Owolade is a sensible and thoughtful commentator on race and we are lucky to have him.

"the city with the largest share of black people is London. And the percentage of black people in London is something like 13 or 14%"

I'm surprised to read this actually. Watching British TV shows one might assume the UK was 30% black. I knew it wasn't that high, but never in a million years would I have guessed it was only 3% nationally (I just looked it up).

I think this ties into the issue with the French soccer team. It is easy to say "representation matters," but the thornier issue is how much representation is appropriate. If indigenous black Kenyans were only 20% of their national soccer team, and the rest was whites, Arabs, and Chinese, who were otherwise a small share of the general population, there is no doubt in my mind it would be a big issue there.

Of course, one can say, let the best man win on the field regardless of the racial demographics that result. I support that. But then it is untenable to insist that no other sphere of human endeavor may have racial demographics that don't perfectly reflect the general population.