UKH

A social-media-friend retweeted the tweet below with the comment

For "Bike Industry" read: "Outdoor Industry"

https://twitter.com/ayesuppose/status/1267872630587240453

To separate that tweet out from the person who posted it - Is that true? Is there a diversity, representation or discrimination issue within the outdoor industry?
 

In reply to richprideaux:

There was a shit storm under a post from Fat Face (clothing company) as they had dared to post a black square in solidarity with the protests.  Weirdly the main complaint was that they 'didn't really care as they don't represent the black community normally- only one out of 8 of their models was black!'.

Ignoring the fact that the company probably knows its demographic better than some shouty loudmouth on twitter. 1 in 8 seems to be over representing the black population which only makes up 3.4% of the population (about 5% if you include all mixed backgrounds).

Damned if you do, damned if you don't, it seems.

In reply to richprideaux:

I don't think I know how to work twitter. All I can see is a few short sentences that are isolated and don't make sense when I click that link. What am I supposed to be reading? Can you copy and paste it into UKC?

In reply to henwardian:

Here is the link from the first tweet 

http://www.aquickbrownfox.com/blog/2020/6/2/this-is-just-the-beginning?form...

In reply to henwardian:

This isn't Twitter's fault. The OP wasn't too clear. The top "Tweet" on that link refers via another link to that poster's own longer blog post. 

http://www.aquickbrownfox.com/blog/2020/6/2/this-is-just-the-beginning

 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Apart from where I said 'retweeted the tweet below' - the link was to the tweet, which included the subsequent link to the article

Anyhoo...

In reply to richprideaux:

....which was BELOW where you said "the Tweet below"!

Not having a go at you, by saying your OP wasn't clear.  It took me nearly 40 seconds to figure it out too. 

In reply to richprideaux:

Problems? Discrimination. No. Representation. Maybe. Domemographic. Probably. 

In reply to La benya:

Is that a word? What does it mean? It looks clever, I hope it is a real word.  

In reply to richprideaux:

I think its aimed at Americans and clearly they have a massive problem.  

I'm sure things aren't perfect here, and it is worth considering but I don't think things are as bad.  

In reply to Blue Straggler:

no! but now if you google it the only result is this thread.

In reply to marsbar:

https://mobile.twitter.com/J8Reid/status/1268082942443749377

This is athletics, not the outdoor industry, but I just clicked from this to that page.

just highlights how far there is to go..

In reply to Roadrunner6:

Of course.  It's not acceptable.  Things aren't perfect here, but systems are in place.  The comment will have been removed by now.   

In reply to La benya:

Well that’s a kind of result. Great work all round ! 

In reply to richprideaux:

I don't really see why every race and gender should be equally represented in every activity.

It's OK if different groups like doing different things.  As long as people don't put up barriers to participation and are welcoming to everyone, if it turns out people want to do different things with their leisure time there isn't a problem.

The English seem to like watching cricket and the Americans like baseball.  I have zero interest in either but it doesn't mean baseball and cricket are discriminating against me.  It means I think they are boring.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

Exactly. I guess the difficulty for businesses/ association is a chicken or egg conundrum. Do they not have black customers (or participants) because they are underrepresented at a high level/ in promo materials or are they not in the materials because they don't have the customer base.

The next question would be why would a black model or athlete have a different affect on a prosominantly white target audience than a white model... But I fear the answer there leads to an uncomfortable truth about our evolution and tribalism. 

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

It's interesting that when it is down to leisure activities, the argument appears to be about individual choice and a choice not to participate.

Whereas if we have underrepresentation in a career it's racist until demonstrated otherwise 

In reply to off-duty:

I see your point, but it's not very uncommon to see "maybe demographic x just doesn't want to do job y", posited as an explanation for race or gender disparities in job statistics either.

In either case, my counter would be, "what's the harm in finding out"? It doesn't really cost anything to try to encourage wider participation. With hobbies, there aren't even any hard limits on participation, so another minority participant isn't forcing anyone else out.

In reply to La benya:

People want to be part of the crowd and want to see a reflection of themselves or at least their self image, however delusional that is, in the products they buy. Any distance from that is a negative so far as flogging stuff to the target audience.

You could complain that fatface don't target the BAME community, but why should every business target every customer? they have found a niche and are happy to keep plugging it.

