The Thin Edge of the Wedge

Posted by Matt O'Halloran on November 22, 2006, 06:03 AM | #

Ten years ago Steve Sailer wrote:

{i]...too few whites notice that black sports success seems to also originate above the neck, in certain common black mental advantages over whites. For example, in the NFL most offensive linemen, who diligently execute the coach’s plays, are white. Most defensive linemen, who instantly devise their own responses, are black. More spectacularly, black basketball players like Elgin Baylor and Julius Erving blew wide open a stodgy game of set-piece plays. White coaches long resisted their black players’ ability to make it up as they went along. The only man to consistently hold Michael Jordan to no more than 20 points per game was Dean Smith, his college coach. Yet, “playground jungle ball” eventually routed predictable white-style basketball. Obviously, the occasional Larry Bird or John Stockton show that some whites can master the black game. Still, whites seem less often able to meet modern basketball’s demands for creative improvisation and on-the-fly interpersonal decision-making.

http://www.isteve.com/blackath.htm

Might this aspect of the phenotype not suit black ‘Top Guns’ in split-second decision-making about combat tactics? Or do other innate disadvantages tilt the scales against them?

I thought it was a tenet of MR.com that different breeds of God’s children are not inferior or superior but *different*: each with inherited strengths and weaknesses. If so, one might ask Mr Igorevich in what respects he considers blacks innately superior to whites, and in which fields this edge is evident.

The cataract of denigration one gets here is becoming a trifle wearisome, not to say suspect. Let’s have a little more, ahem, discrimination.

Posted by Guessedworker on November 22, 2006, 07:47 AM | #

Matt, I assume, is treating us to some Amalekian pot-stirring.  But, anyway, let’s take him at face value.

One does not need to be a Derridan to see that there is a problem with Sailer’s use of words - “diligently execute”, “instantly devise”, “blew wide open a stodgy game”.  He is leading the reader to his conclusion like a shepherd his sheep to the pen.  There is a case there to be made.  But he seems not to have analysed sufficiently to make it.  Hence the linguistic paint-brush.

Usually, of course, Sailer displays an acute comprehension of the differences between the calculated distributive tasks of the quarter-back and the “felt”, on the spot invention of defensive linesmen, and the difference of both to pure reflexivity.

Anyway, let us give the black sporting professional his due and say that, on average, he has an advantage in this one area ... to be specific in the processing speed of that part of the mind activated during instant physical encounter.

Now, here’s the world your average brilliant black SAAF Gripen pilot will inhabit.  Is it, in fact, a world in which physical encounter skills have an advantage over strategising, spatially-calculating, predictive skills - or even apply at all?

I don’t believe that they do, and for two reasons.  First, they are a grave disadvantage since the fast-twitch aggressivity that underpins “decisions” taken in physical encounters is not to hand in a fighter aircraft.  The abilities and responses of an aircraft are not remotely like those of the human body.  They put blacks and whites on a level playing field in the one area where blacks might expect to excel.  But the other areas, in which whites excel and which are far more critical to aerial combat anyway, all apply in spades.

Second, one has to agree with Svi that America’s F16s and F18s would be filled with bril black pilots if it was only a matter of politics.  It isn’t.  Operational effectiveness and risk factors overide liberalism.  Blacks stay on the ground.

The French national football team may be ten parts negro.  Top French fighter pilots, however ...

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on November 22, 2006, 03:37 PM | #

Sailer hasn’t made his case, any more than I have.  All we’ve both done is speculate.  That said, as GW pointed out, I see no evidence that blacks are better at quick decision-making than whites.  Blacks are naturally more confident, which when combined with gross motor function speed might serve to give the illusion of quicker response times and decision-making under the right conditions.

I thought it was a tenet of MR.com that different breeds of God’s children are not inferior or superior but *different*: each with inherited strengths and weaknesses.

No, you’ve confused it for a real one, which is the traditional western value of honesty.

If so, one might ask Mr Igorevich in what respects he considers blacks innately superior to whites, and in which fields this edge is evident.

Fast-twitch muscle fiber, explosive muscle power, rythmicity, skeletal density.  (sprinting, jumping, acrobatic dancing, etc., and maybe boxing)

Other factors involved may be attention span and impulse control.  Long hours flying CAPs or rounding an asphalt ring at high speed might highlight both attributes.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on November 22, 2006, 03:45 PM | #

Oh, as for basketball, I think Danubian success in that arena dispels that myth.

Posted by Johan Van Vlaams on November 22, 2006, 04:37 PM | #

But these black “fighter pilots” have one advantage: they will be trained by…the British, see (in Afrikaans) http://152.111.1.251/argief/berigte/rapport/2005/09/18/R1/13/02.html

One advice for the British: beware of falling aircraft!

Posted by Sal on November 22, 2006, 04:39 PM | #

In the United States, the powers-that-be have decided that operationa units like the SEALS do not have enough blacks (and to a lesser extent, hispanics).  Pressure has been placed on the military to have more black SEALS.  Unfortunately, it seems that a great many blacks can’t pass the tests, both physical and mental.  I can’t confirm this, but in my experience, being a SEAL seems to require much of the same abilities that flying fighters does.  So far, the military has been able maintain standards, but who knows how long.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on November 22, 2006, 04:51 PM | #

Stamina is a huge part of elite soldiering, and that isn’t a black forte.

Plus blacks suck at swimming, which is much more a part of the SEAL skill/ability set than it is elite soldiering in general.

Blacks are well-suited to warfare…but much less so to the modern kind.  On the other hand, much modern warfare is asymmetrical/4th generation, and I suspect blacks are well-suited to that.

Posted by Fred Scrooby on November 22, 2006, 08:32 PM | #

Negroes in water are buoyed up less than whites because pound-for-pound they’re leaner (fat buoys you up), so swimming’s harder for them.  I wonder, though, if Negro women are leaner.  They look, if anything, the opposite.  If that’s so, why aren’t Negro women swimmers as good as white ones?  Maybe it’s not just body fat?

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on November 22, 2006, 08:58 PM | #

Blacks have on average heavier skeletons and less lung capacity than whites.  Also, more of their weight is comprised of limb than trunk relative to whites which doesn’t help buoyancy either.

Culture doesn’t help either; southern blacks at least are pathological about water.