Stereotypes In Malcom Gladwell's The Sports Taboo

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Malcom Gladwell writes an editorial called “The Sports Taboo” addressing the social prejudices that certain athletes face in particular African Americans. Gladwell’s piece also addresses the issue of being politically correct, what I mean by this is when Gladwell refers to the statement of African American athletes being naturally better than white athletes. According to Merriam-Webster stereotyping is to believe unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristic are the same. While the idea of stereotyping can be most commonly seen as negative, there are instances in which stereotyping can be seen in a positive manner. For example, one of the most common positive stereotypes is that women are more nurturing than men because it is a positive …show more content…

Many spectators and players that either went against myself or trained with me often said what is he doing better than I’m or why is he so much better than me. The most common generalization that is made about myself is, “He is only playing basketball because he is 6 foot 4 inches, all he is good for is his height”. As an athlete is undermining when someone makes a generalization of your ability based on your characteristics rather than your talent. Gladwell in “The Sports Taboo” says “Bear in mind, too, that there is no evidence that Kerr works any harder than his teammates, least of all Jordan himself, whose work habits are legendary” (Gladwell 118) to put this in comparison to the generalization of myself I was never the best player on any team I played on, but the one thing I did was out work everyone. I was known not for how much talent I had but for amount of hard work and dedication I put in. No matter the sport being basketball, tennis, or volleyball especially considering the fact that I played at one of more Caucasian schools in NYC where 76 percent of the school was

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