How Kenyan Runners Explain the World
Kenyans1 are the fastest steeplechasers in the world. This is a fact: except for the two Olympic games which the country boycotted, they have not lost. In Athens last year, three Kenyans, Ezekiel Kemboi, Brimin Kipruto, and Paul Kipsiele Koech took the gold, silver, and bronze medals respectively. As middle distance runners, Kenyans also dominate the competition: A look at the winners of the LA and Boston marathons reads like a classroom roster from Rift Valley preparatory school: Saina, Maiyo, Kipkemboi, and so on.
Cubans might be able to dance, but Kenyans can run.
Today the Voice of America reported that a Kenyan runner has become a US citizen. This is not new: Kenyans have been known to change their citizenship and run for other countries. I did a double take at the television a while ago when I saw a man as black as myself running for Denmark2. And why shouldn't they? It's more supportive to do your running and settle here than it would be in their home country.
I believe what makes America strong is its ability to import people3,4. Whether they are runners, architects, or farmers, most are drawn to this place because of its freedom and economic opportunity. I like to think of it as a bell curve effect. K is taking a statistics class so she loves this stuff.
Most samples (or random groups) that a statistician takes follow a bell curve, or "normal distribution." They look like this:
Notice that at the front and back, there is only a small area covered, whereas in the middle, we've got a peak. If you took a random sample of people, measured and graphed their height, it would follow a bell curve. The really, really tall people would be a minority and the really, really short people would be a minority as well. Most people would fall in the middle.
The curve can be skinnier or very fat - more widely or narrowly distributed. For example, variance in height for 29 year old men may not be as wide as variance in income. Especially if you count a 29 year old billionaire against the likes of me...
This curve is everywhere in statistics. It's a way that we can measure ourselves and predict outcomes.
So what if we measured foot speed, say in the 5000km distance? That would be a bell curve too - the Kenyans would be at the very front, the rest of the world would be in the middle, and we'd have a few fat McDonald's patrons at the end.
And here is the part that explains the world: not only does America import people, America imports that small area at the rightmost side of the bell curve. An average Kenyan might be faster than the average American, but we never hear about average ones. The ones who are noticed are the best of the best, the minority.
If you go to the top schools in the US, you find the small minority of the bell curve, but not just in running, we find the best mathematicians, business minds, programmers, writers and philosophers not just from America, but from everywhere in the world. They want to come here. Why?
Take a smart Indian programmer: this guy not only can crank out sophisticated algorithms at breakfast, but he's got ideas, good ideas for a company that makes X, which the world has never seen before. He's got the goods to go to Europe but even with the language barriers aside, living in San Francisco with thousands of other Indian software developers is probably a better prospect than going to Austria and getting the beat down from some right wing extremist, or Switzerland where not only would he never have the prospects of citizenship, his children [and grandchildren] born there would not.
San Francisco or bust.
Some of that is changing. Dervala noted that Irish students are turning down, in droves, the opportunity of coming here to work and live in a short term. Canada is English speaking, and they don't require extraordinary measures for visas. Philip Glass noted that even he had trouble recording an album with musicians from around the world because of immigration issues. For musicians.
So follow the Kenyan runners. America is still the best place to switch citizenship to, it seems. But I wouldn't be surprised if Canada doesn't become more appealing as time goes on, not only for them, but for all the other people that make this country so great.
1What's interesting is that this doesn't apply to all Kenyans - rather there is a single tribe (Kalenjin) of people which produces all the best middle and long distance runners. This has inspired all kinds of fascination: nature vs nurture, food, altitude, even calf muscle size. When I refer to Kenyan runners, I'm doing so for convenience but be aware, if you like, that it's not all Kenyans, it's the Kalenjin tribe.
2Kipketer married a Dane, I'm assuming that was behind much of his reasoning.
3America has always been in the business of importing good people. Whether it's Irish laborers who made Boston, Scandinavian farmers in the midwest, or Russian programmers, it's the historical legacy of this country. Because the imports are now no longer as white, some people have exchanged history for fear (I won't link to him, but count Pat Buchanan in). Thankfully, most are not that stupid although recent tragedy seems to have altered things.
4Every empire4a, to my knowledge, has done well at importing and assimilating people. The British Empire, which many point to as the predecessor of American dominance, excelled at this via colonization and creating a Commonwealth. But in antiquity we find no difference; the Romans, for example, were good at leveraging and assimilating peoples (at this point, I'm open to correction; I'm no expert; but no doubt there were many like Paul the Apostle who obtained Roman citizenship although they weren't, for lack of a better term, naturally born Romans).
4aDo not doubt that America is now an empire.
2:11:23 PM 
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