Summary Of Race: The Power Of An Illusion

In the film “Race: The Power of an Illusion” we see that athletics is one arena where talking about ideas of inborn racial differences remains common. We have to wonder why that is. Whenever we see or hear about people playing certain sports we as human beings automatically assume that a certain race will dominate that sport.
For example, in the film they talked about how African American people were considered the best at running due to our social profiling of them over a long period of time. Another example would be how middle and upper class people are considered better at golf and tennis. That’s because they have the money to invest in their sport and pay for private lessons so they can become their very best athletic in their division. Most people in the United States believe that most African Americans are genetically suppose to be faster runners or better …show more content…
They didn’t cover this in the first part of the film. However, I found some other articles that talked about the change of the groups in certain groups that dominated. In the article related to the movie it says that back in the 60’s African American’s were expected to partake in sprinting events rather than long distance due to their speed. That later changed when the Kenyans decided to change the game and take over long-distance track and field. Many of the sports like track and field, basketball, boxing, etc….were originally played by predominantly Europeans, European immigrants,Middle Easterners, Caucasians, and later on African Americans. Over time it has became more and more acceptable for African Americans to compete in sports that is out of the norm for their race. For example, in the 1950’s there was social discrimination against African American athletes that wanted to become a professional athlete. But now it clear that those discriminations have been removed, and those who choose to partake in an sort of athletics may