[mannykannot]

I cannot speak for anyone who downvoted you, but your second paragraph recapitulates the sort of 'just-so' stories made up to explain away the successes of black people in athletics and more generally, and similarly for people of the 'wrong' gender, nationality or social class (when the future Kaiser Wilhelm II started winning yacht races at the prestigious Cowes Week regatta in Britain, he was dismissed by some as "trying too hard.")

The frequency with which this sort of thing has happened suggests that, for some people, anything is preferable to the simple acceptance of the superior abilities of the people in question.

The fact you state in your final paragraph is consistent with a number of hypotheses, including simple chance.

[blululu]

>>The frequency with which this sort of thing has happened suggests that, for some people, anything is preferable to the simple acceptance of the superior abilities of the people in question.

American society has made a huge effort over the last 70 years insisting that deep down we are all the same and no group is inherently superior to any other. So when we see some group doing better than another group we need to explain it away as being due to some cultural phenomenon. Suggesting that a specific group of people does in fact have superior abilities is a very ugly thing.

[mannykannot]

The idea that "American society" speaks with one voice on this now, let alone consistently over 70 years, is preposterous.