NY Times op-ed: "Jogging Has Always Excluded Black People"

rojo wrote:

african American Mid D wrote:

I'm an African American male, I don't run much anymore (more into lifting these days).

Growing up I started running track at an early age (5th grade if i remember correctly). I excelled at the 800, 1500, 3,000m and eventual ended up running the 800M/1500m on scholarship for a D1 university.

My background is fairly different from most African Americans my father was a doctor and mother was a successful business woman, I grew up in a fairly affluent (mostly white) town. and my parents encouraged me to do a sport that wasn't basketball, football, etc.

I will say growing up there was exactly 1 time where i was stopped for running due to the color of my skin (during college), and nothing came of it other than I told the officer that I was out on a run for my summer training. I will say that my experience is not the norm for most African Americans purely because of my socio-economic status (that I completely am grateful to my parents for giving me the opportunity to have). The large majority of my friends are white, although i do have friends that are Mexican, African American, Asian etc. The majority of my African American friends are people i met through track, and guess what? they are lower-income sprinters. They could easily be better than me at the 800m or 1500m but they grew up in an impoverished place where it is not SAFE for them to go on a 2 mil, 5 mile, or 10 mile run, so naturally they gravitated towards the 100m or 200m to help with sports that it was safe for them to play.

I think the "black people jogging in America" article isn't necessarily painting the full picture. There are always going to be discrepancies in who participates in sports based on resources available. You could make the same article about golf, swimming, lacrosse, tennis etc. All of these sports lack African Americans. It's not because they can't play, no one is physically stopping them, but the large majority of African Americans are POOR and cannot afford to play golf, can't afford to lacrosse, can't afford to play tennis, and similarly cannot afford to go jogging in safe places (on the average).

So yes in a way i think there is some truth that most African Americans are not going to willingly go out and just start jogging for no reasons, but the bigger societal issue is income disparity in America and how that came to be/how to fix it, and both of those topics are part of a much larger discussion much more important than "jogging is unfair to African Americans"

+1. Fantastic post. Should I just deleted the whole thread and let this stand as the definitive answer.