homework help!!!!!!!!!

[snake242]

My question is how has sports paved the way for desegregation in the united states?

can u guys give some examples or sources

[Crazyirishman]

What a great question snake242!!!! Well you could start with Jackie robinson ro other famous African American Athletes from before or during the civil rights era.

inb4 lock/move

[Gen.LeeGettinhed]

#1 - Jesse Owens. . .wins 4 gold medals -- against Hitler's Germany

#2 - People like winners. When they opened up pro and college sport to more athletic minorities, old school ways lost to better athleticism.

[BigBallinStalin]

Hypothesis:
Choosing only whites prevented one's team from tapping into the skill and talent of non-whites. Other teams, which didn't discriminate, reaped the benefits of tapping into the non-white market. The team which did discriminate were paying for their prejudice--i.e. they couldn't compete as well with teams who recruited anyone regardless of skin color.

Competition lent credence to the benefits of desegregation.


[insert empirical data]

[owenshooter]

in before the lock/move...-el jesus negro

[macbone]

College football's a good example of that. The southern teams thought they could compete with the northern teams by keeping their teams lily-white, but they finally started bringing in black players to stay competitive (thereby luring away the best players from HBCUs, but that's another story).

[whitestazn88]

Joe Paterno was always a man of character, who decided on the best athletes regardless of race. Then he let Jerry Sandusky touch them. The end.

[the carpet man]

i thought martin luther king caused desegregation?

[pmchugh]

i thought martin luther king caused desegregation?

Yeah it was solely MLK. He went round and talked to every individual racist and shouted "STOP IT! STOP IT!" over and over again in their face. Eventually they all gave in and desegregation happened.

[Gen.LeeGettinhed]

sports paved the way for desegregation in the united states in other ways as well:

Sports usually has teams. . .that often have to ride on busses. Segregating the teams meant minorities in back, whites in front -- or separate buses for each. This was inefficient gas mileage wise and tire wear:
-differing amounts/weights of players front/back caused different axel pressures
-double the number of buses needed, etc.

Desegregation on the buses allowed for optimal spreading of weight loads and minimal buses used.

Math and penny pinching are ALWAYS in the mix.

[PLAYER57832]

i thought martin luther king caused desegregation?

No one person did anything in this fight. It took a lot of people on a lot of different fronts.

Sports helped a lot because people cared more about winning than holding to some esoteric race ideas. Also, becuase athletes themselves are exceptional, it was rather easier for people to say "these are not normal blacks, they are the exceptions" OR, worse. to say that these people's physical advantage was due to the race having endured slavery and its "darwanistic" "culling" of those who were weaker.

BUT.. a funny thing happened. People, kids began to look up to these atheletes and began to subtly or overtly question the treatment of all blacks. This happened in music as well. It was much slower in acting because, well, it is much harder to deny that a singer is a good singer than to deny that an actor/actress is a good actor/actress. A country holding up the idea of merit so highly had a hard time justifying keeping specific individuals of color back purely because of their color. Though they often get dismissed, there were a fair number of whites who never held with the whole "blacks have to be inferior" garbage, plus MANY more who just saw no reason to artificially hold back a particular group of people. As noted above, it was not a smooth or quick transition. When opportunity was opened, it still did not mean that everyone was treated equally. Even today, there is still a question in the minds of some as to how much racial differences and how much environmental factors make for the differences in outcomes of people of varying races. But then, that is a question in society as general, even apart from race. Race is just one more aspect of that question.

[oVo]

Some American city schools did not have integrated enrollments until the early 70's. Sports definitely assisted social change by breaking many racial barriers. The myth of white superiority in all things was a very gradual evolution in race relations. Joe Lewis and the Harlem Globetrotters were both winners against World Champions... and a basketball team from El Paso, TX with five black starters shocked a dominant Kentucky Wildcats team to win a National Collegiate Championship.

Musicians, scientists. educators, local activists and more are all elements
of the Civil Rights movement in America and they were not all black.

[the carpet man]

Sports helped a lot because people cared more about winning than holding to some esoteric race ideas

heh. so, a triumph of the 'win at all cost' mentality over principles?

[PLAYER57832]

Sports helped a lot because people cared more about winning than holding to some esoteric race ideas

heh. so, a triumph of the 'win at all cost' mentality over principles?

