Weekly Blog #8

African American Culture

When I think of popular African Americans (besides our current president) majority of names that come to my head are athletes. That also could be because I follow sports pretty close and find them more enjoyable to write about than theatre (the reading), or music or other cultural aspects. Therefore, athletics I think is a very good example of popular African American culture. I couldn't find a more recent percentage but in year 2000 approx. 13% of our population was of African descent. Going off that, 65% of the NFL is black, nearly 80% of the NBA is black, and about 70% of the WNBA is black. There are also many Africans in other professional sports as well. Those numbers show that athletics is an important cultural aspect.

Also, when you think of most professional sports the "best" players are usually African. For example, this picture shows Michael Jordan who is arguably the best player to play. And currently LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and many other Africans dominate the NBA. So I don't know I could say that athletics "best" depicts the Black/African culture but it at least plays a huge role and is a good example.