Why is it that all the athletes that lined up for the men’s 100m final at the Beijing Olympics could trace their ancestry back to the trans-Atlantic slave trade?
In this landmark documentary, Olympian Michael Johnson embarks on a personal genealogical and scientific journey in a bid to understand if he and other world-class African American and Caribbean athletes are successful as a result of slavery.
Michael Johnson is a four-time Olympic gold medallist and the finest sprint athlete of his generation. In this remarkable authored film he discovers some disturbing truths about the lives of his enslaved ancestors.
From the mass murder of those on the slave ships to the nightmarish breeding programmes of the plantation owners, Johnson confronts this appalling history.
He speaks to leading voices in the world of sport and science to examine the link between the trans-Atlantic slave trade and genetic selection.
He investigates the role slavery may have played in altering the genomes of their descendants. He speaks to experts whose research has led them to conclude this has contributed to the success of African American and Caribbean sprinters.
Is this part of the explanation of why these athletes are likely to dominate the track at London 2012?
Thursday July 5th, Channel 4, 9pm.
This will be interesting.
MAD NEWS UK 
hmm, I am a bit skeptical about this documentary ( I might be wrong since I haven’t seen it yet) Altering genomes? to me there were (and still are) many Black athletes because they thought it was a way of making a living/becoming rich as other traditional ways were closed to them.
IMO if we leave the door open for this genre of explanation, it’s like accepting all the stereotypes surrounding Black people
But then again the documentary might be something completely different of what I am expecting
Well I wonder what they’d say about black marathons runners? Gonna definitely watch this though before I comment too.
@The Real NV, it wouldn’t include black marathonr runners, as traditionally the majority of those runner are from East Africa (Kenya etc). The documentary focuses on the Africans stolen from West Africa (Ghana etc) and ended up in America and the Caribbean. To the best of my knowledge, I dont think too many East Africans were taken as part of the slave trade.
I knew they would so something like this, whenever black people are better than white people they look for excuses to make themselves feel better, should be interesting to watch though, black people are the strongest race on the planet and slavery made black people stronger
@Chico-rei Black people are the strongest race on the planet????
@Terra
That’s what I meant to say, what excuse will they try to find for marathon runners if they do a similar show, as they can’t blame on slave trade, probly come out with the usual jungle crap.
Reblogged this on Nii-Teiko and commented:
hmmm
very interesting. this could go a couple of ways though. the obvious, the stupid, the apologetic but more interestingly the hidden
I would say watch it. make it a date: this Thursday the 5th on Channel 4
The Almighty’s Blessings
p,s I wonder how they will explain ‘fast twitch muscles’ and other natural bounties
p.p.s damn. just realised, I will have to get into pointless heated debates with people the next day. *sigh. hangs head*
LOL, are they going to say we are good at athletics because they made us that way? KMT
This is what happens when you grow up in an environment where you are constantly told that and made to believe and feel that inorder to succeed, you have to give 200%, which is double your other colleagues. Yep, they end up giving 200% running faster than others. 😀
Yes, the fact that there are still black people in the Americas and the Caribs shows that, white people done the same thing to the native American in the US and they virtually all gone