In reply to off-duty:

I think this actually is a very hard problem. Activity X which has historically been white, and partly has interest based on tradition ,and non-white people don’t seem to be interested as they have other cultural preferences. So it ends up being almost exclusively white. But nobody in it has explicitly racist views or discusses such things, so whenever the topic is raised, the chorus from the white people is “ we are not racist here”. No deliberate racism. Great. However, when a non-white person joins, they are called upon to have an opinion on race riots and policing whether they like it or not, either explicitly or because people are uneducated on the matter. And then they have an onslaught of white people saying that society is overreacting, well the whole point of racism is that it affects some groups more than others, so it may actually be hard stressful work for black people to have to explain all this stuff and how it sucks for them, and why should they, so it is easier to hang out with other black people, and before you know it you have existing divisions (tl;dr as a cop you will know that institutional racism is a thing even if nobody intends to be bigoted). I don’t think it is easy to solve but can be done with hard work, and saying “I am white but it is ok because I am colour blind and don’t see race” doesn’t help.

In reply to Gone:

That's also problematic in the sense of history (and I mean the writing of history) excluding people with less power - so maybe it's better to say "activity x has been constructed as historically white." We've probably all read about women scientists whose contributions were mysteriously 'lost' and only rediscovered and valued after the explicit application of a feminist lens to the history of science. Likewise with race, the woman who wrote the article linked at the top is a cyclist - cycling is often seen as a historically white sport, but it reminded me of the story of Major Taylor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Taylor arguably the first great American cyclist, and who was African American.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

So, the question seems to be, "Are there barriers to participation and are we welcoming?" 

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

I guess with many of these issues of representation, it is often a question of a deeper level of inequality in society in general. Climbing is largely made up of middle class and well educated people. Is that because they are the only people interested, or because it's an activity which needs money behind it for the equipment? You also need a fair amount of free time and a vehicle to travel to crags. If you are in a low paid job and working shifts, that's harder to do. If you are in that kind of work, and live in an area where most other people do too, then you are less likely to know someone who can take you climbing to help you to get into it. If you live with extended family, there might be more family commitments which you are expected to fulfil too. If people from ethnic minorities are more likely to work and live in these sorts of settings (which I THINK statistically is the case, although I don't have figures to hand to prove this), then you could argue that they are under-represented through inequality rather than necessarily through lack of interest. 

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

This video is worth a watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=29&v=7LWq5s-s4pY&featur...

"I feel like in the black community there's this misconception that, 'oh black people don't do that, only white people do', and they have every right to believe this because their outlet to the world is what you see on the TV and on the interenet, and if you don't see any black people or people of colour climbing, then you're not going to think you can do it"

How many BIPOC instructors and guides do we have? Of course there is the issue that there are many more white people in this country, but that doesn't change the fact that it does make the sport less accessible. Not to mention socioeconomics and class. 

Think about back when nursing was only a woman's job, because historically only women performed this role. Perhaps climbing right now feels like a white persons sport, only because that's historically what it is. If we had more BIPOC employed within the industry maybe this would change? 

In reply to richprideaux:

Is it just because on average black people are more likely to be poor and live in urban areas? Therefore unsurprisingly they are not going to be proportionally represented in things mainly accessible to people with more money/the advantages money gets you, social circles, time etc?

I've no idea of the numbers but I suspect black people are under-represented at yacht racing for example. Just as they'll likely be over-represented in things that affect poor people such as crime and drug use. 

As for why they are poorer in the first place? Because most black people in the UK are the descendants of immigrants who came in after the war, they arrived with nothing and mainly settled in urban centres. The poorer areas mean worse schools and bad influences all of which make it more difficult to break out in any great number. It's no different really to poor white people in the same situation, they probably don't get into costly middle-class rural sports either, and probably don't shop much at Fat Face either.

In reply to La benya:

I’m shocked fat face is still going. Now that’s a low grade brand that needs banishing to the sands of time. 

In reply to ALF_BELF:

Why do you say that?

They have a loyal (albeit ageing) following, produce quality, non-offensive clothing for a particular type of Henry and his dad/ mum.

edit to add- having sued to work for them, I found them about as good an employer as a retail business can be, but I no longer shop there- too rich for me.  I still have clothes i got as uniform about 10 years ago.

In reply to girlymonkey:

On the other hand some of the most famous British climbing was done by people on the dole during the Thatcher period with free time on their hands and willingness to hitch hike and doss out.

You can play football for free in a park but if you 'organize' it with professional coaching and strips and rented pitches and home and away matches it gets really expensive.