In some cases. In others blatant and obvious evidence that those beliefs/"principles" were just wrong. (and a whole mix of other stuff).

[PLAYER57832]

Oh, one point that is important. A lot of people back in the 50's and 60's were not so much avowed racists based on direct evidence as assuming that what they had been taught was true. Many just had no direct experience with people of other colors. Sports, then music were some of the few ways that whites got to actually see non-whites "in action". It helped a great deal that TV then came into play and allowed people to see some things in an "unfiltered" or direct fashion.

This is one reason why the 60's "happened". I can point to my grandparents as examples. They were never "mean" people, held treating everyone decently as a core value. Yet, they participated indirectly in racism because that was just "how things were". You can say the should have challenged things, but they believed what they were told by others. It was not until things began to change and they actually met people of other races that they truly began to change their thinking. Then they did. I am old enough to have seen that transition in MANY people. It is sometimes all too easy to sit in today's world and look back judging, without really understanding all it actually took, the many steps it took, to create change.

Or, to use M D'Angelo's words : "We did the best we knew. When we knew better, we did better".

Sports did help lead the way to showing people that they should know better.

[john9blue]

Hypothesis:
Choosing only whites prevented one's team from tapping into the skill and talent of non-whites. Other teams, which didn't discriminate, reaped the benefits of tapping into the non-white market. The team which did discriminate were paying for their prejudice--i.e. they couldn't compete as well with teams who recruited anyone regardless of skin color.

Competition lent credence to the benefits of desegregation.


[insert empirical data]

freaking economists, man...

[BigBallinStalin]

Hey, if anyone knew any research on the above, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

It could show an interesting case in how the private sector desegregated without the need of state intervention. Or, it could show that forced desegregation prevents opportunities where people can realize the benefits of voluntarily desegregating.

[the carpet man]

My grandparents were not real racists, they just held racist views because everyone else did.

[john9blue]

My grandparents were not real racists, they just held racist views because everyone else did.

almost every single person in this world is a product of their environment to some degree. very few are truly 100% responsible for their beliefs and actions because very few are capable of truly original thought.

[the carpet man]

eh yes. i agree with you (although i would say that 100% of people are the product of their experience)

but my point was that 'everyone else was racist' does not make racism somehow more acceptable

[john9blue]

eh yes. i agree with you (although i would say that 100% of people are the product of their experience)

but my point was that 'everyone else was racist' does not make racism somehow more acceptable

why not? that was my entire point. you can't judge someone outside of the context of their environment.

[the carpet man]

i'm not judging them. i just think it is funny that 'everyone else was racist' somehow make it okay for her grandparents to be racist

when is 'everyone else says so' an excuse?

[john9blue]

i'm not judging them. i just think it is funny that 'everyone else was racist' somehow make it okay for her grandparents to be racist

when is 'everyone else says so' an excuse?

saying "your actions are not okay" is judging someone

[PLAYER57832]

i'm not judging them. i just think it is funny that 'everyone else was racist' somehow make it okay for her grandparents to be racist

when is 'everyone else says so' an excuse?

No, the point is that they did not know any blacks, so how could they know that what was said about them was not correct? (and note, they were NOT of the ilk that wore hoods) At the same time, I was not being entirely fair to my grandparents. When the great Opera singer.. cannot remember her name, came to their town, they were among those appalled that no one in town would give her a place to stay. And, that started them, and others thinking about whether the rules really were reasonable and fair. I can cite a number of such incidents, as I am sure can many people her who knew people of those generations.
I don't excuse it, but it is all to easy to claim we are superior to people of the past because we now think differently, but not easy to accept that had we lived in those times.. we might not have been very different, or at all different. Yet, if we are truly honest.. we are not so different, just more educated.

[PLAYER57832]

i'm not judging them. i just think it is funny that 'everyone else was racist' somehow make it okay for her grandparents to be racist

when is 'everyone else says so' an excuse?

"Excusing" is very different from understanding. That said, when you condemn people of the past, you had best have enough information to be sure you really would have acted differently. When the major difference between us and them is that we now know more, then, Well...

As M. D'angelou said "when we knew better, we did better". It applies on many fronts, including this.

When you start claiming "I would never have done that..." then you ignore the real and true effort it took to get where we are and pretend that similar mistakes won't ever happen again. That is pretty dangerous!