The Black-White Sports Gap

Watching both the 2010 NBA basketball finals and the World Cup soccer begs observations about certain sports outcomes, as they may be influenced by ethnicity. I cannot help but note that the NBA is +95% African-American, with a smattering of Whites, mostly from Europe. Soccer, as Europe’s and the world’s number one sport, is pulling increasing numbers of Africans into its professional ranks. Is this a good thing? I think so.

As quiet as it is kept, European-team dominated soccer is under the challenge of keeping to the traditional (read White) ‘restricted patterns’ of play, against the more improvised, power-oriented, and exciting play of the Africans. After all, soccer is dependent on the same speed, jumping, and agility, as basketball. You only need to contrast a World Cup game featuring Ivory Coast or Cameroon versus that of European national teams, to see the difference. Today I watched #2 ranked Spain snooze their way to a first-round loss against #24 Switzerland, a team powered, in part, by two nationalized Africans.

Furthermore, is #1 Brazil the odds-on-favorite because they combine teamwork, power, and creativity over their competition? Perhaps. Soccer play in South America seems popular to the point of retaining better players year-round, along with developing an optimized style of play to a more diverse (read exciting) skill set in those players. In Brazil, it is not a matter of African ancestry conforming to muted Euro-style of play, but the other way around, teamwork redefining itself with athleticism. Plausible?

Red Auerbach, famed leader of the bean town Boston Celtics, was able to win the ‘last hold-out’ award, as long as he had a super-star like Larry Bird, but anything less meant a trouncing by the likes of teams chocked with three-point shooting, slam-dunking, sub seven-footers, of African ancestry. In stark contrast, the Michael Jordan of soccer, Pele (pictured), foretold the current era of speed and agility, even while those around him wore cement shoes.

All this is to say that I am loving the World Cup, and the NBA Finals too, twisted arm-chair analysis and all. I like the White/Euro guys, the same way I liked watching Bird drain three-pointers against LA from my Jamaica Plain television room. But I especially like seeing West African brotherhood, in its many shades, place its indelible re-definition on the world’s number one sport, now and into the future. From now on when someone says football, I will hesitate, and wonder – which one?

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: The Black White Sports Gap, Pele, FIFA, World Cup, Soccer, Acting White

Harvard Study Says Incentive Pay-For-Grades Fails

After two years, four cities, 261 urban schools, and $6.3 million, for an average incentive of $166 per student, Harvard economist Roland Fryer has concluded his study of financial incentives and student achievement. Fryer had the laudable goal of understanding, from an economics standpoint, if the performance gap of urban school kids, especially the black-white gap, can be reduced or eliminated with cash incentives.

The results were not surprising (see earlier post), except maybe to Fryer. Economists tend to believe in the all-powerful character of money, as surrogate and vessel of our wants. The problem, of course, is that the link, while strong at times, is also weak, as well. In this case, Fryer found no positive or lasting impact in paying students for good grades. He concluded that paying kids for a result, that being A’s and B’s, which they did not know how to attain, was a wasted exercise.

On the other hand, Fryer was able to conclude that paying kids for ‘input’ behavior, like reading a book, did have a positive and lasting impact on their achievement. Additionally, paying for good attendance, and good behavior, including the wearing of uniforms, also had a positive impact on scholastic achievement. So the money our parents used to bribe us to read (more) during summer vacation was well spent? Yep.

Fryer goes on to say that cash rewards for input behavior are the cheapest way to help poor kids, even better than current federally-funded programs like Head Start. I take this to mean those current programs are probably more ‘fancy’ (and costly) than they need be. Reading books is both simple and critical because it enhances vocabulary, and the number of words a child knows directly correlates to how well they perform in school.

Check out the study and results here under working papers.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Harvard Study Says Incentive Pay-For-Grades Fails, Roland Fryer, Incentive, Disparity, Gap, Acting White

Helen Thomas: Anti-Israel is Not Always Anti-Semite

Helen Thomas' departure from the White House press corp. may be well over due, but I hope there will be some debate over whether her ill-advised remarks (here) were anti-Semitic or more narrowly, and less horrifically, anti-Israel. As a journalist, she should have kept her personal beliefs to herself, but as the nearly 90 year old daughter of Lebanese immigrants, we should also understand her background and the influence of old age. Beneath that crotchety, cantankerous surface is an elderly brain off its rails to a destination only the luckiest of us live long enough to see.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Helen Thomas: Anti-Israel is Not Always Anti-Semite, White House, Press, Obama, Immigrant, Acting White

Random Racialness: Are East Indians Black?

