random quote i liked:
Originally Posted by denberg
1/ What's the white man's record for the 100m?
Intresting discussion. I have actually written some academic papers about this kind of race thinking in sports (in the swedish language).
To begin with I would like to give you a probably more accurate list of white male top sprinters of all time.
1. Marian Woronin, Poland, 10,00
2. Pietro Mennea, Italy, 10,01
3. Matthew Shirvington, Australia 10,03
=3. Nicolas Macrozonaris, Canada 10,03
5. Frank Emmelmann, Germany (GDR) 10,06
6. Johan Rossouw, South Africa 10,06
7. Valeriy Borzov, Ukraine 10,07
I´m not sure about Rossouw. I just suppose he is white, since the white minority tend to dominate the sprinting events in South Africa, especially if you consider that the time was made back in the 1980´s.
As You can see there is no Patrick Johnson in the list. He could be, it´s a matter of what we all are thinking about when we are thinking about whiteness and non-whiteness. When I was writing about race thinking in sports I Learned about the american way of race segregation in peoples minds. There was an expression: "one drop rule", that indicated that anyone who wasnt "pure" white was more or less "doomed" to a black or some other non-white identity. I suspect the idea lives on these days i USA. I can asure you that it does in Europe to some extent. It,s rather silly and sometimes confusing, since you, if you keep your eyes open, often meet people from the very same family whith the same parents where a daughter look slightly african and her brother look entirely caucasion.
The only reason why we ask such questions wether who is the fastest white man goes back to the neurotic fascination about the black body, and what it can do. Nowbody asks question about black javelin throwers (and I wouldnt be able to make you a list), because there is no bizarr fascination of the white body.
There are no physical differences between whites and blacks that matters. It,s all in our minds.
I´ll give you one example:
USA have always been the dominating country in the 100 meters, but there are no american in the list above. How come? Is it because white americans can´t run or is it because they don´t think they can run. I believe the latter is the case, and that the injection of bad self inconfidence of oneself has reached white Europeans and australians in recent decades. And not the least, its in the minds of the coaches. I have a friend who was a world class pole vaulter until a couple of years ago. He got a athletic scolarship and went over to USA to study and train. When he came back I asked him why there were no black american pole vaulters of high standard (Lawrence Johnson excepted). He told me that he had seen some talents at the university, but the coach sent them away to the sprint team with the following words:
- Pole Vault is to complicated for them. They better do what they are best at.
That was that. I hope my spelling and grammar is´nt to bad. I am Swedish after all.
P.s. At his peak, Borzov would probably have made it under 10,00, if he had been pushed by his oponents. He was that good. d.s.
