Race and Sports

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As I started my research and gathering more on this topic of interest, I ran across a website, which really helped to be a launching pad into some more research that I needed to take, so I started by getting a broad scope of ideas of what racial barriers truly means in the eyes of other researchers too. I started simply by reading an article called Race and Sports, which just opened my mind to a lot of different avenues that I think could lead my project in many different directions, and hopefully to my general conclusion. By coming across this article first in the beginning research process, it really helped set in stone for my research base.
This article talked about the percentages in each professional sport of African American athletes, the view of race and sport in the United States and also the views that other countries have on the United States regarding this topic. Also, they focused on the physiological, environmental, and socioeconomic factors too and looked at if their factors played a significant role in athletic performance as well.
From this, I learned how in 2008, the NBA was 75% African American players, and the NFL was dominated too with 68% being black athletes. Basketball in the US went through a phase in the 80's and 90's where a majority of the players in the National Basketball Association (NBA) were black. This related with the era of Michael Jordan, making the views and statistics go upward. On the percentage topic, another part talked about the graduation rates of those NCAA to professional athletes which included that in a University of Central Florida study of 2011 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament teams showed that only 59 percent of black players graduated, a contrast to the 91 percent of white players who completed their undergraduate studies. Again, this goes back to my previous post on how African Americans might have the athletic ability, but white Americans have the academic and socioeconomic ability advantage way more. I think that it is important to look at these statistics though because it shows how much these racial barriers have broken down over the years, which helps to answer my question on if they have changed over time. In correlation to this, in my opinion, I would say that just by looking at the percentages I found, I'll say it's true that nowadays the racial issue isn't as prevalent when it come to players in the pro circuit of sports, but that stigma still lingers a bit.

From all of this searching done, another one of the most interesting topics that I read in this article that pushed me to research further was a topic called "Black athletic superiority". This is a concept basically saying that over years of gathering info, professional researchers have found that they feel African American athletes seem to have an advantage in sports and competing due to the genetic background and how they are just slightly different in ways that help to excel them among other athletes. After reading further, I learned that this concept dates back and originated to when Jesse Owens was competing in Nazi Germany and had broke the Olympic records. Because this was not in the norm, people thought that it wasn't possible unless there was a reason such as a genetic advantage that could set them apart from other white athletes. The genetic advantage that mattered during this time was to be a part of the "Aryan" race, which meant that you had blonde hair and blue eyes. If you fell into this category, then you were considered to be superior. This is why when Jesse Owens came onto scene in the 1936 Olympics and didn't fit into this category, yet beat the Aryan race, it was big news.
 I used this article as a source in my searches because I deemed it as credible for a number of different reasons. First, it had all of the references listed so I knew that if I needed to do further research, I could go to them for that. Also, with the parts where the statistics were shown, there were footnotes given that took me to additional sources too if I need to learn more so I knew that I could count it as trustworthy. Through the author's tone, I could tell that it was scholarly writing, which shows there was a purpose behind it. The purpose I thought was to inform and educate the audience on the issue of race and sports combined and the effect they have when put together. This helped to achieve my purpose because I was wanting to know about these two topics combined more deeply as well.

From this article, I now have broken down my research to not only racial barriers in sports, but also the gender separation with the different races in the professional sports world. Along with this, I want to learn more about the "Black athletic superiority".  At this point in my research, I feel that I am developing more ideas and am getting closer to where I will find my general idea and conclusion.

Website can be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_sports

[1]  Source: Bill Blancett, Funny World Championship Pictures (Blogger, 2011). http://bigrunningengine.blogspot.com/2011/09/funny-world-championships-pic.html