When I was in college, a friend told me that black people were overrepresented in professional basketball because American slavery was an exercise in survival of the fittest, and that the black Americans who made it to the modern era were therefore predisposed to be more athletic.
At first blush, this explanation made some sense. Even as an adult, I can see how it feels “intuitive.” I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a commonly held belief today.
Of course, the idea only really works if you’re ignorant, like I was the first time I heard it.
To buy this explanation, you have to think slavery was a highly selective process of breeding big, strong men to labor in the fields — basically, the story you see in Hollywood. In reality, it was a system of extreme coercion and violence, but it wasn't biologically selective in the way one might imagine a process of “breeding” would be. To the extent that slave breeding happened at all, it was usually through haphazard forced coupling or masters raping their female slaves and then enslaving their own children. Disease and malnutrition were also rampant among infants and children, not exactly the environment where strong physical traits thrive. The work itself was varied, too — more than just manning farms, it involved domestic work, crafting, cooking, and childcare.
Basically: The only way this seemingly intuitive theory works is if you actually don’t know anything about slavery at all (or genetics, for that matter, since physical characteristics of a group require hundreds of generations to manifest — not four or five).
Deconstructing a silly idea like this is simple enough, but to close the loop you have to be able to offer real explanations, too — otherwise, people will continue to invent their own theories to explain the patterns they can see with their own two eyes. Researchers discovered that a higher concentration of type-II muscle fibers — or “fast-twitch” muscles— was present in populations of West African descent. Similar observations apply to distance runners from East Africa, or powerlifters from Southern or Eastern Europe. These are just bell-curve trends, not destiny — one athlete isn’t going to be faster or stronger than another just because they are part of one group — but we don’t get to these explanations without first noticing the trends.
There’s also a cultural explanation, rooted in historical fact. Black Americans were excluded from high-status careers for generations, so they turned to sports and entertainment; sports like basketball became highly visible routes to success in the black community; and community institutions (like the YMCA, AAU, HBCUs) built pipelines for young black kids to play basketball and hone their craft at an early age so they could use their skills to get scholarships and unlock the opportunities available to them. All of this cultural pressure explains why a particular racial demographic outperforms others in professional sports, a highly meritocratic space.
This same concept applies to antisemitism. Something I’ve learned over the years of talking about “The Jews” is that it helps to think critically about the things people are saying and address them head on. It has been my experience that antisemitism, like racism, thrives when swimming in ignorance.
So my message for Jews, or friends of Jews interested in combatting antisemitism, is this: We have nothing to hide! It’s okay. All we need is defenders who know our history and aren’t ignorant enough to be tricked by antisemitism. You can let your guard down and address these issues honestly.
And, today, in an effort to walk the walk, I’d like to do just that.
First, a little bit about me.
