Racial Bias?

[Peppermint]

Re: They\'ve got more sense

I asked a couple of mates why they don't go boating and they both said "we do". Just not around here it's to cold a wet and not much fun at all. One of the has family boats in Barbados, his brother works on superyachts, and the other comes from a fishing community in Nigeria.

So its the weather then.



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[aod]

must say I have never before read a thread containing such massive assumptions.

Black people don't have the money!

It's not in their culture!

The term 'Non White'

Coloureds!

What a load of cobblers! When I started sailing I didn't have any money and I currently know lots of people who go sailing on a shoe string whether that is on a Topper or crewing for someone else. It's a massive assumption that because you are black you haven't got sufficient money unless you are saying that EVERY black person doesn't have enough money because.............?

It's not in their culture! B*****x!!!!!!! These days Britain is a multi cultural society and culture is dictated by traditions, influences, role models, education and many other things. Indian restaurants are as much a part of British culture as is the fried breakfast. Whether you were born blue, black, pink or polka dot you grow up with essentially the same infrastructure and the same value system but indeed irrespective of your skin colour not always the same opportunities in employment. . There are areas in this Country which are predominantly populated by white people with high unemployment ratios. Equally there are areas largely populated by black people with high unemployment ratios.

As for coloureds! Well, I was a flushed pink colour when I was born, when I sit in the sun I go red and sometimes brown, when I get ill I go a tinge of yellow and when I die I go grey. When a black person is born they are black, when they sit in the sun they stay black, when they get ill they are black and when they die they are black so who is calling who coloureds

I am called white not because I am but because I am nearer to white than black. The shade doesn't really matter. Black people are also black and again the shade doesn't matter. Black, White, Asian or Oriental seem to broadly cover the human race but coloureds is a general term that died along side apartheid.

Quite frankly IMHO sailing has more than a healthy share of snobbery, sexism, racism and bigoted pratts. If it's accepted that roughly half of the British population are women why isn't that reflected in the proportion of women sailors?

I suppose you could say it's because they don't come the same socio economic group or maybe because it isn't in their culture, but the simple answer is because if you are a woman sailor you are treated as being less able than a male sailor as well as being an object of unwanted attention.

Most educated people accept that sexism and racism are like two tram lines in that the same thought processes that define sexism also define racism. If it's accepted that sexism does exist in the sailing world then sadly it must be equally accepted that racism exists alongside it.

I commercially took a group of black guys sailing to Cherbourg and within 10 minutes they were p*ss*d off with being gauped at. I married a black woman and have two children of mixed heritage (now in their 20s) and I absolutely guarantee you that they felt intimidated. On one occasion all three were stood by my car while I just finished off some last minute jobs on the boat. When I got to the car they were being quizzed by intellectually challenged security staff about their legitimacy of standing by the car. I had never seen that before or since, but on that occasion it happened.

I have every belief that all the contributors to this thread would genuinely welcome more participation by Black, Asian or Oriental people just as they would for women, disabled people and pensioners but until the gin swilling, pompous, status conscious pratts that dominate the infrastructure of sailing have died off I doubt it will happen, and if you doubt they still exist................. try and get into the Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes for a lager and a sarnie!






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[qsiv]

Re: Non-white??

some of the training establishments have explicit quotas to fulfill, and use positive discrimination to fill boats with the "approved" mix of race, sex and income profile - or so I heard from one who was involved.

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[Mirelle]

Include us out

In future my boat can be identified, not as the gaff cutter owned by some blazered and blue-ensigned throwback, but as the boat with the BROWN CHILDREN and the BROWN WOMAN on board.

We must stick out a mile. Sorry, had'nt noticed.

There are some interesting attitudes in this thread.



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[Mirelle]

On a point of information!

All Oriental people are Asian!

(This irritates the hell out of my wife whenever she gets one of those PC survey forms from the boys' school!)

Enjoyed the rant - feel much the same.

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[roger]

I think that when non-white people venture out of "their" areas into other parts of the UK they are at far greater risk of assault or insult than when "at home". You do not, for example, see many blacks in rural parts of Devon.
My guess is that they see yachting as an environment where they risk unpleasantness.
Note - I found writing this extremely difficult. I am all too aware of the risk of offending "racial minorities" with my terminology.

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[poter]

Very sad

I have also just read this post with interest, & I just felt compelled to comment.

Personally I find the attitudes including so called PC in the UK absolutely beyond belief!
Having travelled the world fairly extensively, only the 'Brits' are so rapped up in there own little world that a matter of race, skin colour, or socio-economic status(what ever that means) is dissected and commented on, almost as much as the weather…………. It is really a very sad reflection on the backward looking old world brits, that they really can’t get their act together and just forget all this crap and get on with living in the real world.
Most if not all ‘people’ have far more to think about - raise a family, get a roof, where are the kids? – than to even worry about the social moralising of ‘oh dear I’m black why can’t I go sailing’ it really is a non issue.

Lets get up to date guys and stop trying to find an answer to ‘The meaning of life’

Poter.


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[kingfisher]

As the sheppard would say:

"Get the flok out of here".

I sail to get away from this political correctness crap, to be where prioritising is important: if you make a wrong decision, all sorts of bad things happen.

I dont have scousers, blackies, chicks, WHATEVER on board, I have a crew. And either they hold their own, or they're balast, no matter what the colour of their skin or the contents of their briefs.

Oh, BTW:
The kids from the Indonesian team , those from Guadeloupe and Marseille seemed to be holding their own, and having as much fun during the Atlantic Challenge, as my team; despite their darker skin.

<hr width=100% size=1>Group of people on the pontoon: skipper is the one with the toolbox.
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[Peppermint]

Re:Srangely enough

I didn't need to make any assumptions. I went and asked some of my mates.
Why doesn't everyone else go and ask their black or asian mates why they don't go sailing?

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[Peppermint]

Re: Well, ignoring...

....race, tribal, class and religious differences in other countries and the tensions they create, might make us look race obsessed in the UK.

But that would really take so many pairs of rose tinted specs that you'd think it was dark, and everyones grey in the dark.

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[Birdseye]

Re: Very sad

What an absolute load of nonsense. I suppose that the Japanese dont discriminate against Europeans, the French dont discriminate against Africans, the Germans against non ethnic residents, the Russians against those from the Stans. And there's no PC in the USA, or Canada or Australia.

If indeed you have travelled widely, then it must have been with your eyes firmly shut.



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[Birdseye]

"must say I have never before read a thread containing such massive assumptions."

"but until the gin swilling, pompous, status conscious pratts that dominate the infrastructure of sailing have died off I doubt it will happen, and if you doubt they still exist................. try and get into the Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes for a lager and a sarnie!"




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[poter]

I beg your pardon

I was going to write a long reply in defence but………….
your own comments re most of the rest of the world, say’s it all.
I will just point out that nowhere did I say there was not discrimination or racial bias........what I was trying to get across to the old brigade was that no amount of moralising is going to get you an answer.

lets all be tolerant & keep our own council

"Imagine"


poter


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