In honor of the Chicago marathon this morning, I did a little research. One Students have insisted in the past that discreet biological races must exist because “look at all the African runners”. Well, checkout the article from NPR here:
The elite runners are not generally African, but they are more specifically Kenyan, and not just Kenyan but Kenyans from a small minority tribe within Kenya.
First, this is an example of nature and nurture. Yes there are phenotypic traits (like small ankles) that make the Kenyans better runners. This is nature, or biology/genes. But genes exist as part of populations. In this case (as in most) the population is not people from Africa, or in other words people who we would call black. The population is a genotypic group made up of people who can trace their ancestry to specific genotypes, or gene pools that give them this build. This may be why we see so few "African American" runners dominating distance running. Most of those in the U.S. who are "African American" are from West Africa which has a different genotype than East Africa. Similarly, there are over 50 countries in Africa, but the dominant runners are all from limited parts of east Africa and primarily from just a few countries there. This is much more indicative of how genotype works - genotypic traits do not conform to political or continental boundaries, nor do they conform to our socially constructed categories of race.
Additionally, not everyone with this genotype will thrive in distance running even though they might have the aptitude to do so. But the small tribe in Kenya nurtures distance running through their culture. They teach their young people to endure pain and persevere - necessities for someone who is going to run 26.2 miles in just over 2 hours.
Second, this is also an example of sociological imagination. Consider the time and place. It was not until the 1960s that Kenyans made a sudden and dramatic impact on the sport of distance running. Before then, Kenyans hardly placed on the finishers circle. So their success is an example that success athletically is nature and nurture but these are also confined within a particular time as well (post 1960s)
