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?

The Winter Olympics have only been around since the 1920s. Hardly the ancient Greeks!

Let's move the whole thing as a concept to Mongolia, China, Botswana, Fiji, wherever and try out new sports every four years instead. I'm onto a winner here!

I was just thinking how families in any sport from any background or ethnicity play a massive part in their success. Adam Peatys family seems normal and working class as they come. Much of this thread has spoken about class being a marker of Olympic success. I think family support is the biggest factor.

Well Lewis Hamilton did well with family support in an incredibly expensive and elitist sport. I don't know what that proves exactly. Possibly that hockey is only appealing to a small number of white people.

MrsTerry I'm aware the winter Olympics weren't invented by the ancient Greeks. But the Olympics originating in Europe surely makes it much more likely that a variation would also originate here?

Also, I doubt it started because someone envisaged a world competition and then decided arbitrarily to focus on sports requiring snow and ice. Instead, presumably, the idea of a competition for these sports originated, which later became "the Winter Olympics". In fact a quick look at Wiki suggests something called "the Nordic Games" was a predecessor.

It just seems obvious that a competition for winter sports will naturally favour those from countries that have winter. And that the existence of such a competition under the Olympic banner is fair enough considering the Olympics are broadly part of European cultural heritage. I really don't think that's in any way racist as you seem to be suggesting.

Unfairness based on nationailty is involved is in the summer Olympics - where acces to resources/training etc is based on affluence, not climate.

ps. The region specific types of sporting competiton under the Olympic name would be fantastic though.

once
I like the idea of other climate/region specific games though...
there are African and Asian games though - as well as the commonwealth games
certain groups of people based on race, class and opportunity do well in some sports so having an all white team from a mostly white country is not surprising or needs to change. The best people for each sport regardless of colour of skin

Lewis Hamilton was very lucky that his father was prepared to work up to 3 jobs simultaneously to fund him, he also bought him a go-kart as a xmas present when he was 6, hardly an every-day gift.

It may be worth pointing out that Olympic funding deliberately targets events that require quite a lot of equipment and infrastructure, thus reducing the number of competitors as vast swathes of the planet are unable to afford them.

As many have pointed out, Hockey is a traditional (mainly female) sport in many schools, so there is quite a large grass-root number of players. Maybe we should be asking why so few of them go on to get involved in organised sport outside of, and after school?

I think that supportive white parents are more likely to encourage their children to play lots of sport whereas supportive BME parents are more concerned with their children's academic success. It probably stems from an unconscious bias, white parents being more confident their children will do well in society. You have to have confidence that it is worth encouraging something which takes up lots of time & is a distraction from straight academia which leads to financial security/success.

I have committed the son of not reading the entire thread. I am BME and I don't think there is any racism in selection of the hockey team. Black people are over represented in some sports - sprinting to name one and possibly boxing and underrepresented in others- hockey, swimming, equestrian. Things are changing though as we now have a mixed gymnastics team. I think we should select the best people for the sport and at the moment the best swimmers and hockey players are white. It could be partly due to money (the schools that children attend and the extra curricular that they have access to). Private schools teach swimming and hockey early on and to a high level and black children are underrepresented in those schools. Poor white children are probably as unlikely as black children to excel in those sports too due to lack of access. When we widen access we will have a greater mix but we should always choose the best to represent our country and at the moment that means white hockey players and swimmers and mainly black sprinters.

I have both Black and asian friends and they seem to always be interested in popular sports. Football, athletics etc. It is mosty to do with what they were exposed to. My indian friend is a mad, mad cricket lover and she is far from posh. Just what she grew up with and in India. She says, it is sort of second nature to follow cricket. Look at the English cricket team- so many british asians in it.

Is it posh? We had no choice but to freeze half to death running round a hockey pitch ('all weather' aka pitted ruts guaranteed to scrape skin off when frozen) at my northern council estate school. If it wasn't played in winter we might have been more keen.

There's always soneone ready to rain on someone else's parade.

The UK population is 87% white. Its really not that shocking if a team of hockey players happens to be all white. From what I can see, there are plenty of ethnicities represented in team GB. Presumably they were selected on their merits, not skin colour so YABU.

Hockey is played at schools as a standard in our area and really cheap to train at the local club.

Me and my kids do a fairly expensive sport. One of the reasons I picked my club was the huge amount of fundraising they do to make sure the child members from poor backgrounds can make it to competitions.

You need to be 'disappointed' that sport isn't better provisioned in schools in inner city and deprived areas, giving other kids a step onto the ladder, not that Team GB has chosen to field a team of the UK's best players, who happen to be white!

If the team looks very 'Home Counties', it's because the private school sector tends to teach hockey and lacrosse at a more intensive level from an earlier age, and it's this early training that informs people's abilities later on.

