The mustang and the 332nd

[Clayton Magnet]

but to discover that Blacks in general could do especially well at an activity with a high "athleticism quotient" should not have been a surprise.

Saying "blacks in general" is potentially problematic. I understand where you are going with this, but making generalizations based solely on race almost never leads to a positive narrative

 

[pbehn]

Saying "blacks in general" is potentially problematic. I understand where you are going with this, but making generalizations based solely on race almost never leads to a positive narrative

People from India are good at cricket, if that helps at all, while those from Finland are good at throwing the javelin. China is the biggest surprise, if you watch the Olympics you would think they were all gifted divers but I have been there and most cant swim at all.

 

[NTGray]

Saying "blacks in general" is potentially problematic. I understand where you are going with this, but making generalizations based solely on race almost never leads to a positive narrative

I am going to take my own advice here; I often told my children, "What you said is not the most important thing; what other people heard is what's important."
Then there is that other bit of wisdom, "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." That's a good one, so I will do it.

 

[Clayton Magnet]

People from India are good at cricket, if that helps at all, while those from Finland are good at throwing the javelin. China is the biggest surprise, if you watch the Olympics you would think they were all gifted divers but I have been there and most cant swim at all.

Or
"All Japanese are near sighted with astigmatism's, and all their equipment is sub-standard imitations of western gear. So there is nothing to fear if it comes to a shooting war"
-Direct quote from every western ally, circa Dec.6 1941

 

[pbehn]

I am going to take my own advice here; I often told my children, "What you said is not the most important thing; what other people heard is what's important."
Then there is that other bit of wisdom, "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." That's a good one, so I will do it.

Before the war started there were some in the RAF who thought highly educated and sporty public schoolboys were ideal fighter pilots, so squadrons were formed with rich young men who already had pilots licenses playing with Spitfires on a weekend. When the fighting started and people got killed the same people decided that Sergeant pilots were good enough to do the fighting, but not good enough to eat in the officers mess. Highly educated sporty public schoolboys were more suited to ground based jobs you see, not only safer but better paid.

 

[glennasher]

I will cheerfully admit I was wrong about the 332nd and the Groundhog. I stand corrected.

 

[Howard Gibson]

I have just searched the Skeptical Inquirer's database for an article I read in a skeptical magazine, but I did not find anything. I will keep looking.

Somewhere, I read an article about racial types in sports. Most fast 100 yard dash runners are of west African origin. Most really fast long distance runners come from one province in Kenya. Apparently, there were lots of good Jewish basketball players back in the twenties and thirties. Somebody wrote claiming that Jews have tricky personalities, which makes them good at basketball.

There probably are better explanations of this stuff.

 

[NTGray]

I have just searched the Skeptical Inquirer's database for an article I read in a skeptical magazine, but I did not find anything. I will keep looking.

Somewhere, I read an article about racial types in sports. Most fast 100 yard dash runners are of west African origin. Most really fast long distance runners come from one province in Kenya. Apparently, there were lots of good Jewish basketball players back in the twenties and thirties. Somebody wrote claiming that Jews have tricky personalities, which makes them good at basketball.

There probably are better explanations of this stuff.

Even the generalizations that do make sense, and are supportable, do not hold up in every individual case. It is a fact that, generally speaking, tall people make better basketball players than short people. Yet Mugsy Bogues, at 5'3", was a standout success in the NBA, whereas my 6'7" roommate in college had no basketball skills to speak of. Individual differences are more important than group statistical differences.

 

[fubar57]

 

[pbehn]

Somewhere, I read an article about racial types in sports. Most fast 100 yard dash runners are of west African origin. Most really fast long distance runners come from one province in Kenya. Apparently, there were lots of good Jewish basketball players back in the twenties and thirties. Somebody wrote claiming that Jews have tricky personalities, which makes them good at basketball.

I used to read a lot of explanations of why people like Ali and Frazier were the best at boxing, then along came the two Klitchkos and Tyson Fury. In east Africa many people especially young people run long distances, they still run miles to school, it is a great way to produce and find out who is a fast long distance runner. Hardly any young kids in UK run as a matter of course, now, most are over weight. The UKs Paula Radcliffe held the marathon record for 16 years, what does that mean lol. The Chinese love soccer but will never have a good team, anyone who forms a team wants their son to be manager and the grandson to be centre forward, if they do any good a betting syndicate will come in and pay them to throw matches, that isnt my opinion, it was the opinion of my translator in China who laughed at it all. India similarly has 1.4 billion people but wont have a good soccer team because generally they couldnt give a stuff about soccer or any other competitive sport except cricket which is a game involving much organised laziness and a lot of betting.

 

[SaparotRob]

I had my suspicions about cricket.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

You did not personally offend me at all. I just find it ridiculous that anyone thinks race has anything to do with flying a plane period, let alone in combat. It was ignorant for white people to think black people were not good enough back then, and its ignorant to think black people are better than white people today. Why? Because Race has nothing to do with it. A pilots skill comes not from his or her skin.

I flew with pilots of all races in combat: white, black, asian, hispanic, and both male and females. Neither their skin color or sex had anything to do with their skill.

