[CharlieDigital]

I didn't argue that modern sports aren't a meritocracy; the exact opposite. Modern sports are a meritocracy at the player level precisely because of the efforts to make it inclusive in the 20th century. Look at the sport of baseball, basketball, and football in the early 20th century. Look at the history of racism and exclusion in each of these sports and the efforts by extraordinary individuals to shift them towards merit and not race. The Negro Leagues were a thing not that long ago.

It might behoove you to take a quick recap of the history of racism (exclusion) in sports: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Robinson#Negro_leagues_...

Modern sports at the coaching level is a more recent shift to meritocracy through a concerted effort to include minority candidates in the hiring process. It is only a meritocracy today because of extraordinary individuals like Jackie Robinson breaking the barriers and decades of integration.

    > ...there’s active efforts to exclude, for example, blacks from hockey.

Exclusion works in many ways. Two of which are access and socioeconomic stratification. The reason why there aren't many minority hockey players can probably be easily traced to access and socioeconomic reasons. Go on Google Maps and search for ice rinks and then basketball courts. Find a "free" community ice rink. Now go find free community basketball courts, soccer fields, or any open space for football. There simply aren't as many ice rinks where there are minority populations are concentrated and the cost of access is high compared to alternatives like soccer, football, baseball, and basketball. The process is self-selecting and exclusionary through lack of access and cost.

Tiger Woods would not be Tiger Woods had his father not had access to Navy golf courses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Woods#Early_life_and_ama...

Is there a specific reason why Carribean islands produce so many great baseball players and not so many hockey players? Think about that.

Jeremy Lin's story is also an interesting one because he talks a lot about how many schools, coaches, and scouts were prejudiced against Asian basketball players. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Lin#College_career

[bluedevil2k]

> The process is self-selecting

Isn’t this the opposite of DEI then? There’s “momentum” in sports - kids want to play what their heroes play, Dominicans have Dominican baseball heroes and play baseball. There’s nothing DEI about that.

[CharlieDigital]

It's called "access"

The process is self-selecting because it is not merit based; it is based on access and economic factors. It's not that black Americans or Hispanic Americans have no talent for hockey, it's that they have no access so the sport is "self-selecting" wealthier, white athletes who have access and the economics to start and sustain the sport from a young age. To make this a meritocracy, it requires inclusion (I'm not advocating for this, but simply as a thought experiment). Imagine if every community had plenty of free ice rinks on the same order as basketball courts. Do you think the racial composition of the sport of hockey would remain the same?

Tiger Woods would not be Tiger Woods if his dad didn't have access to Navy golf courses.

If you think the reason we don't see many Dominican hockey players is because they have no talent for the sport and not because of access, then well, I don't think this conversation is of any use; you already have it in your mind that because professional hockey is predominantly white, only white players have the merit or talent for the sport.

If you don't have access, it is not a meritocracy. That is the intent of DEI: to improve access and enable meritocracy.

The practice of DEI at any individual org is a different story.

[csa]

> If you don't have access, it is not a meritocracy.

I think you’re running into resistance because of this stance.

You’re talking about an optimized meritocracy or a meritocracy at one level of abstraction in which raw talent is able to be manifested due to optimal (or at least good enough) access. This sort of definition might fly in certain academic circles, but it doesn’t fly outside of those circles.

For most folks, “meritocracy”, by which people are selected based on ability, refers to actualized talent rather than theoretical talent. In your case of Dominican ice hockey players, I think most people think that their absence from the NHL does not compromise whatever meritocracy the NHL is (it has other issues), rather it’s merely that most/all Dominican ice hockey talent hasn’t been actualized to a point that it can be professionally competitive.

Bringing this back to DEI, improving access doesn’t really “enable meritocracy”, rather it just makes a meritocracy utilize its available resources more efficiently.

Also, a side note about the failings of DEI discussions outside of academic circles…

Individuals (e.g., NHL team owners) have a great deal of agency in ensuring that the players on their team are more or less chosen by meritocratic standards. These same individuals have much less agency in actualizing ice hockey talent in every place in the world (massive undertaking). As such, they may bristle when their system is accused of being non-meritocratic or non-inclusive because of societal issues that they don’t really have any or much agency to change.

Don’t get me wrong… discussions of underutilized talent are absolutely fascinating. The US in particular is absolutely flooded with underutilized talent, and there have been times in my life when I’ve been able to move the needle in certain organizations about how they tapped into that underutilized talent.

That said, labeling people or orgs as “racist” or “non-meritocratic” just doesn’t fly when the issue is structural rather than something that they actually have direct control of.