Also, it is EXPENSIVE - I know someone on the men's England hockey team and although in recent years they have kit sponsors they still shell out vast amounts on equipment, fees, unpaid leave from work for extra training etc - if you aren't from a privileged background it can be hard to stretch to the financial commitment.

While neither of those things are fair, and do inform the racial balance of athletes at an elite level, it is still not wrong for Team GB to field an all white team if the best players are indeed white.

Sam Quek? - she is part of the team.

There are some really disappointing responses on this thread.

I'm white but worked on an ethnic minority newspaper for a bit... The relationship between BME people and sport is really complex. BME people are much less likely to take swimming lessons for example. Here are some of the stats I've heard before:

sportacrossstaffordshire.co.uk/developing-sport/inclusion/black-ethnic-minority-sport/

One of the pervasive problems is that some sports are very white because they're very white - for the same reason that all my cheerful "give it a go" attitude doesn't stop my DD from not wanting to do the local sporting programme because it's full of boys despite being open to all.

It just seems obvious that a competition for winter sports will naturally favour those from countries that have winter.

Have you forgotten the Jamaican bobsled team?

Lol. Polo is not posh.

I don't think there is a single sport you could compete at the Olympic Games at without parental support, and heaps of it.
It isn't just financial either, children need someone to book then on, drive them to training, do the admin etc
There is a sliding scale of amount of parental support required, with rowing/equestrian/ski-ing at the top end, and football/running at the other.
I reckon if you win a running event at the Olympics, it's a better achievement, than winning, say equestrian, as the latter has a much smaller pool of competitors.

Polo isn't posh? You're talking about the one on horses? All equestrian sports tend (not tend) to be elitist, therefore considered 'posh' because horse ownership is costly.

As for hockey it's avalible to a huge number of people from all backgrounds but it's not one of the major popular sports such as football. Schools offer a lot a sports but I would hazard a guess in most (note tip say most) it's the boys football team that get the most attention. My school was unusual because we'd just churned out a British team hockey captain who'd played in the olympics.

As for hockey being a white sport you have to consider the attitude towards it as a less popular sport, someone who is from a culture where hockey didn't feature are least likely to consider playing it despite it occurring a few times in PE. Modern field hockey is a very British sport (which was strong amongst public school many years ago (hence the posh label I guess) before it started featuring as standard) and so has a very white background.

So in other words it's simple not a widely popular sport, that has a label of posh; it's remained niche purely because it is niche, and so hasn't enough appeal to any group that it isn't already normal involed in it. This gold medal may change that though, but the 'white posh sport' label needs to be broken first.

Another (probably more so) example of a niche sport is hurling and Gaelic football, not many playing it in Britian outside of those whose family somewhere along the line is associated with Ireland; but there's a good few GAA clubs in Britain but it's not like many outside of its usual demographic consider it.

This all aside the women's British hockey team have achieved a gold medal. They have done brilliantly. They will have achieved this despite it not being a massively funded sport and despite the fact they are women whose sports are mostly overlook. They deserved huge praise regardless of their class or race.

an awful lot of elite sport has an overrepresentation of kids from private schools as they simply play significantly more. Hockey may well be played by girls at many state secondary schools, but nowhere near the level it as private. My dd has been playing hockey at school since 7. Her school has a director of hockey and 5 hockey coaches who have played for England at some level, many of whom are involved in the county hockey set up. In the autumn term they play for 6 hours a week in games lessons and have access to 4 full astro pitches, and the A team also has a extra 2 hours a week of squad training throughout the year. It's really not surprising that even the most talented kids from state schools struggle to get into county squads when they don't have that start. So I don't think the lack of BAME hockey players is an overtly racist thing, just a function of the fact that county and therefore England hockey is a fairly private school elite thing and they are also disproportionally white.

(I'm not defending this situation at all btw)

in terms of hockey; in the mens gold winning team from a number of years ago there was an Asian player in the team (who proudly displayed his medal in his parent's paper shop!)

With regards to the question of cost/parental support etc being a barrier in the sport and where a PP allured to in terms of BME participants and the current England team (cricket).

Cricket can be a very expensive sport; not only the kit required but also the coaching, number of matches and of course the travelling; this does not seem to be a barrier to players in my county which there are many areas of great poverty. But it is a sport where there is a great enthusiasm from players of 'traditional cricket' ethnicity from which there are lots of players, whilst I have yet to meet a player who background is Eastern European/Chinese etc.

But just think how great the win has been for women's sport as a whole. A women's sport final on prime time TV on a Friday. That should inspire lots of young girls and women the country over from all backgrounds. Let's look at the positives.

Eastpoint That's a really good point.