Rishi Persad and more diversity in horse racing

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Marb

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Firstly, lets try and keep it civil, or non vicious.

I'm just interested to hear different angles on this.

I suspect this issue like so many, has many grey areas, which often the extremes, or the people who are most radical, seem to purposely miss when these topics are up for discussion.

My own thoughts are the following: In principle I'm fine with more diversity in racing, and I'd love to see more black jockeys, trainers, etc, but nothing can take away from the fact, that this of all sports, is a winner take all sport.

What I mean by this, is that no owner is going to risk wasting his or her money on a trainer, who isn't as good as others, but happens to qualify on the diversity front.

If a Black or Asian presenter is good enough for the media, then that's fine, they should be able to come naturally through the ranks, the same way Rishi Persad did. I think there's another lesser known pundit called Ken Pitterson who is black and a good horse racing pundit who has 'made it' so to speak.

The Maktoum's are some of the biggest owners in the world, they aren't male, pale and stale!

Overall I understand Rishi's sentiments, but I just feel trying to force diversity in racing is like trying to force a white bloke into a 10,000 meter final of an olympic marathon, its full of Ethiopians and Kenyans....and understandably so.
 
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Pretty much agree with that Marb

As somebody who spent the first 40 years of their life growing up in inner city Birmingham I've always been surrounded by diversity and personally I couldn't give a feck regarding a trainer, jockey or racing media personality's race or religion but just as I was unlikely to move into the industry with my background, so are most non white, non rural people.

I'm fully aware that racing has it's share of city bred kids that have moved into the fraternity but the large percentage are still born and bred into it and while we should do what is possible to not deter people from different backgrounds and promote it to a degree, it needs to be well managed.

For example; the marketing promotion of Khadijah Mellah who won a "major race" according to reports and was thus the recipient of the Times' young sports person of the year was overboard IMO, for all her efforts deserve high praise.

Ant lets not forget that in many cases it wouldn't be the privileged white people preventing somebody like Khadijah from getting involved in the sport but often their own family and beliefs.
 
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Marb said:
Diversity in Racing....I'm just interested to hear different angles on this. I suspect this issue like so many, has many grey areas, which often the extremes, or the people who are most radical, seem to purposely miss when these topics are up for discussion.
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Racing is diverse, what's more, it's full of the best there is at what they do....

Lewis Hamilton hit the nail on the head on Sunday; when he said "go out there and do it, you can do it if you try"

Norman Tebbit "get on your bike"....

I bet you there are not many people who can go four generation's back and their family weren't scraping for scraps, scraps to give their own children a better life.

You give one person, whatever colour, creed or breed, an unfair lift in life, and you have denied a better person a fair chance. The TV adverts are full of it...White Europeans make up 87% of the population in Britain, the adverts don't portray this, no it's 50-50, almost every advert shows mixed-ethnicity and Gay marriages or partners when in reality they only make up 7% of the population...how fair is that, in truth, it's not.......But this snowflake attitude to every aspect of our culture and heritage will send us all to the ashes eventually.

Let's give everyone in the Olympics a gold medal, they're all equal, they all did their best. Can you smell it...yes, pure bull ****.
 
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I've no idea what RP himself actually said but I would be very surprised if 'positive discrimination' - an oxymoronic misnomer if ever there was one - didn't play a part in his rise.

He is one of the worst presenters to pick up a mic but when you see what else is around, maybe the competition wasn't up to much.
 
It's been a fact of life (perhaps in different ways) for ever that the best candidate doesn't always get the gig.

I can recall at least five occasions in the ten years before I retired when I was told I was either the best candidate or that it was 'basically a toss-up' between me and another candidate but the other person got it.

I was head of a department but faced with a 180-mile round trip to work each day so was keen to get the same job nearer home. On at least four of the occasions, I was told the internal candidate got the job. On another I was told it went to a casting vote and the headteacher opted for stability in his staffing numbers by appointing the internal candidate.

My wife resigned from interviewing panels because headteachers were favouring either internal candidates or 'young male suits' over what she felt were clearly more able candidates.

