Racial quotas in sports absurd - By Marcus Epstein - 7 Mar'05
Published: Sunday, March 6, 2005 8:03 PM EST
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Conservative columnist Walter Williams once performed a reduction ad absurdum to affirmative action by applying the principle to sports. He asked, "Who complains about blacks being 80 percent of professional basketball players and 66 percent of professional football players? But suppose instead of competition, government, in the pursuit of ‘sports justice,' decided who could and could not be on professional basketball and football teams."
The problem with using a reduction ad absurdum these days is that in our brave new world, the left is more and more eager to embrace the absurd.
No one has ever tried to make sports where blacks dominate whites, but affirmative action has always been a one-way street. Accordingly there have been many recent cases of sports and even positions within a sport that are predominantly white where the paragons of diversity have tried to further integrate. Perhaps Mr. Williams should have asked, "Would people complain if whites made up 80 percent of professional basketball players and 66 percent of professional football players?"
In 2003, Rush Limbaugh suggested on ESPN that the reason Donovan McNabb got so much publicity was because the media was hoping for a successful black quarterback. Although McNabb had a stellar season last year, when Limbaugh made the comments, they seemed legitimate. McNabb was being billed as the next Dan Marino despite the fact that he had rather lackluster statistics.
Naturally, the bien pensants came out in full force. Gen. Wesley Clark demanded that Limbaugh be fired, and Howard Dean opined, "There is no legitimate place in sports broadcasting for voices that seek to discredit the achievement of athletes on the basis of race." Limbaugh was eventually forced to resign from ESPN.
While McNabb and other black quarterbacks are now common in the NFL, until recently, sportswriters constantly attributed their relative scarcity to racism. This was despite the fact that before the recent boon of ‘quarterblacks' five years ago, blacks still made up the same percentage of quarterbacks in the NFL as they did in the rest of population. Even more incredible is the attempt by Jesse Jackson and others to ensure that NASCAR becomes more diverse. He badgered the company into giving his Rainbow-PUSH coalition $250,000 to promote diversity in the sport. He complained that there is no reason why there shouldn't be more black racers because "negroes can drive cars fast." One of the Coalition's board members, Bill Shack, called NASCAR "the last bastion of white supremacy."
Enraged NASCAR fans, including the late black football star and racing enthusiast Reggie White, pressured NASCAR to stop funding Jackson, however, they continue to pander to minorities. A recent press release states that "NASCAR is committed to making its sport - on and off the racetrack - look more like America" and introduced a variety of initiatives to increase minority participation in NASCAR. Among them is the "Drive for Diversity" program that helped subsidize minority and female racers.
If all of this seems a little silly, South Africa, which has among the most extreme affirmative action policies in the world, has outdone anything that Americans could even dream of by issuing black quotas for professional rugby. That's right, quotas. In response to pressure from the Parliament's Sports Committee, South African Rugby recently passed a resolution to ensure that at least eight of the 30 players on a rugby squad must be black. This is a 50 percent increase in the number of black players in most teams.
One coach who favored the quotas told the Planet Rugby Web site, "Of the 30 or so black players in the four Super 12 [the highest level] teams, 15 play on the wing. And it's doubtful whether all of them would get game time this season. There's black talent in other positions, but the coaches aren't doing their homework."
If this was true, the coaches who did their homework and found the elusive black rugby talent would have a sharp edge above the other teams and the quotas would be unnecessary. Instead, the black athletes who would make the team anyway will have to deal with the stigma of being a "quota player," while many qualified white players will be overlooked.
Quotas and affirmative action for professional sports seem self-evidently absurd to most Americans. However, if you think about it, affirmative action in other fields are much more harmful. In the end, rugby, NASCAR and football are just games.
While forcing less than qualified players onto the field may be ridiculous, it is not a matter of life and death. Heart surgery, fire fighting, police work and many other fields affected by affirmative action are. I would much rather watch a Rugby team with an under-qualified center play than have a major operation performed on me by an under-qualified doctor or have an under-qualified firefighter try to rescue me from a burning building.
