racist question?????

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TB wants a gay twoheaded black muslim spastic welsh/ Irish person to show labour are realy doing the best for Britain!

Should person sread "female"?

Sounds like my Mother in law - she votes Labour

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Maybe they aren't particularly fond of the water.

Black people do have a slightly different bone structure that tends to make them less buoyant. Probably why they dont do so well in the swimming events.
 
This is total rubbish. I have negative buoyancy, even with a full breath in my lungs I sink to the bottom.

I can swim but have to work very hard at it, I probably take three strokes to a normal persons one.

I just can't accept a whole race of peoples is deterred because they may or may not be strong swimmers.
 
Sorry, but this IS extremely misleading. I have stayed clear of this thread as it impinges on me and mine in several ways and maybe I cannot be very objective. However, this does need straightening out - and studying (non human) population characteristics is what I do for a living.

Of course different races have, on average, different characteristics - that is the definition of a race. It would be amazing if there were not differences in all sorts of things like frequency of reaction to ACE inhibitors, frequency of red cell antigens and frequency of muscle types – probably even average performance in a particular intelligence test if you could ever separate it from cultural noise!

But most differences are small compared to the total variance present in the human population. There are a few examples where particular functional alleles (versions of genes) have been driven to fixation by fearsome selection – the best know examples are those related to malaria resistance. Most are much more subtle differences in frequency. That is why he word frequency appears so often here! We are not talking about differences between individuals, we are talking about small differences in the probability of a given phenotype occurring in a particular person.

But what is more race does not equate to skin colour!

In the West the vast majority of ‘black people’ are actually of very mixed heritage. Such racial characteristics, including skin colour, are determined by which version of only a handful of genes is present. This means that the traits segregate – ie the relationship between them falls apart over just a few generations. Therefore skin colour is a relatively poor predictor of someone having the characteristics of a particular race. Now the problem comes because ethnicity seems, in reality, to be judged by skin colour.

So if we discard the possibility that there is an epistatic relationship between a few skin-colour genes and interest in sailing! Then we are of course left with entirely environmental issues. Which I think we all knew anyway.

I find that most people, regardless of their ethnicity, skin colour or bone density think that I am distinctly strange to want to spend my spare time and money sailing round in circles. However, to my European acquaintances it is a recognised abnormality. In addition to high start-up cost, and a strange language and culture, sailing does have a distinctly elitist aura. So I don’t think that we should be surprised that someone who, rightly or wrongly, believes that they will be under particular scrutiny is wary about making an arse of themselves in an expensive and pointless activity.
 
agree with you in many ways, but disagree in others. The idea that lack of ability to swim due to bone density etc would discourage people from sailing is complete hokum, and hopefully parts of this thread will have dissuaded people from this point of view.

There is scientific evidence however, that race does have some significance to sport related activities, even when applied to normal curves, though only at the most extreme ends, which is where most Olympic level athletes are.

You've used some big words related to genetics, which many here won't understand, while I've tried to keep to standard non scientific english, which hampers me a little, as trying to talk to the bigger audience.


It's not a race thing, just the fact that at the extreme end of sports performance, little things matter.
 
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There is scientific evidence however, that race does have some significance to sport related activities,

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That's why I said. Of course different races have, on average, different characteristics - that is the definition of a race .

The problem is that in reality, the discussion here is about skin colour not race. I think its important that people understand how poor and rapidly vanishing is any prediction of any other physical characteristic based on skin colour.
 
The same applies for any area of British life that calls for a great deal of confidence !!! There are still white British people in this country who will feel intimidated to enter a wine bar, but will go to a pub, feel that the opera house at Covent Garden is only for toffs, etc etc etc.
At Gravesend Sailing Club we pride ourselves on a wide cross section of members. Started some 104 years ago by tradesmen in the town who were not admitted to the posher clubs in the days before Cowes came to prominence and the Prince Regent raced his yacht at Gravesend, we are the only club to have survived. Yes we only have a couple of Asian members, who appear very intermittently, and no Afro caribbean. We do get many enquiries from passing Asians but they are interested in instant access, and when we advise them to do a course and build up skills before they buy their first boat, they seem to lose interest, as economic advancement seems to be a greater priority.
I learned to sail at a centre in east London, and they get a very mixed bunch of attendees, black, asian, white working class, continentals, gay and lesbian. Sadly for reasons either economic or lack of confidence they do not spread their wings and get into boat ownership and membership of clubs. There may be a more mixed clientele at the Dinghy Show, but I haven't been for years.
 
Benbow, apologies, I agree that skin colour is irrelevant and that it is race that matters. I had merely used the term "Black" as that was the terminolgy being used and what people seemed to understand.

I felt (perhaps wrongly) that if I referred in terms of the old classifications of caucasoid, mongoloid and negroid that in todays world people may find these terms more offensive.

When I referred to Black I of course mean Negroid. And like it or not Negroid people have a physiology that differs such as they are less buoyant than Caucasoids. This does not mean however that they can't swim.

None of this means that it is the reason that less Black people go boating, I had just suggested that one possibility was that a lesser degree of buoyancy may mean that they had less interest in water sports. I now of course realise that this is wrong and that if Black people don't do something it is because they are either economically disadvantaged through white oppression or racially descriminated against in those environments.

The relative success of all races and people would be far better served if those overly sensitive types recogised that there are differences and catered for them rather than brushing them under the carpet and pretending we're all the same, and continually trying to make a square peg fit a round hole.

Black people in particular have been spectacularly let down by people whose sole intention is to systematically ignore those differences and instead of allowing and assisting a Black man to be the best Black man he can be, have persisted in trying to make him a good white man.
 
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