https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/01/walter-e-block/sports-dei/

By Walter E. Block

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) has been sweeping the nation. It has been applied to all sorts of institutions, albeit, preeminently, education. It is time, it is past time, that this initiative be spread out, even further. To wit, it should be introduced into the realm of sports.

According to DEI, the reason whites do better at earning wealth, educational attainment, employment, more stable families, incarceration rates, STEM occupations, etc., has nothing to do with ability, IQ levels, studiousness, work ethic, or anything else of that sort. Rather, it is all due to white racism. It is a little difficult to reconcile that claim with the undeniable fact that Orientals outstrip Occidentals in most of these dimensions, but let that pass. We do not want to assess DEI theory too harshly here. Instated, we want to apply it to the realm of athletics.

How would that work? First, let us consider professional basketball.

The percentage of black players is 73%, while they comprise only some 13% of the overall population. Whites make up 17% of these splendid athletes, but 76% of the total population. Asians? They comprise 0.4% of the NBA but 6% of all people in the US. Thus, blacks are highly overrepresented, while whites and Orientals are significantly underrepresented.

How can we account for these statistics? According to the DEI philosophy it has nothing to do with the fact that “white men can’t jump.” Rather, the culprit here, wait for it, I hope you’re sitting down while you read this, is black racism. Caucasians and Asians have just as much ability, on average, as do Africans and African Americans, but the latter just won’t allow them into the game to the degree that their abilities would warrant. Black athletes are just mean spirited. These world class sports pros are in effect hogging the ball. True, virtually all of the teams are owned by whites and as per usual, the buck stops at the top. But we’re going to ferret out black racism wherever it lies, with neither fear nor favor, and according to the DEI principles, it rests squarely with this demographic.

A similar analysis applies to football, where the players, disproportionately to their share of the total population, favor blacks (71%) over whites (25%). Data for track and field, marathon running is harder to come by, but eyeball experience indicates that blacks are keeping whites at “the back of the bus” to an even greater extent in these activities too.

However, when it comes to swimming and hockey (93% white), matters reverse. Here, at last, we find the evils of “white supremacy.” There are hardly any blacks with important accomplishments in either venue. This of course has nothing to do with black disinterest or lack of ability in either sport. No, we again utilize the DEI premise that all races are equally able in all dimensions. Expert economist Thomas Sowell says otherwise, over and over again, with evidence you could knock an elephant over with, but what does he know? If there are any differences in success rates it must necessarily be due to racism. Anyone who denies this is himself a racist. QED.

What are we then to make of the fact that too few basketball and football coaches are of African descent? Only seven out of 29 head NBA coaches were black last year. According to National Basketball Players Association executive director Michele Roberts “These numbers are just disgraceful…” But seven out of 29 is 24% roughly double the percentage of the black population. What is going on here? The craziness of DEI is going on here. This is true not only at the professional level, but includes college teams as well.

One last thing. DEI has all but banned ACT and SAT scores in academia. Why? That is because certain demographic groups do better, far better, than other demographic groups. Nor has this “gap” narrowed, despite heroic efforts for this to be done on the part of the wokists. What solution have the politically correct forces instituted to deal with this obvious injustice? Why, of course, to ban ACT and SAT scores in academia.

Can we do any less in sports DEI? Of course not. We wouldn’t want to be considered racists. Accordingly, we propose that all analogs to these tests be prohibited. No scoring in any sport. No calculation of times or places in foot races or in the swimming pool.

What about prizes such as the Stanley Cup in hockey, the gold, silver and bronze medals in the Olympics, the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy in basketball and the Vince Lombardi Trophy in football (the Superbowl, too, should be considered in this regard; it too is an award, and therefore suspicious). Again, we resort to DEI in academia for our model. There, proportionality, diversity, are the benchmarks.  If we borrow a leaf from that practice, these sports awards should be given out not on the basis of ability, not based on points scored, or touchdowns, or distance thrown in the javelin, or time for foot races, but, rather, based on the proportion of a given demographic in the overall population. We wouldn’t want any racial community to have more than its fair share, now would we.

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