The other factor is the ethnic population isn't distributed evenly across the country, it is concentrated in particular cities.  If those cities e.g. London are in areas where there isn't much outdoor climbing that will be reflected in the numbers of ethnic groups taking part in climbing.

In reply to Lord_ash2000:

I think what is glaringly missing from that analysis is that if, as a poor white underclass kid, you turn up at a job interview wearing a suit, then you look no different from a well educated, middle class white male.

However if you are a poor black underclass kid, turning up at a job interview, then the discrimination (conscious or unconscious) may start as soon as they read your name on the application form.... 

In reply to richprideaux:

This article reminds us that black people have had (and in some places still do have) good reasons to be apprehensive about the outdoors:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/13/hiking-african-american...

On a lighter note, I remember a black comedian saying something along the lines of 'We've spent too long struggling to get comfy beds. Why the hell would we want to go camping?' 

In reply to off-duty:

That's like the old joke. 

What do you call a kid from <insert name of deprived area> in a suit?

The defendant.

People can tell the difference between a cheap suit and an expensive one and as soon as someone opens their mouth they can make a whole bunch of predictions about where they came from and their social class fairly accurately.  

Arguably, one of the reasons language has evolved with so many nuances is because it is socially useful to be able to determine who is in your group.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

I don't know whether you are deliberately missing the point. The fact is that there is one glaring obvious feature that differentiates a white person from a black person.

As you so clearly pointed out as you discussed cheap suits - appearances matter. Apparently.

In reply to off-duty:

This, I've been thinking, is the fundamental problem. The only way it stops being the problem is by ceasing to matter. But that is a massively complicated ask, given the historical and current cultural and sociological differences and divisions.
It'd be great if all at once everyone could just decide to stop being racist, start from fresh, skin colour has no bearing on an individual's personality, character etc. But easier said than done. I would imagine someone who has grown up being bullied over their skin colour, or harassed by police, or struggled to secure a job they were keen on, could easily overlook such experiences and how they shaped their life

In reply to richprideaux:

I was nervous to click on this post as often discussions around racism, diversity and inclusion and devolve into factional comments warfare but the calibre of conversation here is impressive. My perspective is as follows: 

Sport England¹ identifies that the "typical" outdoor activity participant is White British, male and working or middle class.  Their report also notes that only 24% of people in the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) group regularly visit the natural environment, as opposed to 38% of the rest of the population.  As suggested by other commenters, Sport England identifies potential hurdles to BME participation in the outdoor industry as: awareness, culture, language, confidence, safety and a perception of Caucasian middle class stigma.  Another large factor in outdoor activity participation is living in a deprived community - and the most recent census data shows that all ethnic minorities are more likely to live in deprived neighbourhoods than the white British majority². 

These facts alone point out that not only are there a disproportionate number of white people engaging in outdoor pursuits compared to non-white people, but that this can be related to a number of factors that go beyond personal preference.  So are there societal barriers to people of colour engaging in outdoor sports? I believe so.  Next question: What can we do about it?

The website The Trek has created a really useful list of resources for challenging the narrative we have of the outdoors as this great leveller for all people to enjoy regardless of their individual identity and situation (and surely anyone who has ever tried to build a trad rack will know what a huge barrier finance alone can be!) The list can be found at this link: https://thetrek.co/challenge-the-narrative/

I also strongly recommend reading the Melanin Basecamp Guide to Outdoor Allyship as it confronts the unpleasant reality that discrimination still takes place in the great outdoors but gives suggestions of how this discrimination can be mitigated and hopefully erased.  https://www.melaninbasecamp.com/trip-reports/2019/7/7/mbc-guide-to-outdoor-...

In terms of companies speaking out about racism and advocating for the Black Lives Matter movement I think that can be a really positive thing.  As ethical climbers, walkers, cyclists etc you wouldn't want to buy from and support a company that wants to frack the Peak District.  Likewise, I wouldn't want to support a company that doesn't have a moral backbone in standing up to racism.  Lots of companies are also donating money to bail funds in the US and other relevant charities, for example Patagonia and Clif Bar.  Black Diamond has been singled out as a bad guy because it's parent company also creates tear gas and riot gear for the police in the US - something I will be bearing in mind next time I need to buy some gear. 

Apologies for the long post, I feel strongly about the topic and haven't found much discussion of it in the UK outdoors scene.

¹https://sportengland-production-files.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/outdoo... 

²http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/institutes/code/briefingsupdated/ethnicity-and-de...