Contact Sports and Caste

Hello. As an African-American that's now retired, I must confess I find this site and these threads a bit stimulating. Yes, there does indeed seem to be an unfair caste system in modern professional sports. When I was at JSU teaching biological physics, this was a topic under much discussion and, hence, the subject of much investigation and experimentation by myself and my staff. We even, during a 7 month period, got a writ from the governor to exhume the bodies of criminals for our experiments. Now, that was an adventure, let me tell you. But to stick with the study at hand, I can only tell you people on this forum that yes, indeed, there does seem to be a caste system in sports, but it is not quite what you think.


You see, the result of our findings after subjecting many a cadaver to the--how shall I say this?--the "crunch test", was that, indeed, the bones in the specimen cadavers ofafrican-american males tended on the whole to be markedlymore densethan in the specimen cadavers which were european-american. I believe the readings were, roughly, about 50psi in africans, to about 30psi in europeans, if memory doesn't fail me.


What was the result of the paper we finally published, and what portent did it have for professional sports? Just this: If the findings in the study were true, then we would expect to find those swimmers of European descent to be completely dominating the sport of swimming--due to their ligher bone structure. And this is indeed what we do see in overall society. This should be a positive boon for most of you on this site who are supporters, as I take it, of European-Americans in sports.


Contrastly, when it comes to most, or more likely all, contact sports, we would expect to find those of African descent excelling here, often at the expense of intermittent broken bones of those European contestants risking their health and bones in a contest for which they probably were not designed. And yes, from time to time, this is exactly what we do see, as illustrated by the link below:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEVaRrWL4Hg


Such events commonly occur in contact sports between african men and european men.


If you would like, I could forward you the findings we came up with. JU does all its own experiments, mind you. If you have a computer that opens PDF forms, see for yourself if you like. I must confess, I was a little daunted by the prospect of swimming a local pond out back of JU, after we did the study (this was from '80-84). To think that Europeans swim so well for a reason, and Africans can never do that. Makes me more wary of these here alligators, let me tell you. That's why I stay here, sipping my coffee, reading up on websites and my morning paper. Well good day to you all, and hello again.


Dr. Malcolm T. Motembe


Professor Emeritus


Jackson State University


Edited by: Dr.M.T.Motembe

I don't doubt the findings of the study. But you will admit that it is "uncontrolled". What type of people were the cadavers from? Sickly, old, tall, heavy, milk drinkers, calcium deficient? What? Perhaps the information you listed has this. I will check it out.

What I think is important for the discussion of the caste sports system is that the white "specimens" we talk about here make up the upper echelon of white athletic ability. That means they are probably more muscular and most likely have denser bone then the average white person.

A study of just white athletes in this regard would bemore to the point. Also I do not believe that it is bone injuries that effect white athletes more then black ones. I may be wrong. It also seems that the majority of injuries are muscular or invole ligament and cartiledge. Is it assumes that greater bone density means greater muscle or ligament. Probably not as white people appearto be better weight lifters which would seem to be the ultimate test of muscle.

Also would not less dense bone be an advantage for running? Less weight to carry per unit of measurement. Lightly boned white people should be blazing by the heavier boned sluggish blacks. That does not seem to be the case, not at the elite track levels (not yet anyway).

You also mentioned that a caste system did exist but you do not mean it in any manner of the sense that we do here. We feel it is an IRRATIONAL selection of black athletes over white ones. You are indicating that it is entirely ratonal based on some physical quantity.

Do you also believe that it is true every time for every white and every black or do you believe that there is a spectrum?

Well, I suppose what I should add would be my own personal conviction. Aside from the professional findings, I found myself wondering, if I was of a more slight, more frail anatomical make up, would I be competing in these contact sports? And I found myself answering, No. I'd stick to the books. Let the more robust races--darker races--have it out with one another. I would, if a caucasian, do the things God had intended me to do. Why riskthe lighter, less durable bone structures of caucasians on something street kids are doing and were meant to do better?