I ran across this unscientific Topix 'survey' yesterday. The opinion votes and comments give an interesting window, however limited, into how some people, especially natives of India, view themselves and others.

As for an accurate answer, I would say no and yes. Indians are descendants of homo sapiens who walked out of Africa, over tens of thousands of years, into the Fertile Crescent (Jordan, Syria, Iraq), and closer siblings/cousins to the folks (Caucasoids) that continued north into Europe and east into Asia. Their skin lightened by virtue of the higher latitude (less sun), compared to sub-Sahara Africa, but re-darkened in degrees as they settle farther south in the direction of the equator. They are a great example of the genetically labile (adaptable) nature of skin, base on the environment. Their dark skin makes them no more or less related to Africans, than anyone else. Skin color, in and of itself, tells nothing of genetic kinship. In fact, there are Africans (to this day) that are also just as unrelated to each other, although both have dark skin (here).

Survey comments (here).

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Random Racialness: Are East Indians Black?, Genetics, Skin Color, Sun Intensity, Caucasians, Acting White

John Wooden: 1910 - 2010

Former UCLA emeritus basketball Coach John Wooden was known for winning championships, but for me his greatest accomplishment was his willingness, early in his career and before UCLA, to refuse invitationals that barred Black players and to hold his ground until those tournaments relented. A man of true conviction. (Story here)

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: John Wooden: 1910 - 2010, UCLA Bruins, Basketball, NCAA, Abdul-Jabbar, Acting White

Claudia Schiffer’s Blackface

So German super-model Claudia Schiffer and photographer Karl Lagerfeld think that blackface is acceptable if it involves high-fashion. And judging from the comments I have seen, multitudes of Whites believe that it is only fair turn-around for Whites to pretend to be Black. After all, Blacks, with their hair-straightening and skin lighteners, have been paying handsomely to look White for decades.

First off, I really don’t think that Schiffer stole work from a Black model. Whoever buys the shots knows that they are of Claudia in blackface, and this juxtaposition has specific value worth the trouble. I consider these photographs in the same category as these of Gisele and Black guys with big muscles (here). Someone is trying to get a ‘rise’ out of the public, and the question is, does it work and does it go too far?

For me, blackface that distorts the physical or behavioral character of Blacks is not acceptable. This goes for emulations of any ethnic group, from Asians, to Indians, to the Bantus. Emulations that reflect positive portrayals are acceptable, but understandably tread a thin line. I asked a Black woman in my office her thoughts, and she was not offended and thought it was art. She said a bucket of KFC under Schiffer’s arm would not work.

So in the end, I say no harm no foul. Keep on playing.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Claudia Schiffer’s Blackface, Karl Lagerfeld, Minstrel, Bundchen, Interracial, Acting White

Head Start Is the Right Start

Since January of this year, when the congressionally-commissioned Head Start (HS) Impact Study was released (here), many people have been calling for an end to this $7B ‘colossal example of government waste’. I think they are wrong. The basis of these calls is the study’s finding that the benefits provided to three and four-year olds dissipate by the time they finish first grade.

Now raise your hand if you believe that any gains were permanent, minus other support? I thought the idea was to get disadvantaged kids up to the level of the average kid entering school, so they would have a better chance. Between what the kids and their parents learn, I ‘m sure some people hoped that the effects would be permanent, but should we be surprised that they are not? How much instruction and other support did the care givers actually receive? Should we just wipe our hands and say we tried? I don’t think so.

It is abominable that we have done so little for these kids in K-6, besides a HS boost, and yet expect so much in return. Early education should not be sink or swim, but rather swim or swim better. The needs of kids vary widely, starting with how well they match up physically and mentally to their grade, by age. There should be more latitude to place kids where they best fit emotionally and intellectually, regardless of their birthday.

It makes sense that whatever is disadvantaging the HS kids would not just disappear after kindergarten and first-grade. The better question is figuring out what is making early learners (K-6) fall behind and stay there. I will certainly bet that as much as Head Start is an intervention, when it stops, the benefits dissipate. Whether it is being read to, fed nutritiously, or given regular and mandated dental service, we can bet that these kids are not getting the full measure of what they need to flourish in school.

So, instead of clamoring for an end to Head Start as a waste, we should be asking ourselves, how to come behind it and not lose it’s gains. As a YMCA volunteer Board member and Head Start supporter, I would push for extending our current HS program to become a K-6 after-school/Sat. study/activity/meal program. I am confident - but willing to be measured - that greater support through the developmental years will set most of these kids on a deserving educational and positive social course.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Head Start Is the Right Start, Disparity, K-6, Poor, Education, Acting White