Dear Kenyans and Ethiopians

it's Deer.

dear

adjective, -er, -est, noun, adverb, interjection

2. (used in the salutation of a letter as an expression of affection or respect or as a conventional greeting): Dear Sir.

deer

noun, plural deer, (occasionally) deers.

1. any of several ruminants of the family Cervidae, most of the males of which have solid, deciduous antlers.

2. any of the smaller species of this family, as distinguished from the moose, elk, etc.

It's sarcasm and irony. Idiot.

bravo.

Dear Earthings:

Yes, it is true! You have outed us!! You have stripped away our lies and self-deceit.

It's true: all we have to do in order to win is show up. Hard training is not necessary for those of us who come down from the mountains blessed with superhuman genoms (and the corresdpondingly fat gonads):).

Kenyans are even more spoiled in this respect. As you surely know from Mr. Toby Tansers' writings, Kenyan training camps are something like your summer camps. Kenyan runners sleep late, stuff themselves with Ugali, go for slow jogs around primitive tracks, and chuckle among themselves about how hard the talentless Americans are training! Especially at the training camps, with big races beckoning, Kenyan runners avoid competing against each other and thus wasting valuable energy that could more profitably be spent chuckling at talentless American runners. All the hard survival-of-the-fittest work was done many centuries ago. Kenyans need merely walk out their front doors--ANY Kenyan--and lace up their shoes and they are ready to race.

And you know from Mr. Renato Canova just how lazy we Ethios are. Thanks to our superior genetic makeup, success at distances has been handed to us. It all began, really, when Baby B ran the Olympic marathon in his bare feet, JUST TO PISS OFF TALENTLESS EURO-AMERICAN RUNNERS! It's amazing what genoms (and big gonads) can do.

Of course, both Kenya and my country do have a couple of things going for them that do help us make the most of our genetic makeup. But those are secrets--or at least they're secrets somebody has been keeping from you--and a little mystification helps the world go round.

And no, I'm not talking about ugali. That won't help you.

I prefered the other letter. It was better punctuated, better spelt, and didn't resort to insults, or capslock for that matter.

I suggest that you go back to etiquette school, because you obviously missed the class where they taught you how to argue coherently

And a big F+ in logic for you. He never said Kenyans and Ethiopians don't work hard, or that they could beat everyone without training, he just said that at least some of their success could be attributed to genetics. Of course they still work hard, it just means that on average a group of white European-descended people could work as hard and not be as fast.

That being said, we whiteys shouldn't complain until we at least have a few people running up the standard set by Coe, Ovett, Moorcroft, Kennedy, Mottram, etc. Obviously it is possible to be more competitive than we are, and our top guys are working very hard trying to get there.

He didnt say you dont work hard, he said you are genetically more talented. Both work hard, so please dont try to say one works harder and demean the efforts of so many people by saying they arent tough.

Here is a quote worth thinking about : One reason Dathan Ritzenhein's American Record in Zurich was a big deal because people love an underdog.

That is courtesy of "Earthlings."

So: Earthlings: Do you really like an underdog? Or are you just saying that?

It might surprise you, but many people in the world--including most people in the United States--think of Ethiopia and Kenya as small, relatively powerless, relatively unimportant countries. We don't think of ourselves that way, of course. We have noble histories (or at least Ethiopia does; Kenya has.....history.) But we are, relatively speaking, small countries. Still, we have our pride. And we take pride in the things we do well.

It might surprise you, but when some Euro-American people find themselves vanquished--and consistently!--by brownskinned people from countries that they consider small and unimportant, the wheels of their self-justifying philosophies begin to turn. It must be....genetics! It must be...primitive vitality! It must be.....an absence of neurotic maladjustment due to the pressure of advanced civilization! It must be.....savage joy in life! It must be....tribalism expressing itself as jungle-like slicing and cutting of shins with slashing spikes! (They're such ANIMALS that even Lagat must suffer; they think he's a....TRAITOR!) It must be.......

Anything but hard work, character, fair play, and the excellence of a self-actualized, self-conscious human subject. Anything but CHARIOTS OF FIRE. That sort of excellence is reserved for the white boys.

We get it, Mister Charlie. We're more sensitive than you give us credit for. We're more attuned to what you're NOT saying than you are. We have no trouble discerning the way in which your "value system," when pressured, would rather do anything than acknowledge the way that WE see the world.

We come from small, noble, but--from your perspective--unimportant countries. The only reason you care about us is because we care deeply about something you CLAIM you care deeply about: running excellence. Runners are our national heroes. That makes a difference--an inspirational difference that you would prefer not to acknowledge.

Do you really think that black Americans CAN'T ski? Do you think that their bodies just aren't built for those....icy curves?

Or do you suppose that a culture, with its own internal logic, and heroes coughed up by that culture, are part of the game? Part of what is required in order to create excellence?

It's always about bodies for you when Africans are concerned: ranking bodies, genoms, whatever. It's not about will, spirit, individuality, character.

Here's a secret: for US, it's about will, spirit, individuality, character, and destiny.

