"Based on the color of his skin"? Letsrun.com, are you journalists or crappy bloggers?

Ditto. I saw that on the home page and couldn't believe the operators of this site would write that.

Every moment it appears that this site is becoming more insightful and responsible is quickly countered by something like this.

You can try to justify it all you want, but the bottom line is no responsible journalist would have ever printed that.

I'm canceling my subscription!

Another front page headline says Mo Farah gave birth to twins.

We thought about not putting up the headline as we figured some of the politically correct police would be upset by it but we went with it for a simple reason - it's exactly what we thought.

We found an article talking about whether a 12-year sprinter was going to be the next world record holder.

We then clicked on the article and found out he was white.

That was surprising.

You say it is not fact based. It is fact based.

89 people in history have broken 10.00 for the 100 meters.

1 of 89 is white.

That's 1.1%.

We don't see what is wrong with the post. There is lots of data indicating that it's extremely unlikely the next great sprinter will be white.

Mods,

The poster "LetsRun.com" is indeed us. So please don't delete threads we are posting in.

I see the Mo Farah headline was changed.

LetsRun.com wrote:

You say it is not fact based. It is fact based.

89 people in history have broken 10.00 for the 100 meters.

1 of 89 is white.

That's 1.1%.

LetsRun.com 1

Original Poster 0

How do you spell p-o-w-n-e-d?

Knowing the LRC owners, I am neither suprised nor offended at the "white" comment. The stats back them up. It's probably more of a cynical statement about how we as society impose certain expectations on individuals based on their race, etc.

Despite some of the anthropological studies of athletes that draw certain conclusions based on one's race, there is no physiological barrier to this kid or any other athletically gifted white kid that would bar his entry into the sub 10 club. Ditto for anyone of any other race wherein the expectations of being the next Usain Bolt would be extremely low (if the expections even exist in the first place).

If the kid has the right motivation and coaching, who knows? He could be the next Steve Ovett! (jk)

It is an accurate headline. He is white. He maybe could be a great half miler, heck even quarter miler! But no Bolt.

Political correctness. LOL.

I stopped reading after the "politically correct" red herring.

LetsRun.com wrote:

We thought about not putting up the headline as we figured some of the politically correct police would be upset by it but we went with it for a simple reason - it's exactly what we thought.

We found an article talking about whether a 12-year sprinter was going to be the next world record holder.

We then clicked on the article and found out he was white.

That was surprising.

You say it is not fact based. It is fact based.

89 people in history have broken 10.00 for the 100 meters.

1 of 89 is white.

That's 1.1%.

We don't see what is wrong with the post. There is lots of data indicating that it's extremely unlikely the next great sprinter will be white.

Okay, let's look at the math. There have been approximately 110 billion people who have lived since the beginning of time. 89 of them have broken 10.00 for 100m. Only 1 of them is white. They all are male. About 20% of people all time are white.

So, 1 white male out of all 11 billion that have lived in history has broken 10.0. That is 0.000009%.

And, 88 non-white males out of all 44 billion that have lived in history has broken 10.0. That is 0.0002%.

Yes, if you do the math a white person has 4.5 times the probability of running a sub 10.0 100m than a non-white person.

Those are the facts... if all you know is that a male has been born, you'd be better off betting on the white one to break 10.0.

Of course the real point is only 89 people have ever done it, and any kid's odds are effectively zero. Showing some promise at age 12 ups them, but his odds are still really, really low. There are many, many reasons to think that this 12 year old kid will not be the next Usain Bolt. The color of his skin is far down the list of probable reasons why.

What strikes me is that the FIRST thing the owners of this site noticed was the color of the kid's skin. That should tell you something about them.

I stand behind my comment that no responsible, credible journalist would have written that line.

The Answer Manatee wrote:

You can try to justify it all you want, but the bottom line is no responsible journalist would have ever printed that.

Correct. No journalist who is more "responsible" to his owners than to his readers would have ever printed that.

There was a time, not too long ago, when people believed blacks were better heavyweight boxers, for the same BS reasoning they use about sprinting. Bigger, more fast-twitch, more mesomorphic, blah blah blah.

Then 8 years ago the Ukrainians and Russians started collecting all the belts and no black man holds a HW belt today. Myth dispelled.

Naturally it wasn't an American to dispel the myth. Americans are desperate to keep believing that whites are inferior athletes.

LetsRun.com wrote:

89 people in history have broken 10.00 for the 100 meters.

1 of 89 was clean.

That's 1.1%.

Fixed.

To the now deleted Letsrun.com post:

Your reasoning would be correct if we were talking about white kids in general. But we're not. We're talking about a specific kid who, at 12 years old, has run 11.72. Your figures are relevant only if we're talking about the general probability of a white kid breaking 10, or just generally becoming a fast sprinter. But after a kid runs 11.72 at 12 years old, the race statistics go out the window because he's already shown that he's atypical.

In case you still don't understand, I'll frame it differently. If you and I are having a discussion about who the 100 m WR holder will be in 15 years, I say he'll be white and you say he'll be black, you would be right in bringing up the statistics because we're talking about probability of race in general. But if we're talking specifics, I can say "show me a black 12 year old who has run 11.72." I don't know anything about sprinting times for preteens but for the sake of argument, let's say you can't. So this white kid is basically the fastest 12 year old in the world. That means that, based on the parameters we've been discussing, this white kid has a greater chance of being a great sprinter than your race-based odds have given him.

The problem in all this is that the parameters are faulty. How fast a kid is at 12 years old doesn't guarantee anything. The Australian newspaper said that he's the next Usain Bolt because it sounds good, not because they're making a real argument. Your response is also faulty because you're reasoning within those same false parameters.

The politically correct police aren't out to get you. You're just wrong.