I don't recall, to be honest, any other factors (race, sexuality etc) being in play but application forms are not allowed to include questions that would give these things away.

I applied for the job of handicapper with the BHA many years ago but a well-known journalist (who quit within a year or so) got it. I was never even told I wasn't selected for interview. Phil Smith wasn't long in the job as senior handicapper so I thought being a teacher I stood a chance too.
 
Closing the class wage gap will help considerably more women than closing the gender pay gap. Replace gender with any other identifier and the point remains valid. Any attempt to engineer equality based on superficial identity does nothing but pop a plaster on a septic wound because the underlying driving force is always, ALWAYS class. The reason the majority of owners and trainers in the UK are from a White or Arabian background is not because of a systemic preference for skin tone. It is due to a systemic preference for wealth and the only incidental correlation with race is that they are both inherited.

This is not to downplay racism or suggest that bigotry does not exist because it absolutely does and it is a stain on our society. However, shoving a few people into fairly prominent but practically ineffectual positions is vapid tokenism and will do sod all for the majority of minorities who struggle in life primarily due to class. Restructuring what is ultimately a class issue into a race issue fosters staunch resentments and conveniently incites the oppressed to point the finger at communities on their own level, instead of the class that is brazenly eradicating the dignity of the worker.

But people on both sides of this debate will continue to lap up this drivel because tribalism is more visible than wealth distribution.
 
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Persad did not help his cause on Luck On Sunday when he did not correct Cornelius Lysaght who commented that BAME people were "coloured" which is classed as offensive these days, indeed the FA chairman lost his job last week due to the backlash of him calling black footballers coloured
So if Persad was passionate about his views on racism he should have spoken up there and then about that comment
 
What I'm about to say might end up being controversial and I'm throwing myself open to justified accusations of not understanding fully the situation that ethnic minorities experience. But I genuinely want to learn, in case there is something about myself I'm not realising.

60 years ago black and Asian people referred to themselves as coloured.

30 years ago there were campaigns to stop using terms like 'black sheep' in the nursery rhyme, 'blackboard' (even when the boards were black yet while I was still working boards that were actually white were called "whiteboards") etc.

20 years ago Asian people and pretty much anyone of mixed race asked to be called 'black'.

Now they insist on being called "people of colour".

Most people on here know me as a stickler for correct grammar, language structure and spelling but I really struggle to see the difference between the terms "coloured people" and "people of colour". I worry that if I don't keep track of things like this (because to me people are people, end of) and ten years from now use the expression "people of colour" when it has by then been labelled offensive by people of colour then I will be singled out for at best using inappropriate language or at worst being downright racist. It's the kind of thing that can cost people their livelihoods.

This came up in conversation with my sister last night and she genuinely worries along similar lines and you'll genuinely never comes across a more saintly and kind-hearted person than she.

I now have to ask - because I genuinely simply do not know - is it offensive to refer to people as "white" and "non-white"?

Growing up as person of Irish Catholic extract in the West of Scotland was no picnic so I do understand religious bigotry but I'm now reading it is/was also racial bigotry as the same venom isn't/wasn't directed towards Catholics of non-Irish heritage.

I think I read that it was only in 2012 that the Church of Scotland finally apologised to Scottish Catholics of Irish extract for referring to them as "an alien race" in a 1954 document.

I find where I live now to be very open and people seem to get along very well with no issues but when I mentioned this to my daughter she was the one who corrected me, telling me overheard two women in a local coffee shop whingeing that a niece had got engaged to "one of them" (ie a Catholic).

For the record, my sister is married to a chap whose brother is a Church of Scotland minister and every one of her five brothers thought her choice of bloke was better than any Catholic boy we knew. My father found it hard to accept at first but even a bigot like him came round to the same opinion.

I do hope I haven't caused any offence as none was intended.
 
Race isn’t (in my opinion) an issue in Scotland, DO.

Sectarianism still is though - though even that is strictly on the margins.
 
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Grasshopper said:
Race isn’t (in my opinion) an issue in Scotland, DO.