To say black people were not good enough back then in WW2 most certainly was racism and ignorant. To say that black people are better today is nothing more than reverse racism. Two wrongs don't make a right, and ignorance is ignorance.

 

[NTGray]

Well, I had hoped to just let this topic drop, but that mention of "reverse racism" is worth an additional remark. And although this forum is non-political, any discussion of the 332nd​ is necessarily about more than just airplanes, just as any discussion of Jackie Robinson is about more than just baseball. Both examples deal with racist attitudes, and with major events that helped to begin the process of undoing those attitudes.

Now, in my mind, using common understanding, I think of a "racist attitude" as an unsupported, unjustified generalization directed at a particular race, often as a basis for unfair treatment of individual members of that race. As such, "racism" is different from impartial mention of and study of actual, verifiable differences between races, if such differences can be shown to actually exist. So therefore it is legitimate to say, based on scientific research, that Blacks are especially susceptible to certain diseases (such as sickle cell anemia and sarcoidosis). (But I have had sarcoidosis myself, and I am not Black.) There also appears to be empirical research evidence that Black NBA players indeed can jump higher than their white peers, on average. If this claim can be verified by careful observation under controlled conditions, then it is not racism, it is simply a fact.

Now, what a person does with that fact can go in many different directions. Some will use this information to give credence to actual racist ideas, and this is bad. But others will simply take it as possibly helpful information, to be used when and if appropriate. Or else the information can be filed with the mountain of other trivial information that so many people (including myself) love to collect. (One of my sons-in-law gave me a book one Christmas entitled "The Book of Useless Information." I loved it.)

Why mention all that? To lead up to this statement: There are two categories of political opinion regarding race that I dislike intensely. One is the view, coming from some at the radical end of the spectrum, that certain thoughts are verboten and unsuitable for discussion. (Certain specific views regarding race fit in this category; they cannot even be spoken as possibilities). You see this when some ultra-liberal college refuses to invite certain conservative speakers (or, in more extreme cases, when the speaker is invited, and then is shouted down when he actually attempts to speak). This is hypocrisy in action.

The other is the view, found at the opposite extreme of the spectrum, that racial problems in America are a thing of the past, and no longer are a concern today. That problem has been solved, and therefore any ostensible attempt to improve race relations is merely a ploy to divide the country along racial/ethnic lines. I like to invite my friends who believe that to Google "x while black" (the actual "x" improves the results). When you see the list of things that Black people get in trouble for that would never be an issue for a white person such as myself, it is eye-opening. I don't know what the ultimate solution for that problem is, but I don't think that it is doing nothing.

Both of the extreme views are wrong, and saying so is, I believe, justified in this thread because this whole topic is the underlying reason for regarding the 332nd​ as important, regardless of whether they were superior pilots or merely "just as good" as all the others.

Feel free to respectfully disagree, but that is my opinion on that topic.

 

[pbehn]

There are two categories of political opinion regarding race that I dislike intensely.

Yes and both are completely partial and unscientific. Unless the 332nd all became aces and never lost a plane or never shot down anything and lost half of what they were escorting no one has a point at all, but they still keep banging on about it. BTW what has any of this to do with the Mustang as in your original headline?

 

[NTGray]

Yes and both are completely partial and unscientific. Unless the 332nd all became aces and never lost a plane or never shot down anything and lost half of what they were escorting no one has a point at all, but they still keep banging on about it.

BTW what has any of this to do with the Mustang as in your original headline?

Don't know. Not my thread. We just somehow ended up here.

 

[GrauGeist]

In short, the 332nd FG was a fighter group of the USAAF and like other escort FGs, the bombers were glad they were there, the Germans were not.

All FGs had good escort missions and bad escort missions and it really broke down to where the bombing mission was going on a particular day, enemy opposition (fighters, flak, etc.) relative to that target, weather and so on.

No need to "read" into it any more than that.

 

[pbehn]

Don't know. Not my thread. We just somehow ended up here.

If you want to look at stupid prejudices, look at sport itself. In soccer it is routine for young players to be let go from academies because they are not tall enough. This despite some all time greats like Lionel Messi only being 5ft 7in Paul Scholes 5ft 7 in Claud Makelele 5ft 6 in and Ngolo Kante 5 ft 5in. Jamie Vardy was let go at 16 years old now has 125 premier league goals and set the record for goals in consecutive games in the year his team won the title. He is 5ft 10 in tall and thin, he doesnt look anything like anyones idea of a striker which is why he didnt get to the top level until he was 26 years old, we all missed his best years when he was playing as an amateur/semi pro.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

You did not personally offend me at all. I just find it ridiculous that anyone thinks race has anything to do with flying a plane period, let alone in combat. It was ignorant for white people to think black people were not good enough back then, and its ignorant to think black people are better than white people today. Why? Because Race has nothing to do with it. A pilots skill comes not from his or her skin.

I flew with pilots of all races in combat: white, black, asian, hispanic, and both male and females. Neither their skin color or sex had anything to do with their skill.

To say black people were not good enough back then in WW2 most certainly was racism and ignorant. To say that black people are better today is nothing more than reverse racism. Two wrongs don't make a right, and ignorance is ignorance.

The fact of the matter is that there is more genetic variation inside a "race" than there is between "races".