AIBU to wonder why all white is alright?

[VeraStanhope]

I'm not a sport buff, but I have had to sit through the GB womens' hockey matches. Wondering how they all have kept lovely slim, straight noses in what looks a brutal sport, I suddenly realised mid-final that all the players are white. Celebrating with all white support staff at the end of the match. Friend who is the sports buff says "well it is a posh sport". How is that okay to accept that in 2016?

[Netflixandchill]

There are people watching those stadiums lit up from the favelas with empty stomachs and not a pot to piss in tonight.

[VeraStanhope]

Netflix - I said similar when friend showed me the light up trainers the GB team would wear at the olympic closing ceremony. Could the sports firm that donated them (assuming they were donated) donate to the locals sacrificed for us celebrating the world's sporting brilliance?

Anyhow that's a whole other thread!

[arethereanyleftatall]

or they've just selected the best team?

[ineedamoreadultieradult]

Should they put a less capable non white person in the squad just to show inclusiveness and leave out a more talented white person. Sometimes you just have to accept the best people for the job will be picked with no thought equality and diversity. They should identify that there seems to be inequality within hockey and spend some money encouraging all children from all races and economic backgrounds to take it up in future. However they can't do anything about the fact at the moment when they selected the squad they were all white.

[honeysucklejasmine]

Is it that there are no BME hockey players up to scratch? And why is that? Lack of engagement, lack of something for sure. Opportunity, I imagine.

A lot of our athletes are white. The vast majority in fact. I wonder how it correlates with % population for each ethnic group.

[VeraStanhope]

arethereanyleftatall I really hope that is the case.

I think I was more disappointed with my friend's response or viewpoint tbh.

[arethereanyleftatall]

In South Africa, they have to include a certain amount of non-whites in their national sports teams, regardless of standard. It really hasn't worked at all.

[VeraStanhope]

I thought sports especially were going to great lengths to be inclusive to everyone in GB through schools and clubs etc.

[HeddaLettuce]

I think I was more disappointed with my friend's response or viewpoint tbh

Why? Are you offended by facts? It is a sport of posh schools, which are usually very white. Its not just hockey.
Now, you can have a sensible discussion about why that is and how to change it, but not if you are struggling with the basic facts and giving out about people stating them

[JinkxMonsoon]

I don't think it's "unacceptable" that the squad is overwhelmingly WASPy, it's just demographics. Hockey is just one of those niche sports that attracts a certain demographic, and probably a privately educated one at that. As a PP said, it's about lack of opportunity.

Having said that, there's a player called Sam Quek who is of Asian/mixed Asian descent.

[Dobinette]

Don't know the answer re other sports, but you will notice that most sprinters are non-white.
Just an observation.

[JinkxMonsoon]

But the proliferation of black sprinters isn't about "unfairness" towards other ethnicites, it's because black people are more likely to have the sort of fast-twitch muscle types that make great sprinters. Totally different argument.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

It's at least better than the Winter Games, which DH and I refer to as the White Countries games.

Team GB has traditionally excelled in mostly 'posh' sports like equestrian, rowing and sailing. Fancy schools so lots of money for sports. It should have improved with the lottery funding but they still favour 'elite' sports rather than grass roots so it's still going to be unequal.

[arethereanyleftatall]

Op. The selectors would have chosen the best team. They wouldn't have, and shouldn't have, considered a players ethnicity.
I play hockey for a local team; it's completely inclusive and absurd to think otherwise.

[Mummyme1987]

I noticed that the sprinters were mostly black, I thought it was just chance not a biological reason.

[Mummyme1987]

Like mostly brunette or blonde.

[VeraStanhope]

I'm sure the competition was fair and everyone on the team earned their place. But I want everyone to have the same opportunities. I just got disappointed in my friend's response, like it's a reason, it happens and that's the way it is. How crap does that world sound?

[jacks11]

YABU. I'm not convinced it is necessarily completely wrong for a team to be made up of completely white players- unless you happen to know that more talented black or asian female hockey players were excluded from the team? Nor would it be wrong for the majority of a squad/the whole squad to be asian or black, in my view.

I would also point out, as the women's hockey team won the gold medal each player was clearly talented and they all worked well together as a team- so presumably the right team was picked?

By all means work on improving inclusion (through raising profile, access and funding for example) in all sorts of sports across all ethnic groups and social classes to try and even the playing field a bit. That would be constructive. No other alternative really (other than enforced quota's, which I wouldn't think would be a positive step).

[Mummyme1987]

It sounds like the unfair crap world we live in. 😔

[AgentProvocateur]

Is it a "posh sport"? It's a standard sport in most scottish schools.

[Mummyme1987]

The world where the Paralympics is being scaled down.

[SquidgeyMidgey]

I noticed the WASPyness of the hockey team but only insofar as their lithe blondeness contrasting with the butch hockey players of old. If we should put less talented BME into the hockey team so they're fairly represented then surely we would need to enter more white sprinters too for the same reason. I assume that these days the GB selectors choose the athletes with the best chance of a medal not the ones with the right coloured skin.

[Mummyme1987]

Polo is posh, lacrosse is posh. Hockey I thought was bog standard.

[nancy75]

If you look at team gb as a whole I think we are one of the most mixed & inclusive teams. Judging by the medals we have won it seems clear that the best sports people have been chosen.
I have just googled and was surprised that the uk population is approx 93% white, I would say that non whites make up more than 7% of the GB team.