Sectarianism still is though - though even that is strictly on the margins.
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I think this is where the issues are clouded, GH. We'll probably never agree on this being from different geographical areas and possibly even racial and/or religious backgrounds.

The sociological papers I read on them most definitely opine that there is racism in Scotland (and I wouldn't be in the least surprised if "people of colour" felt it acutely) but that the use of the term "sectariansim" is deemed less offensive to the establishment and easier to sweep under the carpet because it's easier to blame both sides and call it football's problem.

I would say that a very vocal minority of hardline anti-Catholic and anti-Irish bigots have been allowed by the establishment to become more vocal and more violent because it has been deemed to be "sectarian", therefore confined to football and football's problem.

To the best of my knowledge, no one was ever charged over the attempt 18 months ago to spread a social media message urging people to observe "Kill A Fenian Day". My recollection is that it was dismissed as "a silly prank".

But I don't want to divert attention from the original purpose of the thread and apologise to all for playing my part in so doing.

Hopefully we can move on.
 
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I think it is extremely difficult to look at this from the perspective of the black minority. Quite aside from outright bigotry I suspect there is quite a lot of unconscious racial bias that is very uncomfortable for the beholder (as there is quite a lot of non-racial bias that can be interpreted as racial by the beholder). On top of that there is the unconscious, as well as conscious, air of superiority which has been fostered by successive leaders for centuries to keep the hoi-polloi in order and which has it’s counterpoint of being felt as inferior by the beholders.

During lockdown we came across a TV play which had the roles reversed. White people had all the most menial jobs, were mostly looked down on and disregarded by the black elite and clearly felt themselves as second class citizens. Very uncomfortable viewing it was and it was only a TV play. It certainly gave me pause for thought.
 
barjon said:
I think it is extremely difficult to look at this from the perspective of the black minority. Quite aside from outright bigotry I suspect there is quite a lot of unconscious racial bias that is very uncomfortable for the beholder (as there is quite a lot of non-racial bias that can be interpreted as racial by the beholder). On top of that there is the unconscious, as well as conscious, air of superiority which has been fostered by successive leaders for centuries to keep the hoi-polloi in order and which has it’s counterpoint of being felt as inferior by the beholders.

During lockdown we came across a TV play which had the roles reversed. White people had all the most menial jobs, were mostly looked down on and disregarded by the black elite and clearly felt themselves as second class citizens. Very uncomfortable viewing it was and it was only a TV play. It certainly gave me pause for thought.
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There's definitely a conscious and a subconscious, which is where we live in daytime and in our sleep.

I get a little confused when I hear Prince Harry and yourself talking about unconscious racism.

As when you are unconscious, you are out cold lying on the floor after being knocked out or punched while drunk, or under anaesthetic at your local hospital - surely that is what most people associate with the word 'unconscious'?

I definitely think subconscious racism is a more accurate term for what people are trying to refer to.

We don't all have 'unconscious racism' in us either by the way, and therein lies the problem with the term in the first place - because essentially it implies every and any white person is to some extent racist by default of not being black.

It takes the term 'white privilege', which means not knowing what's it like to be black to that next level.

I think we've got enough problems living in the conscious world without trying to overcomplicate what racism is myself.
 
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I see it a bit different, Marb. Subconscious I interpret as the mind working along on things - like taking the actions to change gear in the car - without me thinking about such things consciously. Unconscious, in the context I was using it, I see as taking actions without realising that they are, or can be interpreted, as a racial bias. According to the dictionary that is an accepted use of “unconscious”.

Anyway, call it what you will, we’re probably equally clear on what is meant.
 
Fair enough, Barj.

I've checked the official definitions, and yes, in the sense you have explained the word, it can be called that.

The car example I would argue was not your subconscious but merely you on autopilot.

I also maintain the word unconscious has two different meanings, one which basically means subconscious, and the one meaning literally unconscious, (I. E. out cold).

If you understand my logic, I would deem it subconscious racism, as this takes out the possibility one is referring to unconscious, in the knocked out 'unconcious' sense.