This is not the caste system of which you speak? Or perhaps I am mistaken.


Although, I hasten to admit, I myself am such an exception, coming at it from the other angle, as an African-American Prof.

You should wonder about big strong white kids that are every bit as strong and stronger then the "street" kids you are talking about. If white people are stronger, and this is plainly true, then why worry about bone damage which only rarely occurs in athletic events.

You certainly make sweeping generalizations for a "Dr.", perhaps it was an honorary degree. Clearly there are Caucasians that do not feel their bodies are so frail and wish to prove it on a level playing field.

BTW do you also recommend that Africans stay out of academic persuits due to their much lower IQ's then Caucasians instead of wasting their time trying to be Drs. and doing research when there are so many better bigger brained white people around?

Dr.M.T.Motembe said:

Well, I suppose what I should add would be my own personal conviction. Aside from the professional findings, I found myself wondering, if I was of a more slight, more frail anatomical make up, would I be competing in these contact sports? And I found myself answering, No. I'd stick to the books. Let the more robust races--darker races--have it out with one another. I would, if a caucasian, do the things God had intended me to do. Why risk the lighter, less durable bone structures of caucasians on something street kids are doing and were meant to do better?


This is not the caste system of which you speak? Or perhaps I am mistaken.


Although, I hasten to admit, I myself am such an exception, coming at it from the other angle, as an African-American Prof.

Click to expand...

Or you could do both!!! Be the worlds Heavy weight boxing champion and have your PHD!!!

FYI- The current heavyweight champ has a Phd. He also has knocked numerous "street kids" silly around the ring. I guess someone forget to tell him he was "frail". Edited by: KJV1

i played sports (and still am) on semi pro and pro levels and not once have i had a broken bone (other than odd finger and nose). nor have i had any injury that would keep me out longer than a week.
i've played with white players, black players, pacific islanders... and let me tell you, if we are any more "frail" i've never experienced that.

Bone density has nothing to do with the ability to run with a football. Your study as it relates to the caste system is irrelevant.

Furthermore, I'd be interested in reading the results of your study for myself. Can you please provide the date it was published, and in what publication? And if you don't mind, the date you retired? You are not currently listed as a staff member at Jackson State University. Its not that I doubt you of course, but this is the internet after all.

If one makes a claim about having participated in bone density studies on cadavers, states that they are a professor of 'biological physics,' and even deigns to use their real name in such a claim, then providing evidence of such shouldn't be too difficult.

Perhaps you know our former resident scholar and researcher, who went by the user name 'Menelik?'

A quick google search yields nothing in the way of evidence that this guy is actually a Dr. of any sort.

"If you have a computer that opens PDF forms" Well given that Adobe Acrobat Reader is free software, and that any computer newer than about 8 or 9 years can run said software, I'd say that you should upload those PDF forms to a site like http://www.megaupload.com/ as all of us will be able to read it. You might also want to provide some proof that you are who you say you are as well

oh, and since we use "the evidence" from youtube, here's a little proof that some of those street kids ain't all that tough...

A white kick boxer delivers a leg kick with such force it breaks his lower limb and not that of the opponent. What does the video suggest? That particular man has weak bones?Perhaps the leg was injured before the match.Another possibility is that the white boxer had previously kicked the black flush onthenoggin causing multiple fracturesand severe damage to the tibia. The density of the black skull is not a matter of debate. The good Professor may indeed be correct.Edited by: Bart

Let me welcome you to the board, Doc. But you admit, these are criminals; hardly the physical specimens professional athletes are. The thing I wonder more about is nutrition, honestly. Europeans who came to North America shot up dramatically in height, on average. My wife, whose half-Asian, is 4 or 5 inches taller than her mother. She gets a more robust frame, and the genetic ability to grow taller than her Asian mother from her white father. But even her friends, many of whom are first-generation Americans, are markedly taller than their parents. I think nutrition accounts for a lot of this. I also think it may be playing a dramatic role in why black athletes are really exploding onto the scene the last 25 years or so.