1:41 / 3:46 / 12:56 / 2:06 would tend to point toward NOT working hard enough or mainly just not interested since track and field isn't football. If there has been people actually running these times, than you can't blame genetics. On the flip side there has been no super heavyweight champion kenyan weight lifter, so at least they can say they are just genetically screwed in that department.

Such egregious missteps in logic are the reason you and your countrymen are looked down on as primitive.

lrn2logic

Take an 8 year old white American boy that lives in poverty. Make him run to school and back at high altitude every day. Then tell him that he can make ~20 million a year (or an equivalent to Kenyan earnings) and support his family and retire wealthy simply by running fast. Most American kids don't start running until well after the Kenyans have already built a huge base.

Also, I've always thought the Kenyans had a motivation founded on their 'heroes'. The person they want to grow up to be is Tergat... while the white middle class kid wants to be Eminem who he listens to while playing his Wii. I think there's a much deeper sociological factor here. Kids strive to be their heroes. If your son/ daughter has either a poster of Barry Bonds or Haille G on his wall you can guess where he/ she will put their energy.

"One reason Dathan Ritzenhein's American Record in Zurich was a big deal because people love an underdog."

no, it's a big deal to you because you are looking for the great white hope, because you are a racist

"In your ignorant mentality, when you win, its because you outworked everyone."

yes, you are racist

"Get over yourselves."

They arent the ones posting to some message board accusing a whole country of not trying, you are sad

The bolded part sent my bullshit detector into overdrive. You don't care about running, you care about escaping poverty. There's nothing wrong with that, people should do everything they possibly can to escape poverty, but don't act like it's some noble ascetic choice on your part to excel in running. Bekele himself said he thought about not running in the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS because it would endanger his million dollar jackpot.

Of course Ethiopians work hard. That doesn't mean they work harder. Of course Americans want to rationalize things when they lose to an underdog. That doesn't make those rationalizations less true. Why do you think east-African kids who move to the states continue to dominate? They've made it! The need for the edge is gone! The NEED to be desperately hard working is gone. It still helps, but it's not needed. Yet still the dominance persists. Not genetics? Give me a break.

oil addicts wrote:

"One reason Dathan Ritzenhein's American Record in Zurich was a big deal because people love an underdog."

no, it's a big deal to you because you are looking for the great white hope, because you are a racist

"In your ignorant mentality, when you win, its because you outworked everyone."

yes, you are racist

"Get over yourselves."

They arent the ones posting to some message board accusing a whole country of not trying, you are sad

Whenever someone brings up racism in an argument about genetic predispositions towards different things, I usually assume they either don't understand evolution, or they don't understand racism. Racism is a judgment of whether or not there are inherent differences between races which make certain races subjectively 'better' than other races. Not faster, smarter, taller, skinnier, fatter, whatever. Just 'better.' Evolution tells us that PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT. A spaniel has different characteristics from a retriever. They are both dogs. Neither one is better or worse than the other, they just are what they are. Don't try to spin this into something sinister.

The forerunners of the current Ethiopians and Kenyans have not been at altitude for millions of years.

Bekele STILL ran it didn't. And not only did he run it but he won it as well. I personally think that white americans put so much emphasis on the fact that the east africans are genetically superior which is a damaging self destructive way of thinking. Not only does it limit their true capabilities and potential to improve but it also sets a dangerous precedent of evening the playing field by doing things a little bit shady. Basically they feel they can't compete with the best of the world unless they use altitude tents. For example, the championship race in the 5k was won in what 13:17.0x. You don't need to be super genetically gifted or use altitude tents to run that time or win it. That race all came down to WILL POWER in the last 100m. I could care less about fast times because lets face it, in this day and age everything in sports is so artificially enhanced you don't even know if its all natural or not. Next thing you know we're going to be having joe schmo going from a 13:55 guy to a 13:04 guy. No different than Ramzi's progression going from a 3:39 guy to a 3:30 guy in about a year. It's also quite interesting hearing some of these clowns on this message board by basically crying and complaining that T&F was a joke because of Usain Bolt and the south african but now that Ritz ran a 12:56.27 they're all excited about T&F again.

Thank you so much Earthlings, I totally get you're saying. I, especially, love this nugget:

Earthlings wrote:

The reason Dathan Ritzenhein's American Record in Zurich was a big deal because people love an underdog.

Dathan Ritzenhein is an underdog; Galen Rupp is an underdog; Alan Webb is an underdog... oh, don't forget Jeremy Wariner, he's an underdog too. It's why we love him so much.

Great post.

@Ehio:OFF TOPIC... was this neccessary?

ethio wrote:

We have noble histories (or at least Ethiopia does; Kenya has.....history.)

Did you have to stain your otherwise excellent post with a dig at our history? Just because we were outgunned by the Brits while Menelik II was kicking Italian butt doesn't negate our own centuries/millenia worth of history.

BTW, Adowa is taught in Kenyan schools as an important and proud moment in African history. Many of our own freedom fighters used it as inspiration and some even crossed the border to escape colonial persecuation.