2-8 Reading Assignment; Gladwell, The Sports Taboo

The author utilizes this work to share with the reader his inside perspective of the association of Race and Ethnicity and sports. He specifically discusses the impact of stereotyping on athletes and sports from a first hand view. By comparing his experience in Canadian track and field with mathematics and marathon running he asks the question if race and ethnicity determines the runner's success or is it more a product of person's culture that sets the tone.

While Gladwell concedes genetics of a specific race or ethnicity factor into a person's ability to be a good sprinter, miler or distance runner, he also notes that the athletes were steered into specific sub-specialties by coaches early in life by stereotyping. For instance, he noted that on his Canadian National team , West Indies (Caribbean)-Canadians were the ones chosen to run the short sprint races. The example he used was a white runner who ran the quarter-mile race. Gladwell notes he "expected" the white athlete to eventually fail just because he was white.

Another point Gladwell makes is that sometimes athletes are shaped and defined by their culture and where they live. African men claimed 13 out of the top 20 finishes in the Boston Marathon, black men make up 80 percent of NBA players, Tiger Woods is one of the few black golfers and in a track and field world rankings the highest ranked white athlete is 23 on the list. It this because of genetics of race or ethnicity or is it because the athletes have been groomed from an early age by way of stereotyping?

Gladwell seems to think that maybe its both. That while genetics do play a part in the athlete's success, he suggests that culture and society plays an even larger role. His examples of the latter include a comparison of white and black NBA players Kerr and Jordan, mathematical test scores and male vs female rankings and the impact of Dominican and Latin American baseball players and Major League Baseball.

In the end the author concedes that the success or failure of any particular athlete is a result of stereotyping the affect that has on a person's perceived ability. If the white athlete does not believe he or she can be successful, they won't try thereby fulfilling the stereotype myth. He closes by relating personal story in which his two white running mates prepare to run backwards up a particularly steep hill. His response was to turn around and run back home. Why? Because the white athletes were willing to go to greater lengths than he to develop their talent not because of their race or ethnicity.