>>>>> For a long time blacks weren't encouraged to play professional
>>>>> sports.

>>> Correction:
>>> For a long time Blacks were not allowed to play in the professional
>>> major leagues.

>> That certainly falls under my more general category of not encouraging
>> blacks to enter pro sports.

>>> The bans were unwritten rules in the form of an
>>> "understanding" among team owners. However, there were Black
>>> professional leagues and every once and a while Black all-star
>>> teams would play White all-star teams.
>>> The ban in baseball was finally broken by Brooklyn Dodger owner
>>> Branch Rickey in 1947 when he acquired future Hall-of-Famer
>>> Jackie Robinson from the professional Negro league. The bans
>>> in professional basketball and hockey were also lifted in the late
>>> 1940s. However, I think there were a few Black professional
>>> football players in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

>> What about boxing?

> It was quite a mixed bag before Joe Louis. There were occasional
> Black vs White bouts at the lower levels. However, at the upper
> levels
> there were no repercussions for White boxers that refused to fight
> Black boxers. Typically, title-holders did just that. In a recent
> documentary on the legendary Jack Johnson, it was reported that
> Jim Braddock fought Black Boxers until he became champion. He
> then refused to fight them because he didn't want to risk degrading
> the sport by having a Black champion. I'm fuzzy on details but
> Jack Johnson had to wait many years before public and media
> pressure on the champion resulted in his title fight.

>> Is the boxing community more progressive than the math "community?"

>
> It is impossible to make a credible comparison. Boxing has
> changed dramatically over the decades whereas I imagine the
> progression of female mathematicians has been steady but sluggish.

>>> The unwritten bans were also pervasive in college sports.

>>>>The conclusion from not having any blacks on pro teams might

>>>>> be that blacks weren't any good at sports.

>>> The excuses for not having them were more insidious. .. Blacks
>>> lacked the intelligence to perform well in structured team sports
>>> ... Blacks lacked the courage to perform well in stressful
>>> situations, etc.

>> It would be interesting to discover how anything analogous could
>> happen to women in math.

> In that respect, math is probably not much different than business or
> law.

>> Unlike sports where a physical appearance is inherently necessary, no
>> one ever needs to know anything about the race or gender of a
>> mathematician.

>
> Indeed. I have read many papers without knowing at the time
> that the author or co-author was female.

>> Indeed, of all human endeavors including music, law, engineering,
>> education, etc., math, more than anything else, has the smallest
>> "personal knowledge" footprint.

>

>> A mathematician could be a hermit and be on a level playing field with
>> everyone else in his field.

>

>> Indeed, being isolated from humanity -- and it's prejudices -- seems
>> to help. �Newton did his work hiding out in the countryside trying to
>> avoid some disease.

>

>> Maybe getting started requires some kind of in person contact but as
>> far as I can tell, if any disparity could be blamed on societal
>> prejudice, it's too subtle for me.

>

>> In fact, according to the study, there is no disparity, not in girls
>> and not in the standard deviations of the sexes.

>

>>>> You're kidding. I've always thought black people were rather dominant at
>>>> the Olympics, organized by Hitler, Berlin 1936, much to his frustration.
>>>> The African-American Jesse Owens was the undisputed hero of the games

>>> Blacks were allowed to be on the U.S. Olympic teams because the
>>> United States wanted to win.

>> Up until recently S. Africa would only enter whites.

>> Cutting off your nose to spite your face.

> If i recall correctly, SA teams were banned from the Olympics
> until they allowed Blacks to participate.