Washington Post Laments the U.S. Winter Olympic Team is Too White and Doesn't "Look Like America"

We never read about or hear how the athletes in the NFL are too black (70 percent black) or don't reflect America. 

We never read about or hear how the athletes in the NBA are too black (74 percent black) or don't reflect America.

But God forbid a selection process based entirely on merit be replaced with a great push for diversity all because of a paucity of black athletes (somehow making the U.S Winter Olympic illegitimate until this goal is reached). [Trying to make Team USA look more like America, Washington Post, 2-5-18]:

The U.S. Olympic Committee says it’s taking its most diverse team ever to a Winter Games, an impressive and deserved boast that requires a caveat of sorts.

Too many blacks in the NFL or NBA? We call that diversity and a meritocracy! Too many whites on the U.S. Winter Olympic team? How dare our boys and girls not look like America!

Yes, USOC officials are pleased the team includes more African Americans and Asian Americans — and even the first two openly gay men — than recent winter squads. But they also realize this year’s U.S. Olympic team, not unlike those of most other nations gathering in PyeongChang this week, is still overwhelmingly white. 

“We’re not quite where we want to be,” said Jason Thompson, the USOC’s director of diversity and inclusion. “. . . I think full-on inclusion has always been a priority of Team USA. I think everybody’s always felt it should represent every American.” 

Team USA numbers 243 athletes, which is the largest team any nation has sent to a Winter Olympics. Of that group, 10 are African American — 4 percent — and another 10 are Asian American. The rest, by and large, are white. The Winter Games contingent is typically much smaller than its summer counterpart, but the demographic differences are striking. The United States took more than 550 athletes to the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro. Of that group, more than 125 were African American — about 23 percent. 

This year’s winter squad includes the first black long-track speedskater — Erin Jackson, who transitioned to the spot from inline skating — as well as the first black hockey player, Jordan Greenway, and first black short-track speedskater, 18-year-old Maame Biney, who moved from Ghana to the Washington area when she was 5 years old. 

“It means a lot. I’m just really, really honored to have that title because then that means I get to inspire young African American athletes,” Biney said, “or any other race . . . to try this sport or try any other sport they think they can’t do.” 

Asian Americans have seven spots on the figure skating team, two in speedskating and another in snowboarding, and five of the American bobsledders competing PyeongChang are African American. 

The lack of diversity on the winter teams is certainly not a new issue, and it’s not unique to the United States. But the USOC has identified it as an area for targeted growth. Thompson was hired to his post in 2012, shortly after the job was created, because the USOC saw room for improvement at every level: from athletes and coaches to the officials who run the national governing bodies for each sport and executives who work for the USOC. 

“Since that point, we’ve just been trying to find ways to make sure our team looks like America,” he said. 

The Ted Stevens Act requires each sport’s governing body and the USOC to send a report to both Congress and the president every four years that, among other things, details participation of minorities, women and people with disabilities. In a step toward even more transparency, the USOC now requires each sport’s governing body to submit a diversity scorecard each year. While the reports include benchmarks and goals, the results offer statistical snapshots of each sport, and especially for the winter offerings, underscore the areas that are lacking. 

“We wanted to see what that diversity looks like, how we could measure it, track it,” Thompson said. “That has had an incredible impact. I think it means we’re being transparent with our fans, so people can see No. 1, it’s a priority, and No. 2, we’re being honest about it. In some areas, we got some work to do.”

The only time you'll read an article lamenting the overrepresentation of black people in any endeavor or metric is when an article or story appears documenting the high percentage of blacks in prison, with the blame falling squarely on systemic/structural racism or implicit bias of an inherently white supremacist society.

Another entry into the "America is irredeemable" category.