. [/QUOTE]
You can look at statistics and draw all types of conclusions, and yes, most stereotyping is based on elements of truth. However it is not useful, from whatever side of the fence you sit to make assumptions about an individual or even about a race in general, it benefits nobody. I think something that some people here need to realise that saying that an african american is dumb and violent is equally as hurtful and stupid as saying a white guy is too slow and doesn't have the athleticism to make it, base your statements on the individuals involved, and it may be true, it may be not.
Rather than answer this myself, I'll let the philosopher John Bryant explain why the racist and anti-racist positions can both be correct, depending on circumstances:
"Racial Attitudes: A Matter of Perspective?
By John "Birdman" Bryant
The division between liberals and conservatives on race issues generally, and black-vs-white issues in particular, is not a difference over facts so much as a difference of perspective: The conservatives judge individual blacks on the basis of the characteristics of their race as a whole, while the liberals believe that each man should be judged on his individual merits, which may be totally different from those of his race. The difference may perhaps best be exemplified by considering the different attitude of conservatives and liberals to hiring blacks in consideration of the fact that blacks are nine times more likely than whites to be involved in crime: The conservative would say that, because the probability of a black being a criminal is so much higher than that of a white, it is simply too risky to hire blacks; while a liberal would say that a blanket refusal to hire blacks is unfair because each person is different, and thus a blanket refusal would entail the refusal to hire many worthy people.
Now the curious thing about these two perspectives is that, in a sense, both are perfectly correct: The difference lies in differing assumptions about the amount of information available to make a decision. In particular, the conservative makes his judgment based on the assumption that he will have no other information than that of race, while the liberal assumes that information on the individual can be obtained which will make the racial information irrelevant. This, then, means that both liberals and conservatives err when their informational assumptions do not fit the facts: The liberal errs by assuming that information on individuals will always be available when in fact it often is not; while the conservative errs when he judges a person on the basis of race alone when information on this individual is in fact available.
But if we are correct in having identified the great divide which separates liberals and conservatives on the issue of race, and if we are also correct that there is no argument between one view and the other in that these two views are mutually compatible, then this suggests that the battle between liberals and conservatives over race is without substance, in the same sense that arguments about taste are without substance. This of course is not to say that the alternatives which have been offered by liberals and conservatives respectively have been without consequence, for this is obviously not so; it is rather to suggest that these differing alternatives would never have been offered up in the first place if liberals and conservatives had had a clear understanding of their differences."
So you see, in football, where player background and every individual attribute can be rigorously tested, "color-blindness" makes alot of sense, OTOH, when one is trying to decide what kind of neighborhood to move into, or more pertinently, whether one wants New Orleans refugees in YOUR part of the world, one just has to go with the statistics.