I understand what your saying though. I obviously don't disagree that the form of racism you are describing does exist.
 
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Also, the fact you can do tasks B and C while thinking of task A in the forefront of your mind, we'll I'd argue once again that's not your subconscious. That's a taught thing or something you've learnt over time. Anyways, each to their own.
 
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Not so long ago Julian Wilson retired from BBC Racing because he had issues working with Clare Balding, a woman.
We have come a long way in a short time; more to follow no doubt.
I just hope that racing still exists for whatever diversity of population are skilled enough to keep the show on the road.
 
To say I'm walking on eggshells here is an understatement, but would particularly welcome an input from my two most trusted advisors, Grasshopper and DO.

My son went to Uni in Glasgow. He returned top Dublin a year after graduation and became very successful, very soon in his early twenties in a prominent business in Ireland. Then his heart took him back to Glasgow and he's been there since.

My Great Grandad came to Dublin in 1890's with the Kings Rifles, born and bred in Stratford on Avon. (Ahh you all say, now we understand his wonderful use of the English language!) Anyway - we've a very Anglo surmame name. My son started to apply for jobs in Glasgow when he went back. He ALWAYS got an interview but rarely a callback, despite been well (over?) qualified for most of the roles in question. He'd call me, 'spiitin bullits' of course when it went against him and I would never make my children a victim of what they can control. "Try harder next time, Kid, prep better."

But I always silently wondered. Why the immediate call to interview, then exposure to the (Irish Catholic) accent and rarely call back? Normalising for his ability to be a bit of a numpty - was my suspicion of sectarianism just a loving Dad's comfort blanket? (I admit he might just have been shite in interviews.) Discuss.
 
A bit off tangent, but my daughter in law is a nurse. She moved with my son to Edinburgh while he was at uni. Try as she did, she couldn`t even get an interview for a nursing job there. She was convinced it was because she was English. When they moved back here she got the first job she applied for.
 
1 - to AC - there's never any way of knowing unless someone knew for sure and let it be known but let me offer two examples in similar vein:
a) my niece is a lawyer now working for a well-known national private outfit but just before she graduated (Glw Uni) her professor told her to forget the idea of progressing far in private practice... because of her name (a very 'Catholic' name, as it would be recognised in this part of the world). He said he was speaking from personal experience. My own brother has, if anything, an even more Irish-Catholic name and when my mother told her brother John what she was calling him he urged her to think again, reasoning "he'll never get a job". My brother has never been offered a job in Scotland and is very settled in London but has to carry a card issued by MI5 to let any police officer who stops him that he is not a terrorist threat as he has already been investigated more than once by them.

b) shortly after I started my penultimate job in one of Glasgow's biggest FE colleges, I had a conversation along these lines with a female colleague whose daughter has a very Irish-Catholic name. She said she had told her daughter not to fill in any box on any job application form that asked for her religion. She told me her daughter scoffed at the idea of such discrimination in Scotland in 1988 but after half a dozen interviews had reported to her mother in disbelief that most of the interviews changed tone when she was asked what her religion was and at that point had not been offered any of the jobs.

2 - to Dan - Around 1986 I applied to work in Saudi Arabia (at a time when the salary was 4x the UK teacher salary and tax free) as a teacher of EFL and was invited down to London for interview. Being a linguist, grammarian and stickler for clear communication I turned up at the appointed time and introduced myself in my best educated Scottish accent - think someone like Gordon Brown. The receptionist replied, "Ow now mate, you aint gettin no intavyew." When I asked why, since I had the letter of appointment with me, she replied, "'Coz mah job is to mike shooah we don't get no riffraff teachin ova theah. Just 'ow djoo fink you could teach Inglish wif yooah accent? Nah, sorry myte." I asked for a cheque to cover my airfare and hotel expenses and went on my way, was duly given it and left to meet the aforementioned bruvva for lunch. The company was Aramco, by the way, and I reckon I could have expected better treatment from them.

So it's out there, believe me.
 
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