Team of Mutts - the US U23 national team

You have to get over this annoying colorblind rhetoric. Even the U.S. census uses the term white to describe people of European descent. I don't want to get into the particularities of why the census continues to use this category bc I really just want to speak to the second, more problematic, issue within your comments.

Specifically the assumption that: those who "see race" are racist or as you say "the problem". It's one thing to appreciate the various histories/culture of individuals and groups, and don't be confused- thinking about race IS thinking about history/culture. But it's quite another thing entirely to think about race as a means of stereotyping or for the purpose of propagating nativism or racist hatred.

Do you really think that the folks in Arizona are better people for outlawing Ethnic Studies? All this colorblind bs is idiocracy at it's worst. If race didn't exist then why does every single category of structural inequality fall along the lines of it? Oh, it's because it's just plain ignorant to see race right :roll eyes:.

Sorry to be harsh but you need to educate yourself friend. You can even email me and we can have a proper conversation. While academics aren't always experts in anything, I happen to be a professor on the subject. So I'm happy to do it. In any case, you can start with [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8sTs-mM9Ys&feature=related"]this[/ame].

 

Well said banbaseball.

 

This will be my last post on the subject. Whether or not the census defines a person as "white" or not is irrelevant. That's why I intentionally parsed between Siberians and Serbians. They are two wholly culturally unique people groups with different politicosocial, religious, and historical origins. The term "ignorant" is perfectly apt to describe applying a cultural label to them due to similarities in the content of melanin in their skin phenotype rather than to ascribe a meaningful label that describes their cultures. A first generation Serbian in America and a first generation Siberian have very little in common, so the designation "white" is completely meaningless. Not only in terms of where that individual stands culturally, but where that individual stands in terms of the culture that they set foot in.

Its an academically null label.

You misunderstood. When I spoke about "seeing race" I was speaking in context of when people look at whether or not a player is of a certain race and then use that as some sort of meaningful analysis of their standing as a player. I prefer the MLK approach of "content of character" rather than the divisive and vengeful critical race theory and associated identity politics. Identity politics is instutitional racism. And while it may serve you one day, it can just as well destroy you the next. Thats no way to go about either a personal or political evaluation of individuals.

The people in Arizona got rid of an ethnic studies program that was being led by radical activists who were brainwashing high school kids to be anti-US revolutionaries. They were teaching an extremist radical paradigm reinforced with all sorts of racist and violent pop cultural elements. Absolute nonsense. There is no reason why that should be publicly funded by taxpayer dollars. Those kids need to be learning useful tools to help them get their feet under them when they go into the real world rather than fermenting racial hatred.

People who are concerned about race see race all the time. Thats just the way it is. Some people are so obsessive about it that they make careers out of it. Personally, I think that there are better things out there to obsess about.

 

As evil as those ethnic studies teachers must have been, I nonetheless admire their genius. Most high school teachers have a hard enough time keeping kids awake, let alone filling them with revolutionary zeal.

 

Until they get here and are both treated as "white" by the culture at large and therefore treated differently than immigrants from the equally dissimilar countries of El Salvador and Paraguay or Ghana and Kenya. Including by the representatives of that heroic Arizona state government that fought off those revolutionaries who were teaching that ideas of race have been hugely important in American history.

Which is why, in fact, it's clearly untrue that

Plus which, I've gotta think it's illegal for them to be fermenting racial hatred until they're of legal drinking age.

 

Yup.

 

But who is the Big Dog?

 

Genetically of course mutts are much stronger than pure breeds.

 

Yep

 

Who knows, you can't decide where you're born. If you have an American parent, and you feel American, why would I be against you playing for the national team? Look at the German-Americans; their dads served in the US Military so how are you gonna tell the sons they can't play for the country?

 

Who needs a thoroughbred when you can have a mule?? Ha

 

Well obviously the joke doesn't go much further considering that too my knowledge few if any Americans are part of genetic breeding programs designed to mate within certain populations seeking specific genetic outcomes. Besides the German team is really good! (I kid I kid)

I think it's simply a natural process of two basic themes.

Soccer is most popular in the US among younger more educated people and people with immigrant connections. Non-immigrant soccer fans tend to skew very young, under 30. So it's a bad difficult for them to be producing kids for anything other than a U5 team. Immigrant families however obviously don't have this problem and many of them carry over their love of the game to their children.

In the recent past, ie 1990-present immigrant kids have always been a significant factor. Claudio Reyna, Tab Ramos have been some of our best players. I think instead what we are seeing now is that with more money and resources US soccer is branching out further and including more and more players into its net to be sorted and used later on.


Basically the 1990 team was a almost a college all star team with only one pro (if memory serves). College soccer has changed a lot since then, with guys like Joe Corona, Amobi Okugo, Ike Opara all having spent at least some time there, but it's still tends to swing towards a white middle class demographic.


So in my view it's just a natural process of US soccer getting bigger and better funded (thanks in no small part to Mexican fans who pack stadiums for friendlies and fuel TV rights deals) to cast a wider net into our natural base of soccer talent.

 

mixx and corona are an entertaining pair to watch. but isn't it possible that we could lose both of them to norway and mexico for future call-ups?

 

If the sport becomes more popular it will increase the player pool, which will be great.

Unfortunately for now the culture in the more established American sporting landscape is playing a bit of everything up until you're going to college and then commit. We see baseball players drafted who go on to play college football or basketball. Multiple letter jackets for different sports at the same age as our U-20 players.

Jay Demerit is a perfect example. He played football and soccer and every other sport into high school and really despite very limited technical ability found a place in the sport by sheer elite athleticism. So as long as that continues to be the cultural norm, it's going to be very hard to see a whole pipeline of talent coming from players who don't specialize in a sport that really requires early dedication to reach the elite level. As long as that doesn't change then the player pool for the US for elite level talent is going to continue to be kids who put soccer first and foremost from a young age. And that for now is predominantly, but not exclusively kids whose families or parents carry the love of the game with them.




*A side study that would be interesting would hockey. Where the US has a very good team but is based on a pretty similar style that the US soccer team had used in the past, superior speed, strength, fitness and athleticism. There are a lot of good American hockey players, but in a sport where early development of skill is much more important like in soccer, than say football or baseball, America has struggled to put up incredibly skilled players compared to Canada where kids are trained early and often from an extremely young age.

 

Not unless we abandon them in the future. They are both in the program and will be unless we ignore them or drop them in the future.

 

Daddy bought me a car for making the team!

 

US soccer doesn't really control immigration policy so that's sort of irrelevant.

Natural base of soccer talent = kids who playing soccer at a high level with potential to make the team.

Children of recently immigrated families make up a significant chunk of that population.

Dimaggio and Marino grew up at a time when soccer was non existent in the country. And the idea that immigrant kids exclusively only play soccer isn't one I've ever seen talked about.

 

I thought the prevailing stereotype was that soccer was a foreigner's game.

Women's soccer: now that's lily white. But seems to be diversifying.

 

The Europeans, i.e. the Swedes and Russians, are the ones who produce the elite skill players. North American game is a completely different style than the European game. Canadians sometimes lament the fact that they don't produce enough elite skill players like the Euros.