Swimming and Golf - are they "Black" enough for you?

Dear friends,

Nothing is more crucial to maintaining systems of oppression and exploitation than stereotypes - i.e., images and symbols - that give one group a feeling of superiority over another. The idea that "Blacks can't swim.", for example, does not even make sense; yet, the phrase is constantly bandied about. We do all have the same type of mental and physical structures, after all. Besides, as Melville J. Herskovits pointed out in his book about the pioneering scientist Franz Boas, "the range of the average of differences within any specific group is greater than the range of the average of differences between all groups"...

Also, in his special book, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, Wilheim Reich, the great scientist and clinical psychologist, insisted that the concept of race is only of interest to an "imbecile". He points out the reality of the pejorative moniker just mentioned, by reminding us that the exception in human has been racial circumscription. The rule, on the other hand, has been promiscuous mating among all people. Of course, the activities in which we engage have much more to do with cultural expression, than our biological assets. Yet, those expressions are themselves based upon availability or lack thereof, regarding specific resources. However, if the context of culture is ignored, if not altogether denied, and replaced with the notion of "race" - a totally unscientific concept that is solely based on politics, our view and understanding of reality gets twisted.

At any rate, I brought all of the aforementioned up, because as you will read on the link below, at the end of the article, Cullen Jones, the African American swimmer who won an Olympic gold medal ten days ago, in an excitedly proud moment and loving lament, tried to connect the absence of African American golf champions with their counterparts in swimming, saying, "Not many black people played golf before Tiger Woods." Actually, that is not true. In fact, there have been many great African American golfers, long before Tiger.

Remember Lee Elder of the Seventies? He played on television, at times. Here in New England there have, for a long time, been great African American golfers. For example, the late Spencer Leek, of Lexington, Massachusetts, won the New England Championship and other tournaments, back in the 1940s and 1950s. Of course, all over our country, for, at least, a few generations, there have been and are African American golf champions. Tiger Woods simply represents a long tradition, although he does not recognize himself as either an African American or Black man. As a matter of fact, I have read that he invented a term for self-description with the help of Michael Jordan, the basketball legend. Woods calls himself a "Caublanasian". Wow!

A short note: First of all, as far as I know, neither Tiger's father Earl (an African American who has passed), nor his Mother (Asian), are of immediately European descent. Why did he and Michael Jordan put the "Caucasian" element in (and first, mind you), for his self-description? Secondly, when Herodotus, the man who Europeans and their offshoots in the Americas call "the father of history", was travelling through the Caucasus Mountains, some 2500 years ago, he ran into a people called the Colchians. That meeting, just mentioned, has been documented by many other historians since. Nonetheless, Herodotus described the Colchians as a "dark-skinned, woolly-haired" people. Considering his vigor to disassociate himself with African Americans, it would seem, at least to me, that if Tiger Woods knew more history he would call himself something else. After all, Caucasian, just like "white", is a means-spirited term that people use in order to put themselves in an artificial majority group. Let us face it; people who live in mountains are hardly very much of a part of civilization. That is why they live on the periphery of it (civilization). Imagine, a thousand years from now, instead of describing themselves as Americans, our descendants called themselves Appalachians. What rational person would identify with people, culturally, who deliberately live apart from civilization?

At any rate, a buddy of mine, Corky Siemaszko, who writes for the New York Daily News did a piece, recently, about Cullen Jones who is, as already mentioned, the young African American swimmer who won an Olympic gold medal, as the third leg of a relay squad, a little over a week ago. Corky raised the issue of stereotypes and, also, wrote to me personally after I sent him a message about the piece (and I am printing this part with his permission), " Thanks Djata. And thanks for the golfing history lesson. I can't say that's my sport. But I'm sure glad swimming is Cullen Jones' sport. When I began writing that story, I remembered hearing theories about Blacks being poor swimmers because of heavier bone density and things like that. I don't know if that's true or not, but it struck me as silly. I always figured a lack of access to quality swimming pools and quality coaching was a more likely reason for the scarcity of competitive African American swimmers. "

Amen to that, Cork. But please do not leave out another obstacle - i.e., discrimination. Cool? After all, if the European American (white) coach does not give an African American swimmer the same attention that he/she gives to others, or the European American person who is timing a race gives an African American competitor a "bad" time so that the aforementioned swimmer will not qualify for higher levels of competition, then that also reveals a much broader issue of why more African Americans are not seen at the higher levels of some sports - and other activities.

At any rate, friends, please join Corky [and myself :-)] in celebrating the achievements of a young man, while he is revealing both his inner and outer powers to the whole world.

Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/2008olympics/2008/08/12/2008-08-12_riding_olympic_wave_bronxborn_swimmer_no.html