Black-Americans and the Rest of the Black World

[easthome]

Originally Posted by Supine

You know what my point was. My point had to do with the terms: per capita and with average.

Kind of like asking the question, one average, are more black males in the United States gunned down than black males in the United Kingdom?

So, my question in this thread--which I made note I had no stats or science behind it but just a question out of curiosity from an observation of mine--was whether or not Black-Americans produce the biggest black people out of all the black ethnic/nationalties on earth, per capita wise?

In post #15 in the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs highlighted in red one can infer from those paragraphs I acknowledged weight lifting was the means by which these men got big--at least in the it was a conditional (or stated another way diet or genetics may play rolls but lifting weights is necessary too).

You're making a mountain out of a mole hill.

If someone from England or Africa said more blacks play soccer in England, Nigeria, and Brazil than in the United States I wouldn't have made a big deal out of it, even if I knew 1 or 5 or more Black-Americans that played soccer in Milwaukee.

There are a lot of Black-American males that have gone to prison, some of them in the past came out pretty huge (same with white males that lifted weights while locked up). But when I've seen videos and images of black men locked up in other nations from Africa to Latin America to Europe I'm not sure I've seen one that was huge.

But the prison thing is just a side bar to the question. Like medical costs from gun violence is a side bar to the issue of gun violence. Maybe the American football culture--which lots of Black-Americans play--has a significant impact of the muscular size differences between so many blacks in the U.S. from those in Brazil? I don't know.

I was just curious if others saw Black-Americans being the biggest black people typically on earth or not. One person said no, Nigerians are usually more muscular. Another person said members of the Dinka are much taller typically.

All I'm trying to say really is 'no' people do not see black Americans as being 'typically' the 'biggest' black people on earth - they see them as they are - variable, just like other human beings on this planet. Statistically there are 'on average' differences in the build of different races ie Asian men are more likely to be of a smaller build but even then its not always a given and the difference is in a persons race and NOT a persons nationality.

[Sneakerfreak]

Extremely odd set of questions. What are you hoping to accomplish by asking this?

[Supine]

Originally Posted by easthome

All I'm trying to say really is 'no' people do not see black Americans as being 'typically' the 'biggest' black people on earth - they see them as they are - variable, just like other human beings on this planet.

You heard of the example used in science in terms of falsifiability, that if one hypothesizes "all birds are white," then all they need to observe is one bird to be not white (e.g. black) for that hypothesis to be shown false.

Likewise, your assertion of "people" is proven false in this very thread. As you made a declarative statement and assumed it to be universal to all people. You did not modify it with "some people."

Statistically there are 'on average' differences in the build of different races ie Asian men are more likely to be of a smaller build but even then its not always a given and the difference is in a persons race and NOT a persons nationality.

First of all my major is biology. If you want to get technical no two people on earth are anatomically and physiologically the same. Not even identical twin though they would come close.

Therefore one might ask, how could one speak about race?

Complicating that with the fact there is more genetic differences between two people within the same "race" than there is between two people of two different races.

And this is one of the reasons contemporary anthropologists like to speak of ancestry rather than race.

Most anthropologist today subscribe to the view that there is only one race of humans in existence on earth today and not several different races. They attempt to explain "phenotypic" differences between what we perceive as different "races" through genetic and cultural inheritances passed down through the ancestries of the person.

So, as some in this thread have proposed as an explanation, various genes from Europeans entering into the African-American gene pool might cause subtle or more pronounced expressions in visible phenotype traits not seen as often in other black populations on earth. That's basically what some in this thread have offered as a possible explanation (in the sciences we would call that a hypothesis--and coming up with a hypothesis is not necessarily "ridiculous" or crazy, but it is required to be falsifiable, or to put it another way it can not be a dogmatic statement than can not be proven false).

At least one person--it might have been more--in this thread has suggested that diet might be the most significant explanation. And in my mind that is a fair explanation too. In fact, it was the leading explanation in my own mind when I started this thread, that along with behavior. The behavior being a more significant culture of lifting weights in the United States both inside and outside of its prisons. But again, this would just be an "hypothesis" of mine. Not something I suggest as fact nor claim to have risen to the prominence of a theory in the life sciences.

And I think you are totally wrong about there being no statistical differences in body sizes/shape between nationalities. The whole statistics in those in the life sciences and medical sciences about obesity in the United States, or height in the United State vs X, Y, Z countries just shows that.

I'm not a scientist, I'm not Einstein, I'm not a know-it-all. I'm a laymen of science like everyone else and struggle with the math, chemistry, and physics involved in the field of science I do study at the undergraduate level. But you have been trying to make me look like a fool throughout this thread for a simple question I had. Therefore, in this post I delved off a little more into "science."

Scientists have done far more weird stuff regarding comparable anatomies than I have. Without going back to the 19th Century of measuring skulls for correlation to personality traits and criminality, during the first half of the 20th Century it was very fashionable for pro-gay leaning scientists to measure anatomical aspects of gay men (like their hips) and compare them to anatomical features of heterosexual men.

[Supine]

Size in terms of height can be shown to have statistical differences between nationalities. I remember reading several years ago in an article that height, over the course of a few generations, is most effected by and correlated with diet (not genes).

That article I read several years ago stated, if I remember correctly, that around the time of the French Revolution, the average height of French male adults was about the height of 13 year old American girls today.

It also notes that second and third generation Chinese Americans typically stand taller than their peers living in China.

Here are excerpts from a Wikipedia article on human height. Human height - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Europeans in North America were far taller than those in Europe and were the tallest in the world.[3] The original indigenous population of Plains Native Americans was also among the tallest populations of the world at the time.[32] Several nations, including many nations in Europe, have now surpassed the US, particularly the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian nations.[citation needed] Now, the average height of White Americans is about the same as for the Europeans they are descended from.[citation needed]

In the late nineteenth century, the Netherlands was a land renowned for its short population, but today its population is among the world's tallest with young men averaging 1.83 m (6 ft 0 in) tall.

Troops of the Eight nations alliance in 1900, shows British and American soldiers significantly taller than continental European soldiers. Left-to-right: Britain, United States, Australian, British India, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Japan.

While nothing scientific, here is a documentary put out by a guy that suggests Americans have an obsession with bigger things (e.g., muscles, SUV's, maybe even houses).

Part 1 of that documentary.

BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER PART 1 - YouTube

So, I'm curious if it as common for black Brits or black South Africans or black Colombians locked up in their nation's prisons to be looking like former Crips leader Tookie or former college football player become convict Kali?

Tookie.




Kali.