2G Science!

It is hard to imagine that the forefathers of these people somehow never invented the wheel or multi-story buildings on their own.

NFL players' dad ignites social media frenzy as racially charged remarks about 'breeding' resurface

The dad in question is a Scholar-American with the generic name of John Brown. His sons on the other hand have anything but generic names: Amon-Ra Julian Heru John St. Brown, Equanimeous Tristan Imhotep J. St. Brown and Osiris St. Brown (he probably has a longer full name but I wasn’t interested enough to go looking). Having a boring, bland name daddy John Brown decided to name his sons after two Egyptian gods and the third, Equanimeous, has a name that means possessing stability or an even temperament. Pretty amusing for a 2G but he is the product of a German mudshark mother so…

His three sons are pretty outstanding athletes, all three played college ball and two went on to the NFL. Amon-Ra St. Brown plays for the Lions and is a three time Pro-Bowler and two time All-Pro. Equanimeous is apparently out of the league at this point but did play a few seasons. Osiris played at Stanford but didn’t make the NFL.

So yes, that is an impressive athletic trio of sons. When asked by his son Amon-Ra on his podcast how that happened, John Brown declared it the result of breeding:

"Look at you – good athlete, good athlete," he said of his sons. "I’m Black, his mom is White. Now, I’ve done stepped on it once, you can’t keep stepping on it because you’re gonna mess it up. You’re going to weaken it. … Can’t keep cutting it.

"You and Brooklyn’s (Amon-Ra’s fiancée) half and half, you have a chance. … You can’t keep cutting it. You got to be careful. You can’t keep cutting it. You got to think about that. You know what I mean? If I’m Black, I got the Black gold running through my veins, I’m excited. I’m just going to find the right person to mate with. If I’m White, I’m saying, ‘Let me get one of these brothers around here,’ if you want to have athletes.

"If you don’t want to have athletes, then just go ahead and spread your seed wherever. … I knew I could cut it once. … I got Black gold in me and mama got that big chin and big toes. I said, ‘Look, ain’t nothing wrong with a big toe’d woman.’ You got to think of this stuff. Some guys don’t think of it ‘til later."

That is good stuff. The way he talks about “stepping on it” and “cutting it” is the sort of language drug dealers use when they use an adulterant to “cut” pure cocaine or heroine, making it less potent but creating more product to sell. If you “step on it” too much, the drugs won’t have the same effect. Classy way of talking about your children.

This is pretty much the same line of thought that got sports commentator Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder fired back by CBS in 1988.

The black is a better athlete to begin with, because he's been bred to be that way. Because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back. And they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs. And he's bred to be the better athlete because this goes back all the way to the Civil War, when, during the slave trading, the big, the owner, the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have uh big black kid, see. That's where it all started!

Oh dear that was terribly racist Jimmy! Um, but is it true? Is it just an amazing coincidence that positions like running back, wide receiver and defensive back are so dominated by blacks that it has become a cliché? For decades the NBA has likewise been dominated by blacks. East Africans have dominated marathons for as long as I can remember while West Africans are great sprinters, East Africans being tall and lanky and West Africans generally being shorter and more powerful. This is one of those weird examples of something everyone knows and no one is supposed to say:

• It is undeniable that blacks seem to be naturally suited to sports that emphasize raw speed and the ability to jump

• It is racist to notice that black are naturally suited to sports that emphasize raw speed and the ability to jump.

Why is this something that many people are absolutely terrified to talk about?

John Brown isn’t totally wrong. Physical traits are hereditable. That applies to things like strength and speed which everyone understands but doesn’t say. When you acknowledge that, you have a problem because there are other traits that are hereditable and the big one, the great taboo, is intelligence.

It isn’t perfect. There are certainly dumb people that have smart kids and smart people that have dumb kids, just as there are people with no athletic talent that have children that are great athletes and great athletes that have children that cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. Generally speaking over a large sample size it holds up.

For example, the 18 year old basketball phenom Cooper Flagg, recently the number one overall pick in the NBA draft. Flagg is 6’ 8” and an amazing athlete. Sure, his parents pushed him to excel in basketball his entire life but it is also true that both of his parents played college basketball.

On the flip side is….me. My parents taught me to read at a very early age so that when I got to kindergarten I was reading at an 8th grade level and skipped class when the other kids were learning their ABCs, instead sitting on the stairs reading the Reader’s Digest. Had my parents emphasized basketball instead of reading….I would still be a great reader who had plenty of time to read sitting on the bench. My dad is a giant of a man standing maybe 5’4” and my mom barely broke 5’. On the other hand, my dad was a physician and my mom was one of the most voracious readers you would ever meet. Absolutely no amount of parental encouragement would have made me a great basketball player. I might have been a bench warmer in high school but college? Not if I spent 8 hours per day from the time I could walk practicing basketball under the tutelage of Bobby Knight.

I wonder if you were to flip the question around to John Brown and ask him about breeding for intelligence instead of athletic ability, would he be OK with the same logic? My wife and I have 8 White children that vary in intelligence from above average to way above average. If I for some reason married a black chick or even a mestizo, would my 8 kids be as intelligent? Almost certainly not but they might have been more athletic.

Heritability is commonly understood in physical traits. Modern agriculture prior to genetic modification was based on this. The best Holstein bulls were used to impregnate cows because the results were predictable. Crops were bred the same way. Champion bloodlines in race horses and show dogs mean enormous breeding fees because winners are much more likely to sire future winners. One of our Amish neighbors had a relatively famous stallion and they made lots of money jerking off their stud and selling his semen.

Intelligence is not a mystical force, it is a physical trait, and however you measure it (typically by IQ) intelligence shows clear heritability. When a black man like John Brown says he specifically chose a spouse because he wanted his children to be great athletes, most people nervously chuckle at how silly he is but John Brown makes them nervous because once you admit physical traits are heritable, it is only a short walk from “can run fast” to “is good at math”.

I would love to put the question to John Brown if he would agree that you can breed for intelligence and that in that case when you mix Whites or Asians with blacks, you dramatically reduce the chances of having exceptionally intelligent off-spring. If he was being honest and didn’t immediately fly into a rage, I think he would have to agree. That is why his comments are “controversial” and why anyone who suggests that intelligence is a heritable trait is immediately ostracized.