Its a stereotype, and a bad one, but traditional southern black foods certainly haven't been the best things an athlete ought to eat(and let's be honest, a huge majority of black pro athletes are from the south or out west; whites are also southerners, or from the midwest). Could advances in nutrition account for a lot of this? I was pretty tall at around 5'11" at 14, but only grew 1 more inch; the black kids around me all shot up like weeds, but at the same time, rarely attained the sort of muscle mass that I could. They certainly seemed no tougher than me; I broke bones on white and black players a time or two on the field, and certainly off it.

I'm not sure either way, really, and I'm open to the possibility of genetic differences, but I know a lot of people, both white and black. I have a lot more in common with the smarter blacks than I do the dumber whites. Anyway, apologies to any poor bastard who actually read all that. I'm trying to make sense here, but my brain is tired.

White Shogun said:

You are not currently listed as a staff member at Jackson State University. Its not that I doubt you of course, but this is the internet after all.

If one makes a claim about having participated in bone density studies on cadavers, states that they are a professor of 'biological physics,' and even deigns to use their real name in such a claim, then providing evidence of such shouldn't be too difficult.

Perhaps you know our former resident scholar and researcher, who went by the user name 'Menelik?'

Click to expand...

The names Malcolm Motembe and Malcolm T. Motembe return zero results when googled. Given the new troll who just popped up in the Happy Hour section at the same time as "Dr. Motembe," we may be experiencing another "invasion" like the one those video game punks tried last week.


Quote from the "Dr.": "I must confess, I was a little daunted by the prospect of swimming a local pond out back of JU." Edited by: Don Wassall

Let's get to the nut-cutting:

The problem with all the personal anecdotes, as valid as they may be in the lives of those who relate them, have little to do with the assertion that the good Professor is making, that thicker bone density translates into an ability to run with a football, or catch a football, to such a degree that not ONE white person in all of North America or Europe can outperform even the WORST black running back or corner back in the NFL.

His argument is garbage, pure and simple. If you want to debate whether bone density has an effect on how much force must be exerted to break a bone, or indeed, whether it effects world class swimming events measured in tenths of a second, then by all means do so. But bone density is irrelevant to the actual ABILITY to run or catch a ball in the sport of football.

If we are discussing the propensity for bone injury in impact sports, then perhaps his argument has weight.

But he is asserting that greater bone density translates into an innate ability to run with a toy ball and keep other men from taking the toy ball. Its a worse argument than the most common one we see here at Caste Football, when some 'expert' says its because blacks are faster, on average, which is why they fill 100% of the available positions at tailback and cornerback; an assertion that has been defeated numerous times even by a casual review of the phenotypes of men who play at those positions, e.g Jerome Bettis.

There is no reason to debate the point that bone density translates into an ability to run or catch a football.

Don Wassall said:

White Shogun said:

You are not currently listed as a staff member at Jackson State University. Its not that I doubt you of course, but this is the internet after all.

If one makes a claim about having participated in bone density studies on cadavers, states that they are a professor of 'biological physics,' and even deigns to use their real name in such a claim, then providing evidence of such shouldn't be too difficult. Perhaps you know our former resident scholar and researcher, who went by the user name 'Menelik?'

Click to expand...

The names Malcolm Motembe and Malcolm T. Motembe return zero results when googled.  Given the new troll who just popped up in the Happy Hour section at the same time as "Dr. Motembe," we may be experiencing another "invasion" like the one those video game punks tried last week. 

