| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : FEBRUARY 28, 2000 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| BOOKS
In the Genes? TABOO Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid to Talk About It By Jon Entine PublicAffairs 387pp $25 In his State of the Union Address last month, President Clinton recalled a chat he'd recently had with an eminent geneticist. ''He said that we are all, regardless of race, 99.9% the same,'' Clinton reported. It was the politically correct stuff of which such speeches are made, but it invited the question: What about the other 0.1%? Are the traits that set races apart significant? Are they, for example, factors in determining who soars highest over the basketball rim or which racer is first off the starting blocks? The question has been asked in countless locker rooms and addressed entertainingly in the Woody Harrelson-Wesley Snipes flick White Men Can't Jump. But there's something inherently anxiety-provoking about the topic, prompting even the curious to lower their voices or change the subject. That alone makes Jon Entine's book, Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid to Talk About It, a notable and jarring work. Entine, a freelance journalist, brings a long-standing interest and a distinct point of view to the topic. While working for NBC News in the 1980s, he and Tom Brokaw produced a controversial documentary on the matter. Its core conclusion was that athletes of African descent possess slight physiological adaptations that lift them above athletes of other races. Skill and a will to win count for much, Entine reminds the reader throughout the book. But, ''the decisive variable is in [their] genes....'' Such assertions can celebrate black athletes. Or, in the hands of less thoughtful observers than Entine, they can demean them. The author quotes the prominent sociologist Harry Edwards, who says on this point: ''By asserting that blacks are physically superior, whites at best reinforce some old stereotypes long held about Afro-Americans--to wit, that they are little removed from the apes in their evolutionary development....'' Perhaps Entine's topic alone will offend some readers. But that shouldn't detract from the author's balanced and thorough treatment. Two themes appear throughout the book: the succession of baseless stereotypes that black athletes have smashed to win the grudging acceptance of white America; and the histories of evolutionary, racial, and related sciences. For example, Entine explains that blacks were dismissed as too weak and cowardly to succeed in boxing until Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champ, destroyed Jim Jeffries in 1910. And the science chapters establish Entine as a serious chronicler of his subject, although they often become tedious because of the detail. At points, his reporting also seems stale. He offers provocative quotes from African American athletes--Carl Lewis, O.J. Simpson, and Joe Morgan. But the footnotes reveal that the Simpson and Morgan quotes are more than 20 years old. That said, Entine's treatment of his central theme is laudable. And because it brings intelligence to a little-understood subject, so is this book. BY MARK HYMAN _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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