John Hoberman

John Hoberman is the author of Darwin's Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race. He argues below that the overrepresentation of black athletes in professional basketball and football perpetuates harmful racial stereotypes. While integrated professional sports undoubtedly have positive effects on race relations, Hoberman maintains that the belief that blacks are inherently better at sports encourages the misconception that there are biologically significant differences between blacks and whites. Worst of all, according to Hoberman, decades of "black dominance" in sports have left a generation of black children with only athletes as role models, and as a result many of them believe that academic achievement is only for whites.