Click to expand...

and this one reeks of a "college class" type experiment, (you know those race and gender type classes)

These things really happen quite frequently, and it is a peculiarly caucasian thing to happen, these compound breakages where the limb is seen to be gelatinous in space momentarily, until the whole of the anatomy comes to rest. You will recall the case of Cincinnati Bengal Tim Krumrie in the Super Bowl; or the case of Edward McCaffery, I believe his name was, when struck in the leg by an african-american defensive back. You will note that it was not the defensive back to suffer the broken bone, it was McCaffery. So it is not just in the field of martial arts. It is the nature of contact sports themselves, and the nature of osteo-durability among the races. This NFL history, these two cases I cite, only lends credence to our empirical findings at JSU.Edited by: Dr.M.T.Motembe

As a professor of biology, and one who has allegedly conducted numerous 'experiments,' I would think you would know that anecdotal evidence, as in the two 'cases' you cited, prove nothing.

Furthermore, you have obviously read the requests on this board for the date and publication of your research, so why have you not posted it?

I can't believe you guys are engaging this fellow in a discussion. Black professors are more rare than white cornerbacks. No professor, retired or not, would post his name and/or college at this site. Troll

Although it involves both caucasian competitors, here again we see the intrinsic weakness of bone density in the caucasian athletes, and thus it serves to further validate the studies of my research team:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VR-b3cEx0M


It would seem as though caucasians and contact sports simply do not mix.


I suppose some solace could be had by the thought that, were an african and a europeanwere to beshipwrecked on a deserted isleafter only a 3 hour cruise, the european would stand the much better chance of getting off the island by swimming for it. That is, of course, if he didn't get into some kind of an altercation with the african and then injure himself first.

Are there any A-frickins that can afford a 3 hour cruise? Besides floating your mattress around New Orleans?

funny how caucasians are best in just about every combat sport ever invented...


"That is, of course, if he didn't get into some kind of an altercation with the african and then injure himself first." - very poor effort for someone trying to stir the pot here at castefootball...

Thankfully, Dr, Motembe has cleared up the caste system for me. The 2005 Biletnikoff Award winner Mike Haas wasn't drafted until round 6 and was then cut from the Saints roster after a productive training camp in favor of Devrey Henderson and Jamal Jones because of his thin Caucasian bones. I was really angry after reading the where are they now ? thread, but now I see the reason.

Those thin boned, star white running backs are routinely moved to the less contact positions like linebacker or fullback because of their obvious osteo-inferiority.

Fortunately, whites are still able to play some QB now even though Joe Theisman's leg illustrated that it's only a matter of time before the thin bones eliminate whites from that position as well. Thanks again professor.

What the heck are you guys smokin' at Jackson State? To dig up 4 cadavers and make general statement that all caucasians have 30% less bone mass than all africans is about as scientific as saying little green men live on Mars. Talk about pseudo science. There is so much evidence to the contrary. For instance, weight lifting would require very strong bones and whites dominate. You metioned swimming. Did you actually test the bone density of a swimmer to back up your hypothesis?

Who paid for such a study? I sure hope it wasn't a federal grant because I'm going to be ticked off if my hard earned money was used for this garbage.

fightthepower said:

I can't believe you guys are engaging this fellow in a discussion. Black professors are more rare than white cornerbacks. No professor, retired or not, would post his name and/or college at this site. Troll

Click to expand...

Sometimes you have to dispute their assertions to avoid the 'defeat by silence' argument.

Dr.M.T.Motembe said:

Although it involves both caucasian competitors, here again we see the intrinsic weakness of bone density in the caucasian athletes, and thus it serves to further validate the studies of my research team:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VR-b3cEx0M


It would seem as though caucasians and contact sports simply do not mix.


I suppose some solace could be had by the thought that, were an african and a european were to be shipwrecked on a deserted isle after only a 3 hour cruise, the european would stand the much better chance of getting off the island by swimming for it. That is, of course, if he didn't get into some kind of an altercation with the african and then injure himself first.

Click to expand...

Well, the good docter has eschewed any pretense of maintaining his professorial identity and resorted to run-of-the-mill trolling.

You do get a C+ for your intial effort though. At least you were a little creative.

It was kind of fun while it lasted, "Doc."