through adversity in business, media, academia, etc. Blacks were bullied but rose through music and sports.
    If whites use 'bully excuse' for their failures, then they are wusses. Life is a struggle, "no pain, no gain", and nothing is entitled.

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  60. Typical reverse racism. A white sorority wins and the blacks start bitching. Hypothetically, if a black sorority had done the exact same routine and won, would anyone have complained? No. Furthermore the sponsors insulted the winning team by insinuating that they only won because of a "scoring error". The worst part about the incident is that Coca Cola did nothing but reaffirm the loser attitude of affirmative action that is "the privileged whites only won because they're white and you're black so we'll give you this prize you did nothing to earn".

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  61. There's such a division in my head about all this. I know it's the dumbest cliche in the world, but I have worked w/ blacks, been friends w/ blacks, attended Bible studies w/ blacks, etc. -- they are some of the best people in the whole world. I had a black room-mate in college whom I truly loved. We understood each other at a visceral level.

    So I'm interested to see all the comments from people who played basketball w/ blacks, and had a good experience.

    But I also grew up in NYC, and I have some street smarts, and I know a lot of blacks are absolutely dangerous. And then I read HBD blogs, and I learn I'm not alone in seeing this.

    But not all blacks. Some of them are truly wonderful people.

    How do you handle this?

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  62. probably already mentioned, but a canadian invented basketball. although he did it in the US.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Naismith

    given 14 days to come up with a sport from scratch, develops basketball, a major international game in league play where the best players are paid millions of dollars per season.

    maybe he could be included as part of black history month in the US at some point? LOL.

    if you gave all the africans on earth unlimited time to come up with a sport (which is de facto the truth about what they have had over the last 50,000 years, unlimited free time to devise any activity they could imagine), they come up with...not much.

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  63. Steve, I think you mentioned earlier your lack of interest in the NBA, making bored comments about a Knick-Laker's game. My sense is that sports, including the NBA, is one of the best realms of race relations. I watched the Knicks closely during the (alas ended by injury) Jeremy Lin era, and they seemed to like each other. Lin (kind of de-facto white) Novak, a white sharp-shooter, Jorts, a Bill Lambeer type--Landry Fields (Stanford grad, probably a quad or octo something or other, not sure how he self-identifies) and six or seven black guys, some covered with tatoos some not. But they were all in the same boat, helped one another pulled for one another, etc. Your views are too pessimistic.

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  64. "if you gave all the africans on earth unlimited time to come up with a sport (which is de facto the truth about what they have had over the last 50,000 years, unlimited free time to devise any activity they could imagine), they come up with...not much."

    Good point.

    That also holds true for blacks and pretty much everything else--literature, art, history, science, technology.

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  65. "For every Andres Biedrins, there's a Josh McRoberts."

    OK, now I'm scared.

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  66. "I agree there should be a White League, based on white athletic inferiority. And this league should lay claim to all the courts, gyms, equipment and infrastructure built by inferior whites; superior blacks get to keep all the stuff they themselves built."

    Yeah, but the white basketball games have to be played only in countries in which whites are native.

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  67. equality now4/11/12, 7:54 AM

    "But not all blacks. Some of them are truly wonderful people.

    How do you handle this?"

    True of the human race in general, but the violent black category is higher than in other races. I believe there has been a gene discovered in one percent of whites and 13% of blacks that accounts for extreme violence. This defense has already been used in the trial of an Algerian in Italy.
    There has been a 70 year grace period since blacks entered general society (in a non-segregated sense) and we have hoped that education and integration would cure all ills. We're still waiting and there's nothing more that can be done with laws, so they're starting in on blood libel. Whites guilty for anything blacks do bad, full stop. And we can't even talk about it.
    This is a crazy-making situation and the grace period is soon to be up. There will be "discussions" on black-on-white violence. Such "discussions" ended oppression of blacks (which did exist, though it has been exaggerated) and only such publicity will curb black-on-white violence. They just can't keep the lid on this much longer. "They" seem truly insane--most people who run the media are white and here they are crafting ways (putting child pictures of Trayvon to illustrate the story) to make blacks seem innocent if they attack whites (or hispanics whose race the press can vacillate on) no matter how horrid the crime. They are either insane or sick. Maybe both. Makes you wonder who really runs things.

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  68. Has anyone considered that basketball just isn't as popular with white youths as it used to be?

    I know that my nephews have always had a basketball goal, but use it maybe once or twice a year for 20 minutes, tops.

    They really don't know how to dribble, and look incredibly clumsy shooting the ball. They consistently take the wrong angles trying to get rebounds.

    None of their friends have ever been interested in playing either.

    On the other hand the x-box and computer are constantly being used, along with the tv.

    We still have white athletes, but it seems to me most of them have some parental involvement. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me you seldom see a white athlete that is into sports just because they love them.

    I'm not around a constant stream of youths though. Maybe someone who works in a school or something like that would have more insight.

    It just seems to me white kids aren't really interested in sports anymore unless their parents drive them to it.

    Now a days baseball players, tennis players, golfers, swimmers have to start at an early age with coaching and access to facilities. The old image of the kid throwing baseballs at a mattress on the side of a barn just isn't there anymore.

    You never see kids of any race playing a pick-up game of baseball. It seems to me I haven't seen white kids playing a pick-up basketball game in a long time either.

    I think I have seen pick up soccer games though, with white kids, not just hispanic though.

    I say they were pick-up because there weren't any uniforms, just guys in shorts running around.

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  69. That Chinese guy was allowed to design the MLK memorial without over the top controversy. Just some complaints.

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  70. The biggest challenge white American athletes face in certain sports is anti-white attitudes from white coaches, scouts etc.

    "Darko Milicic (White Serbian stiff) had no skills either, but he was thought to be an "athlete""

    Wrong. Milicic showed outstanding skill as a teenager. Read the scouting reports. He just could never score on NBA defenses the way the scouts though he would be able to. He has turned into a decent journeyman player.

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  71. Only tangentially related to this post, but this harks back to some of the animated discussions around here during the most recent World Cup:

    Top Soccer Players Are Seen to Have Superior Brain Function

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