Published: Sunday, March 6, 2005 8:03 PM EST
E-mail this story | Print this page
Conservative columnist Walter Williams once performed a reduction ad absurdum to affirmative action by applying the principle to sports. He asked, "Who complains about blacks being 80 percent of professional basketball players and 66 percent of professional football players? But suppose instead of competition, government, in the pursuit of ‘sports justice,' decided who could and could not be on professional basketball and football teams."
The problem with using a reduction ad absurdum these days is that in our brave new world, the left is more and more eager to embrace the absurd.
No one has ever tried to make sports where blacks dominate whites, but affirmative action has always been a one-way street. Accordingly there have been many recent cases of sports and even positions within a sport that are predominantly white where the paragons of diversity have tried to further integrate. Perhaps Mr. Williams should have asked, "Would people complain if whites made up 80 percent of professional basketball players and 66 percent of professional football players?"
In 2003, Rush Limbaugh suggested on ESPN that the reason Donovan McNabb got so much publicity was because the media was hoping for a successful black quarterback. Although McNabb had a stellar season last year, when Limbaugh made the comments, they seemed legitimate. McNabb was being billed as the next Dan Marino despite the fact that he had rather lackluster statistics.
Naturally, the bien pensants came out in full force. Gen. Wesley Clark demanded that Limbaugh be fired, and Howard Dean opined, "There is no legitimate place in sports broadcasting for voices that seek to discredit the achievement of athletes on the basis of race." Limbaugh was eventually forced to resign from ESPN.
While McNabb and other black quarterbacks are now common in the NFL, until recently, sportswriters constantly attributed their relative scarcity to racism. This was despite the fact that before the recent boon of ‘quarterblacks' five years ago, blacks still made up the same percentage of quarterbacks in the NFL as they did in the rest of population. Even more incredible is the attempt by Jesse Jackson and others to ensure that NASCAR becomes more diverse. He badgered the company into giving his Rainbow-PUSH coalition $250,000 to promote diversity in the sport. He complained that there is no reason why there shouldn't be more black racers because "negroes can drive cars fast." One of the Coalition's board members, Bill Shack, called NASCAR "the last bastion of white supremacy."
Enraged NASCAR fans, including the late black football star and racing enthusiast Reggie White, pressured NASCAR to stop funding Jackson, however, they continue to pander to minorities. A recent press release states that "NASCAR is committed to making its sport - on and off the racetrack - look more like America" and introduced a variety of initiatives to increase minority participation in NASCAR. Among them is the "Drive for Diversity" program that helped subsidize minority and female racers.
If all of this seems a little silly, South Africa, which has among the most extreme affirmative action policies in the world, has outdone anything that Americans could even dream of by issuing black quotas for professional rugby. That's right, quotas. In response to pressure from the Parliament's Sports Committee, South African Rugby recently passed a resolution to ensure that at least eight of the 30 players on a rugby squad must be black. This is a 50 percent increase in the number of black players in most teams.
One coach who favored the quotas told the Planet Rugby Web site, "Of the 30 or so black players in the four Super 12 [the highest level] teams, 15 play on the wing. And it's doubtful whether all of them would get game time this season. There's black talent in other positions, but the coaches aren't doing their homework."
If this was true, the coaches who did their homework and found the elusive black rugby talent would have a sharp edge above the other teams and the quotas would be unnecessary. Instead, the black athletes who would make the team anyway will have to deal with the stigma of being a "quota player," while many qualified white players will be overlooked.
Quotas and affirmative action for professional sports seem self-evidently absurd to most Americans. However, if you think about it, affirmative action in other fields are much more harmful. In the end, rugby, NASCAR and football are just games.
While forcing less than qualified players onto the field may be ridiculous, it is not a matter of life and death. Heart surgery, fire fighting, police work and many other fields affected by affirmative action are. I would much rather watch a Rugby team with an under-qualified center play than have a major operation performed on me by an under-qualified doctor or have an under-qualified firefighter try to rescue me from a burning building.